Book Excerpt: Larry Weber's "Marketing to the Social Web"

New to The Content Marketing Revolution Blog?
We are always looking for more readers. Get the feed HERE!

I caught this book excerpt from Larry Weber’s new book entitled “Marketing to the Social Web” on BrandWeek. This is definitely something I want to pick up. Specifically, though, I want to point out a couple of Larry’s key points in the excerpt.

“Clear your mind of all those one-way, one-sided communication techniques, all those ways of spouting only your side of the story. Marketing to the Social Web is not about you getting your story out, it’s about your customers. It’s about being more transparent, earning trust, building credibility. It’s about nurturing relationships and dialogue among customers, prospects, your company and
whoever else is active in the community.”

Amen Larry. Any marketing communications that we spill out of our organizations must be 1) all about the customer and 2) extremely valuable to them. The days of traditional marketing/sales collateral are over. Thinking about producing that corporate brochure? You might want to kill it and create a piece that’s truly valuable.

“Segmenting by behavior, attitudes and interests doesn’t depend on faceless numbers (how old customers are or how wealthy they are, for instance). Instead, it groups people by what’s important to them, as indicated by what they do, think, like, and dislike. Once you know what moves your customers, you can target them with marketing activities that are meaningful to them. (It’s all about
them, after all.)”

Through research, listening posts and ongoing feedback from customers you can determine what is ultimately important to them. So many companies communicate what is important to the company, not the customer. Be sure your content litmus test includes a BS factor for your corporate communications.

“Communication is less about creating contained and controlled messages (as in the old marketing) and more about creating
compelling environments to which people are attracted. