Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Now is Gone - Book Review

Earlier this month, in the column Search Marketing by the Book, I mentioned I hadn't read Geoff Livingston's highly acclaimed Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs. Geoff commented on the post and offered to send a review copy, and I was able to plow through it on my recent trip to Dallas.

I'm a big fan of the Now is Gone blog; I've been reading it for months, and it's one of the greatest sources of information for posts that I forward on to my colleagues (though admittedly I'm remiss about sharing my favorites here, on Twitter, or elsewhere).

As for the book, it's a great primer for public relations professionals and a good primer for marketers who don't have too much experience with social media marketing. As a starting point, it's one of the most accessible books I've read. As Geoff notes in the book, the focus is on strategy and not tactics, so it's not a how-to guide. There's more of that in Groundswell.

It's tough reviewing this book as someone who works in the social media space, as I'm not the target audience for the book. I already know most of the case studies in the book, from Coke's Virtual Thirst to GM's Fastlane blog, and the strategies are all familiar. Yet would I recommend this to a PR executive or client looking to get started? Absolutely. A friend of mine who's a PR consultant laments about how some execs at a firm he works with is years behind on all of this, and I'd easily recommend he use this book to educate them.

The other challenge with this book is Groundswell. That book is the most important book on social media I've read, one I can't recommend enough for people in so many different roles at so many different types of organizations. In some ways, this book is Groundswell Lite. That can also be an advantage though. For someone who needs a quicker read to wade into social media marketing, Now is Gone is the first book I'd recommend. Groundswell, though, has the strategy and case studies (far more of both), along with the first-hand research, plus the insights from two gifted analysts.

If you're only going to read one book on social media, go for Groundswell. If the whole notion of Groundswell intimidates the heck out of you, or you need a one-sitting airplane, pick up Now is Gone.

Search Marketing by the Book

I neglected to post last week's MediaPost column as it went up, but here it is at last. Tomorrow's will hopefully go up in a more timely manner.

Search Marketing by the Book

When planning search engine optimization strategies, what if you tried to promote your site like you're promoting a book?

It's a timely question, as some social media gurus have recently capitalized on SEO best practices when releasing their books. It's a great time to read many of your favorite bloggers in print, including Forrester's Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (whose book is the best you can read on social media), Rohit Bhargava (whose book is next on my list), Joe Jaffe (whose book I panned - nothing personal, of course), Geoff Livingston (whose book I'll eventually order), and the 103 authors of  "The Age of Conversation "(I'm one of the hundred, so I'll refrain from a review).

An underlying theme in promoting these books is getting bloggers involved. Here's why:

Blogging Accidental Branding's Launch Event

Today I was at NYU for the launch event of Accidental Branding, which I recently reviewed (it's my favorite business book out right now along with Groundswell).

John Peterman, J. Peterman: Baseball taught him success - both how to fail (a .333 average - one hit and two outs gets you in the hall of fame) and how to dream. With his own business launching the J. Peterman catalog, he succeeded by breaking the rules, like putting only one product on the page, using longform copy, and using drawings instead of photographs.

Now: They just launched a website Peterman's Eye, full of his intellectual ideas from around the world. Interactive is a big focus for Peterman now. From there it's Peterman's Travel and then Peterman's Home. The sites don't sell anything. (They do have Google ads.)

What's funny with Peterman is that he comes off looking more like an old neighbor, not the worldly adventurer that he is. He's a good storyteller though.

Craig Newmark, craigslist: Now Craig gets up and he's wearing a blazer and tie, which seems off for craigslist's Craig.

Well into his talk, he went on this fun historical rift referring to reformers like Martin Luther, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson bloggers. I'm not sure the syllogism holds up though. Bloggers may be part of this self-publishing reformist movement and thus revolutionary in some way, but that doesn't mean the reformers were all bloggers. Okay, it's a metaphor. I'll drop it. One last point though: Thomas Jefferson, to our knowledge, never wrote a blog in the voice of his dog.

