The New New Rules of Marketing and PR

Either write something worth reading or
do something worth writing about.

— Benjamin Franklin

David Meerman Scott galvanized marketers a decade ago with The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

The book still makes everyone's list of "all-time favorites."

Scott's advice was premised on a sudden realization: gatekeepers had grown irrelevant.

If marketers only thought and acted like journalists, and exploited the popularity of websites and social media channels, their messages could "go direct" to customers.

Revolutionary thinking in the day.

But times change, the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, and rules wear out.

Content Shock is now Public Enemy Number 1.

The new new rules of marketing and PR are:

1. Don't create content. Create content customers want.
   
   
2. Don't create buzz. Create products that create buzz.

Want Social Media Success? Hang out on the Stoop.

When I was a kid, the park was where we went to find our friends, but the stoop was where the good stuff happened.

That's where the stories were swapped, the jokes told, the dreams dreamed, the plans made.

Marketers frame their social media strategies around showing up at parks—i.e., "platforms"—when they should be hanging out on stoops.

"Customer engagement will occur where your fans want it to happen, not where you want it to happen," Mark Schaefer says.

You won't form a successful social media strategy by chasing trendy platforms, because customers "will naturally migrate to wherever they want to be."

Schaefer wonders whether we're asking the right question when we ask "Should we be on Snapchat?" or "Should we be on Facebook Live?"

"Maybe it doesn’t matter if we’re on Snapchat or Facebook Live" he says.

"What matters most is where our customers want to be found, where they want to engage."