Marketing

“I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.” – Groucho Marx

Okay, here goes nothing. I think Daniel Bernstein from Bite PR is a good writer. It’s swell that he included me with Jeremy Pepper and Steve Rubel in his post. Yeah he called us  “fanatical” — but maybe it was a compliment, so I am taking it as such. Hey, I’ve been called worse things this week, by far lesser “people.”

But… the idea that any group, no matter how it is constructed, should take over “management” of the PR blogosphere is wrong. So wrong.

Here’s why.

It’s not about blogs. Or link rank. Or any other rating system you can dig up. The reason blogs have traction is that they deliver on the promise of the World Wide Web. Everybody *can* be a publisher. That completely changes the equation — the “printing press” is no longer scarce, limited to those with deep pockets. Companies really have to give a shit about their customer.

Is that killing PR? Some think so. I don’t. Or at least, it is not killing PR as I know and practice it. PR is about telling the story. Yes to the media, but also to other publics. And no matter what, it has to be a good story. Bloggers like a good story as much as, if not more than, anyone.

The mushroom mentality (keep ’em in the dark and cover them with shit) doesn’t work anymore. About time.

If you want to succeed in the new world, it really is all about the customer. And not lip service. Really about the customer. As a marketer, that is a state of affairs I have strived for most of my career. Blogs facilitate this, but truly, it doesn’t matter if a company EVER does a blog. If it engages more fully with its customers, we’ve got a win.

Tell the truth. If it ain’t pretty, fix it. If you can’t fix it, do something else.

So, I don’t want to regulate anything. It is the Wild Wild West, and that is as it should be. At least for a little while longer. Command and control. No way. Engage and educate. Ethics. You bet. PR and marketing practitioners that take that approach will be successful.

But let’s not repeat our mistakes.

Try to stuff the genie back in the bottle.Um. No.

Try to impose old style agency models. Um. No.

Identify the leaders and tell everyone else they are in charge. Um. Really No.

Focus on helping our clients (and ourselves) figure this all out and do the level best we can in this new world. You bet. Will we get it right every time? Probably not. But that is okay.

Is blogging the “killer app?” Some say yes. I say not really. The “killer app” isn’t the tool we use. It is the change in attitude that blogging represents. We no longer tell the customer the story. We let him be part of it, for good or ill. Whether he or she does that through a blog or a podcast or a wiki or even a regular old Web site, it doesn’t matter. The killer app is the customer.

And blogs give her a voice whether the company ever blogs a word. Yup.

Now, some measure success by the Fortune 500 and what they adopt. More power to you. I do not, because that isn’t where change starts. In fact, it takes a good long while. Big companies are slow to move and risk averse.

Change usually happens in small to mid-size companies. And guess what, there are way more of those than there are big guys.

And I do see change. Companies (large and small) are looking at social media as part of the marketing mix. Customers are valued, not just counted. And you know, even some of the Fortune 500 are paying attention. Bonus points.

But it’s not just about blogs, folks, so expand your vision.

It’s about people.

Tags: social media, blogging, blogs

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about words lately — and please read until the end, there will be some choice ones. Promise.

A few things kicked off this rumination. First, Mack Collier and Nellie Lide  posted some thoughts about the word "consumer." And then my son asked me about the International Association of Nobodies— he was initially concerned about being one 🙂 and I had to explain why being one was a good thing.

That got me started on words. What do they mean, really? Isn’t the meaning delivered by your context and your own filters? For example, the word consumer. For me, it is nothing more than a word to distinguish people as individuals versus people in their business roles. Ie business media, consumer media. It is the aggregrate. I appreciate Mack and Nellie’s comments about the word consumer, but I wonder — isn’t the real problem HOW we market, not the label we use, whether it be consumer or customer or whatever. Changing the label doesn’t change the behavior, much as we wish it might. If you are a change agent, and I do consider myself one, you need to focus on the behaviors first. Don’t worry so much about the words. Make the customer the focus, and he won’t give a damn WHAT you call him 🙂

Which brings me to nobodies. I was on vacation last week, so apparently missed the bulk of the contretemps (thank god, my testosterone meter clearly would have gotten a workout). But nonetheless, it is worth revisiting. For me, the whole point of the nobodies wasn’t the insult to any one person; it was a collective reaction to "rankism." The idea that one has to be a SOMEBODY for one’s opinion to matter.

I have always believed that everybody’s opinion has value. When you stop learning from others, you stop living. The wonder of blogs is that they give so many the opportunity to speak. Even if only to one other. As I posted in a nobody’s blog comment, everybody is a somebody to someone. All you need is one reader to make a difference.

Translation: you are f***** the minute you start believing your own press 😉 It is really about what you do. With your words, with your life, with whatever influence you have. Not about how many stripes you perceive you have on your sleeve. Not about what you write or your Technorati ranking. Not about whether you have the status conveyed by the print press.

Whoever you are, make your words matter.

Utopian. Probably. Oh well. C’est dingue mais on y va.

Which brings me to the promised choice words. I made the decision yesterday to leave a comment on Shel Holtz’s blog relative to a nasty comment made by a blog troll about Shel. I made the comments knowing that said troll would probably use them to insult me again. Yes, l’il old me has been a target of this troll’s bile more than once. And predictably, (she he it) disparages me once again in the comments on Shel’s post.

Why am I bothering to mention it again? Not because I think it will make a bit of difference to this troll, hiding under her (?) bridge, sniping and spewing venom at the PR industry. She’ll probably show up in my comments with the usual bile, since I will not link to her. Or not. Catch-22.

The reason I commented, and the reason I am posting this now, is that this troll is just about the worst example of  elitism that I have ever seen. Obnoxious. Condescending. Insulting. Devoid of any positive contribution — in fact, I sense a real ax to grind. The troll’s blog ain’t about making PR better, it’s about spewing bile and venom. And with bad spelling to boot.

The list goes on. I really don’t care what (she he it) has to say. The words don’t matter.

J’en ai marre. Nous en avons marre. Allez-vous en.

Doesn’t it sound nicer en francais?

UPDATE 4:30pm EDT: I’ve been told that the online translation services have a bit of trouble with slang, so here’s the rough meaning (not literal translation) of the phrases I used above.

C’est dingue mais on y va –  It’s crazy but we’ll do it anyway. Also the name of a French comedy released in 1979.

J’en ai marre. Nous en avons marre – I’ve had it. We’ve had it.

Allez-vous en – Go away permanently, get lost, drop dead are all reasonable approximations.

Tags: nobody, nobodies

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