Another fun fact: Craig shares his email freely, craig@craigslist.org, and doesn't use any spam filters. I'd love to know how he manages his inbox because mine's almost a lost cause. Craig's response time is ridiculous too. I wrote him after the event asking if there was anything people could do about the real estate scam I blogged about (and blogged about again). After a bit of an exchange, he wrote, "David, I've spoke with the Secret Service, no new advice or anything, really tough problem." I wish there was more I could do, but at least there's SEO.

Roxanne Quimby, Burt's Bees: Of major importance is monitoring how consumers interact with your products. She noticed, for example, that when people would check out a candle, they'd pick it up and look at the bottom. She never quite got why, but she made sure the bottom of the candle always looked as good as the top.

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Congrats, author David Vinjamuri on the launch, and kudos to Thirdway and NYU for putting it together and to Carolyn Kepcher, best known for The Apprentice, for moderating and speaking.

Step into the Spotlight - Book Review

It's funny to see Al Ries giving one of the blurbs on the back of Step Into the Spotlight!- 'Cause ALL Business is Show Business! by Tsufit (at least the back of the review copy I read) as most of the book is ripped right from his handbooks (namely and TThe 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing). She takes Ries's advice for marketers and turns it into tips for self-improvement by self-promotion.

Then there's Ries's quote itself, which glimmers with irony. He says, "Read this book to turn yourself into another Donald Trump or Richard Branson." That quote can be read as either an endorsement -- or a warning. Yes, you could become this universally derided icon whose best business deal was inheriting (with his siblings) much of his father's $400 million fortune. Or you could become an innovator who radically tries to reinvent various industries' business models, succeeding in a big way often enough.

The book isn't bad. At times, I was even engaged with it. Yet Tsufit, as you can imagine from someone who chooses to ditch the last name, frequently vacillates between endearing and cloying. The cloying's in the majority.

I gather I'm not the target audience. It's not that I can't make use of many of Tsufit's recommendations - just about anyone can, whether for branding, public speaking, or confidence building. Yet I'm also not a big an of self-help books, or people who use themselves as every last example, or people who use way too many exclamation points; three of the seven chapters include exclamation points, and another adds one in the subhead. On a whim, I checked the dedication page, and there's even an exclamation point there. This is someone who thinks way too highly of what she's saying, so much of the book becomes noise.

Perhaps this isn't a book review so much as a warning. There's good, perhaps great advice here. But you have to be ready for all the shlock and rehashing and ego and hamming. It's like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman - he's all about screaming and scenery chewing, but once you get past that, it's a decent flick.

Groundswell of Love for Groundswell the Book

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Forrester Research's Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff is the best book on social media I've ever read, and it may be the best book ever written on the subject.

Here's why:

1. It's current. Books on social media by nature almost can't be current. Everything is blogged or twittered one day, forgotten the next. Yet this book has some staying power, and you can give it to your boss or your client feeling reassured that even if they don't get around to reading it for six months, it'll still be valuable when they do.

2. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff write the book like authors, not analysts, even though there's plenty of number-crunching with meaty take-aways. The human stories that illustrate each point provide protagonists you can identify with.

3. If you're new to social media, you'll appreciate a lot of the how-to material. If you're a pro, you'll appreciate how to do it even better and some of the more advanced material in the book.

4. The technographics, discussed frequently on the Groundswell blog and in the analysts' presentations, are useful. I've already used these for planning client campaigns to at least check if I'm on the right track or inspire some new thinking. If you read the book, the technographics tool on the Groundswell site becomes even more intuitive, although the site has enough info to get value out of it. It's amazing how much Forrester's giving away.

5. You get breakdowns of return on investment metrics of an executive's corporate blog, ratings and reviews, and a community support forum, figures which are hard to find elsewhere and can provide good benchmarks for related scenarios you may encounter.

6. The book offers thoughtful answers to some of the more important questions. How can you tell if a new technology has staying power? Why do people participate with social media? How do you energize your customers? When should you use blogs, social networks, and other media technologies?

Is the book perfect? Not quite. My biggest complaint is that it doesn't dive deep enough into what goes wrong and how some campaigns could have been better. They mention a Special K community on weight management that had a promising start but soon fizzled. Why?

I'm reminded of the chapter heading from Richard Farson's Management of the Absurd: "We learn not from our failures but from our successes - and the failures of others." Farson goes on, "While we may think we are motivated by hearing about the successes of others, believe it or not, little is more encouraging or energizing than learning about or witnessing another's failure, especially if it is an expert who is failing." I wish there were a few more failures to learn from along with the hits.

Outside of that though, this book's an outright success, one I'll be recommending to colleagues, clients, and anyone else who will listen.

Rohit Bhargava's Exclusive Interview for "Personality Not Included"

How should a blogger promote a book? With Rohit Bhargava, one way is by turning to his community of fellow bloggers in both a self-serving and altruistic act (which is, at the heart of it, what blogging's all about): he's giving bloggers exclusive interviews and some link love and publicity on his own blog in return for the PR they're giving him. Given how much a fan I've been of Rohit's ever since I first heard him speak at the first Search Insider Summit two years ago, I'm just excited to have one more reason to catch up with him.

Below's the interview, which I had a good time with, and I think you'll appreciate it even if you don't plan on reading the book (I haven't read it yet but will post a review when I do).

One request: if you do enjoy the interview, head to his blog Monday and vote for this blog to win 'best interview'; I love autographed books, and the recognition's always a plus.

The Exclusive Q&A with Rohit Bhargava

DB: You populate your book with a slew of real-world examples [evident from the book's introduction available for download]. What's one that especially fascinated you and tends to be a real eye-opener for people when you share it?

RB: There are two. The first is a story of Manga and the death of Superman that I have in the book which I think is particularly interesting.  The second is Boeing because a lot of people find it unexpected to see a big brand like that used as an example.

DB: How much has writing your blog informed your book and has writing your book informed your blog?

RB: In terms of research and finding great stories to share it has helped a lot.  If you also think of writing as a skill that you need to keep up to date in order to do effectively, it has also helped me because I am used to writing my thoughts quickly.  The one thing it didn't help with that I thought it would have was content.  Aside from my one SMO [social media optimization] post near the end of the book, I really wasn't able to repurpose ANY of my blog content for the book. 

DB: Artists always need to 'kill their babies.' Is there anything you wish you could have included but didn't, whether it's because of the length, the flow, or some other reason why it just didn't work? Why did you wind up axing it?

RB: Of course, how did you know?  There is actually a list of brands that I wanted to get into the book but just couldn't because there wasn't a perfect fit in terms of flow.  A few of those brands include Sun, Threadless and Etsy.  Luckily I will be launching a blog around the book this week called Personality Matters and will likely have a "BIWIM" section (Brands I Wish I Mentioned).

DB: If someone absolutely loves your book, what are the next three books he or she should read to dive deeper, expand their horizons, find other viewpoints, or otherwise make themselves a little smarter?

RB: Great question.  Actually, rather than just provide a short answer, I'd rather point you and your readers to an online bookstore that I created several months ago to benefit DonorsChoose.org (a charity that helps teachers get funds for projects to help their classrooms).  The site is called the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore and is at www.ultimatemarketingbookstore.com. 

DB: What kind of person did you have in mind as the audience when you wrote this book? Who were you writing it for? And, who else would appreciate it even if you weren't initially writing it for them?

RB: My main audience as I was writing it was a combination of Entrepreneurs, marketers, people working in large corporations (but not the boss), executives, and agency people.  Other audiences that I think could get something great out of the book are people who are running their own businesses but don't consider themselves either marketers or businesspeople (eg - a dentist or a lawyer).

