World Wide Rave is the follow up to David Meerman’s Scott’s previous hit, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. I really enjoyed this book even though I downloaded it for free (people tend to value things less when they got it for free). It is about how to spread ideas, which is at the core of what marketing is about. In the book Scott shows us how we can use the new tools of social media to spread ideas about our brand to millions. He uses a ton of examples of how people have successfully used social media tools to tell a story to a large audience, and in doing so have made a significant business impact. Here are some valuable lessons that I learned from reading World Wide Rave.
Don’t Focus Too Much on ROI
Although social media campaigns like Will it Blend can be quantified in the growth of sales since their videos were uploaded to YouTube, Scott warns that you shouldn’t focus too much on ROI. He makes the excellent point that companies do a lot of things that they can’t measure. For instance has anyone ever quantified the ROI of working in the office building or providing customers with bags? Does that mean we shouldn’t do those things? Of course not. Scott says worrying about ROI causes marketers to be boring.
I love this tweet by @copyblogger on the ROI of social media marketing-
The ROI of social media marketing: 1. Social media is about people, 2. People buy stuff, 3. Any questions?
Give Away Your Content For Free (No Strings Attached)
Scott argues that giving away your content drives interest. Groups like the RIAA who try to prevent the spread of their content are being counterproductive. Why would you want less fans? Scott also argues that if you shouldn’t even force people to register their personal information. According to Scott, not requiring a registration can increase downloads by a factor of 50. If you require a registration process, you could be losing a majority of the potential audience who wants to connect with your brand! I know a lot of sales-driven organizations would flinch. They might say “but what about those leads we’re losing!” Scott says that you should think in terms of spreading ideas, not generating leads.
For SEO, Just Focus On Great Content
Scott might infuriate many SEO’s by saying that it doesn’t matter if you tweak your site if you have poor content. Instead of focusing on tweaking the little things, Scott suggests focusing solely on creating great content that people want to link to. Also using provocative or negative titles to your post like “10 Reasons Why Not To HIre Me”, you can generate a lot more clicks than a boring keyword loaded phrase like “Increase Productivity and ROI”.