Tedded - Business Book Review

“The challenge for marketers is to harness the amazing power of the World Wide Rave. The process is actually quite simple; anyone can do it, including you.”

“World Wide Rave” by David Meerman Scott is a small book on the new marketing. It is a book that encourages you to go out and give it a try. The rules of marketing have changed and will never be the same by the Internet and more importantly, social media. This book talks about “how” people use the new media to spread the ideas. Spreading ideas worldwide is no more a privilege of gigantic companies but anyone can do it, including you.

Contents

You (and I) Are Incredibly Lucky

This is the introduction to the World Wide Rave. David Meerman Scott started out with an intriguing story of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter on how telling a story to seven people can spread the idea to more than 350 million people worldwide, for free, of course. There are also a couple more interesting stories in this introduction.

Nobody Cares About Your Products (Except You)

The author explains the term, “buyer personas” and how the company (or you, or anyone) has to focus on the understanding of the market problem of your buyer personas (or target market) without obsessing with your product. Apart from many stories, the author encourages you to start writing an e-book which has replaced resume for many people (while multiplying the effect phenomenally).

No Coercion Required

Sometimes viral marketing is badly implemented which is just an extension of the old-world marketing. This short chapter tells you the difference between viral marketing and the World Wide Rave.

Lose Control

There is no such thing as a free lunch. But currently, there are millions such things as free videos, free songs, free information, free media, and so on. The author writes that trying to taking control will painfully backfire. An interesting part of this chapter tells you how to start making videos on YouTube. He also tells you how blocking social media sites, MySpace, facebook, YouTube, etc. in the workplace is a foolish way to increase productivity. Hear hear!

Put Down Roots

This chapter focuses on facebook, Twitter, and blogging. David Meerman Scott gives you advice on how to “put down roots” or participate in these social media websites.

Create Triggers That Encourage People to Share

The great site does not come with lousy contents. You need to have great contents to create the World Wide Rave and the advice for a great content is being interactive. And interaction can spread the ideas vigorously.

Point the World to Your (Virtual) Doorstep

Being in the first page of Google does not come from spending huge on SEO but rather from the content itself. You need a great content and you need the web site that synchronises with your customers. Instead of hiring an SEO, David Meerman Scott believes that you should hire a journalist instead.

…

I’ll compare this book to an ideal business book; a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 8/10: This book is a short book and it is plainly easy to read and understand. The two points taken are from the blog-like writing which, although easy to read and understand, can be difficult to link with one another. Moreover, you might struggle a tad if you are over 30. Nevertheless, this is a straightforward book surrounding the idea of spreading ideas.

Distinction: 5/10: There have been countless books on the Internet and social media already. “World Wide Rave” is just one of them, albeit a good one. The great point of this book is that the author does not tell you how facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube work but he told you how real people used them and created a World Wide Rave.

Practicality: 8/10: The author gave you very good guidelines and instructions. One of the best parts of the book is the “Advice for generating a World Wide Rave” by the actual people who made it after their stories. However, everything depends on your contents and also your luck. However, I am fairly disappointed with the part of Venture Capitalist that creating a World Wide Rave is like investing, you hit some and you miss some. Although it’s true, it’s not particularly helping.

Credibility: 9/10: All the stories are from actual successful people including the author himself. Although David Meerman Scott did not create the World Wide Rave of more than ten millions in a week like Susan Boyle, his e-book, “The New Rule of Viral Marketing”, is an achievement. And I would like to exphasise more that “Advice for generating a World Wide Rave” is a gem.

Insightful: 5/10: The author has done a fine job in a small book. He had lots of interviews and insight from the actual World Wide Rave creators. The size of the book is the constraint but for a small book, it is insightful in its own right.

Reading Experience: 8/10: It is very fun and it is encouraging. It is not yet a revelation but it is eye opening. The book really encourages you to participate more in the social media.

Overall: 7.2/10: If you are not virtually active, this book will tell you how to be active. If you are already active, this book will give you an advice to spread your idea and become a World Wide Rave. If you already created a World Wide Rave, you can still read the book and sing your own praises! It might be time for marketing students to dump their huge 400 pages marketing communication and PR textbooks and read this book instead.

Inspired again by “Marketing lessons from the US election”, Seth Godin

The one thing that I think is the most crucial there is “telling the stories”.

“Telling stories” by Barack Obama led to online donations, permissions, energy from the volunteers from the uncommitted, from tribes.

From Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine

“…an effective leader making the rounds ask one … and only one… question: GOT ANY GOOD STORIES?

Stories… are the “red meat” that animates our “reasoning process.”

Stories… give us “permission” to act

Stories… are photographs of who we aspire to be.

Stories… cause emotional responses.

Stories… connect.

Stories… are us.”

…

Barack Obama’s stories

- Stories of lifes on the street he encountered (he told these stories since primaries and did it emotionally)

- Stories of Red States and Blue States of people who share the same dream, an American dream.

- Stories of change and how everyone of us can change, together.

John McCain’s stories

- Stories of him being a maverick

- Stories of his experience in the senate and in the war (they were like grandkids listening to the war stories from granddads, they were mostly boring, obviously)

- Stories of Obama

- Stories of Joe the Plumber (McCain tried to connect people to Joe the Plumber but it didn’t work, a plumber making $250,000 a year in income does not really relate to most people)

Sarah Palin’s Stories

- Stories of Joe Six-Pack and her records in Alaska, they are always fictional.

…

Obama’s stories win, all the time. His stories are emotional, his stories connect, and his stories are their, Americans, stories.

From my record, the best speech ever in the history of mankind is a man telling a story of his dream, link.

…

According to the book by Robert B. Cialdini, Yes!; “Just because yes is simple and obtainable, we shouldn’t be fooled into believing that anyone can easily secude it from others”

Just now, CNN announced Barack Obama elected president from their projection.

…

Yes, we can…

(Yes, you can, Americans. Now, make the world a better place)

I found a post from Brian Solis’ Blog, PR 2.0: “Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web” which mainly talks about how you should communicate (two ways) to the audiences in the time of crisis. The key takeaway of this post is that, you need to

Listen, Observe, and Converse

Question: How should you plan to counter the crisis?

The notable and obvious trend of our generation is “individualism” because we have more freedom namely through technology and we are more exposed to the world with the same technology.

Individuals in the past did not have the same “privilege” as we do today. Crisis is our main theme in this post so, we regard that “privilege” as negative!

There is an insightful instruction of how to deal with crisis by Jack Welch in his book, “Winning”.

“But hey! that’s G.E., G-E-N-E-R-A-L  E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C !   I’m an average Joe the Blogger”

Well, so am I. What I want to portray is how similar an average actively online person is to one of the biggest corporations on earth.

First, in preventing the crises, Welch suggested that we need… (the brackets are mine)

1. Tight Control

(control your anger, don’t comment the post abruptly that you’ll regret doing so, if you have a problem with your anger management, try this game)

2. Good Internal Processes

(check out Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism and have a wise selection of where you want to be and contribute. Pick your choices wisely, pick the ones that you can contribute, control, and develop good perceptions with others)

3. A Culture of Integrity

(it comes with good habits, my recommendation is meditation to develop mindfulness, concentration, tranquility, and insight within “you”)

…

Despite a good prevention, a crisis can still occur, Jack Welch stated Five Assumptions to keep in mind when a crisis happens… (still, the brackets are mine)

Assumption 1: The problem is worse that it appears

(When you are busy answering your negative comments on YouTube.com whether you posted it yourself or someone post a video clip of you for you!, you shouldn’t be surprise that there are same negative comments on Metacafe or Google video or worse, people wrote negative posts about it (you!) on their blogs (with the video embedded, of course!).)

Assumption 2: There are no secrets in the world, and everyone will eventually find out everything

(Type your name in the google and tell me there is no negative thing in it, unless there is no search result of you at all!. Search my name and there is still an anti-government evidence of mine 3 years ago even though I’m supporting them (at least not anti-ing) them now.)

Assumption 3: You and your organization’s handling of the crisis will be portrayed in the worst possible light

(respond less that you should, respond to the negative comment wisely and truthfully, or you’ll just become scrutinized for your knee-jerk reaction)

Assumption 4: There will be changes in processes and people. Almost no crisis ends without blood on the floor.

(It’s obvious, but in an online community, blood on the floor of processes can be changed easier than that of people; you can just terminate your facebook account, delete your blog, etc. But “you”, and people around you are still there on the Web, you can’t just “fire” your negative comment spammer.)

Assumption 5: The organization will survive, ultimately stronger for what happened.

(”You” will survive, you will know what’s good and what’s bad for you, starting a new account portraying yourself in a new spotlight is just a click away)