Thanks, Rohit.

Check his blog Monday to vote on your favorite interview (quite a few of my favorite bloggers are taking part, so it won't be an easy choice for me).

Accidentally Branding Accidental Branding: Book Review

One time, I was reading Accidental Branding on the subway and two twenty-ish European women sitting by me paused to check out the book. "It's an interesting title," said the brunette.

The next day I was at UPS and a 30-something mother entered with her three-year-old. She asked to see the book, as it turned out she had Thanksgiving dinner with the author.

Later, I went to The Art of Shaving. This wasn't so accidental, as the company is prominently featured in the book as one of seven "accidental brands," which means it fits three criteria, according to author David Vinjamuri:

1. It was created by someone not trained in marketing.
2. The creator must experience the problem the brand solved (eg the co-founder of Art of Shaving experienced nasty razor burn).
3. The individual must control the brand for at least 10 years.

I was so captivated by the story of Shaving founders Myriam Zaoui and Eric Malka and so troubled over my own inability to get a decent shave that, as I was finishing the book, I took the subway to the nearest Art of Shaving store on East 62nd Street, the original store they opened. As the book hadn't been released yet, the store manager Angelo wasn't aware of it, but he was excited to glance at the chapter featuring his store. Fifteen minutes later, I learned enough from Angelo to attempt to try a new way of shaving at home, spending more than I ever have in my life on skin care products in the process.

Now, that has much more to do with the brand than the book, but it also gets to what makes the book so compelling. Vinjamuri tells seven stories of accidental brands: J. Peterman, craigslist, Clif Bar, The Art of Shaving, Columbia Sportswear, Baby Einstein, and Burt's Bees. Perhaps more than any individual brand's story, I'll remember the storytelling. Each story's told with affection, and the tone shifts ever so slightly for each one, from the wilderness of Peterman to the trailblazing Clif Bar to the high class shaving to the bucolic Burt's Bees.

And then again, I'm just falling for a trap. The brand's founders are the stars of nearly every page of the book, and their personalities, as captured by Vinjamuri, shoot of this magnetism.

This is not a how-to book. Yes, there is some advice up front to tie it all together, six characteristics of accidental brands and their creators. While that's necessary in a business book and the book would feel lacking without it, one can understand why he puts it up front and keeps the afterward brief. You get your formal education out of the way, and then you get to really learn from experience - the experience of the accidental branders.

Entrepreneurs will find the most inspiration here, as will most in the marketing field. The storytelling merits an even wider audience.

You won't need this to complete your MBA or successfully run a marketing department, but you may well find some added inspiration to keep doing what you're doing, or perhaps pursue a passion of yours with more zeal than you've had before.

Age of Conversation Bum Rush Coming Soon

If you haven't bought the Age of Conversation yet, you are not allowed to participate in this new era of media and marketing. And if you don't buy it on March 29, you'll lose three of your kidneys, global warming will swallow up England (but not Scotland), and someone you love, who won't be named here, will lose on an easy word in an upcoming spelling bee. I can assure you there's no greater humiliation. At least I lost on diphtheria. That was twenty years ago and I haven't gotten over it, so just imagine how they'll feel when they lose on something like, oh, "conversation."

Right, right, back to that... you see this Age of Conversation, best book of 2007 according to the 100 or so folks who contributed to it, is now available through all your favorite online retail distributors (more or less). And Drew McLellan reminds us, "Remember, not only do you get a copy of a great book, but the children of Variety's LifeLine literally get the gift of life." Come on, what more motivation do you need?

On Saturday, March 29th, join the rush and get your copy (millions of copies) of the Age of Conversation. You can find more ways to take part courtesy of Drew, via Chris Wilson. If you need other reasons to take part, check the list of contributors in the extended entry.

Book Review: A "Conversation" You Can Put on Mute

Sometimes I feel like disclaimers and caveats can be longer than the posts themselves. That's going to be the case in my review of Joe Jaffe's latest book, Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-Wear Consumers with yadda yadda yadda.... even the book's title goes on forever.

Caveat #1: I don't read Jaffe's blog, or listen to his podcast. I don't listen to any podcasts, though I hope to get back into Coffee Break Spanish one of these days.

Caveat #2: I like and respect Joe quite a bit. He's done a good job getting a lot of important ideas out there.

Caveat #3: If you don't read any blogs at all, and don't spend much time reading trades like MediaPost and Ad Age, you might have a very different impression of this book than I did. But odds are you realize that this is a blog, and you've come across all or most of the examples in the book before.

Caveat #4: The proceeds of this book go to charity, which is great. So if you expense this book and get reimbursed for it, you break even, whatever charity comes out ahead (in Joe's email to bloggers like myself he didn't mention where, but maybe if I read the blog I'd know), and your business comes out ahead because the powers that be there think you're educating yourself and taking the future of the company seriously. Joe of course benefits too. So the act of buying the book is a net positive on the world, except for the rainforests, but maybe, just maybe, there's some recycled paper in here. If you can get this book for the Kindle though, you're clicking on all cylinders.

Caveat #5: I didn't read this book cover to cover. I just couldn't. I got about 50 pages into this 300-ish page book and couldn't take it anymore. I skimmed some of the rest, skipping big chunks of the middle entirely. I'm guessing somewhere in there he mentions those Dove campaigns, and Nikon, and maybe the Super Bowl (okay, so I just checked the book's index, and the Super Bowl's nowhere to be found - I'm guessing he mentioned it a lot in his previous book Life After the 30-Second Spot, though I didn't read that one either).

Caveat #6: The book really started to lose me on page 27. That's when he starts going on with all these platitudes like, "Marketing used to be an art. Today it is a science." I should invite him to some of my brainstorming meetings. And then there's, "Marketing is no longer any fun." Ditto the above. I actually have a lot of fun with marketing these days. I'm always spending time with BMW's Mini ads in Wired magazine - I remember that one well from the last issue. And the whole Tide stain thing was fantastic, on TV and online. Every time I see the outdoor advertising for Bravo's Top Chef, I instinctively check it out to remind myself to watch it on March 12, even though it is so ingrained in my brain already. But I actually get excited to see the ad, because it reminds me how excited I am about the show, which makes me feel a little sad inside because the show, really, is only so entertaining, and I shouldn't look forward to it that much. But then I look at that ad again, and I stop myself from thinking too hard, and I enjoy that fleeting second, as then the bus drives away and the ad on the bus drives away with it and my attention must focus on the next thing.

Caveat #7: That Bravo ad isn't a conversation. I don't want it to be. Maybe, at most, I want some kind of reminder when the show's on. But I don't want this whole lengthy conversation about the show. I just want to watch it. And I don't want to check my email while it's on.

Caveat #8: In case you missed the review in this review, you don't need to read the book in question there. You should just read some other good blogs, like Jeremiah and CK and Jim and Mitch and Jay and Valeria and Kaila and way too many people to name here. You don't need to read all of them every day. Just get to know as many of them as you can because their blogs are current and alive and full of brilliant ideas day to day.

Caveat #9: The people who'd most appreciate the ideas in the book already know this stuff, and the people who really need to read this book aren't going to sit through 300 pages of it. It's the catch-22.

Caveat #10: This is also why I'll probably be waiting awhile before I embark on writing a book of my own.

Super Crunchers Author Ian Ayres at OMMA

Ian Ayres, author of one of the better new business books out now, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart, He's a little geeky, talking about correlation coefficients and regression lines, which is probably scaring the heck out of a lot of the marketers and agency folks in the room. Yet it's important to hear, and he's got a lot of great examples from the book that he highlights, so for the folks like me who've read it already, it helps cement the learning.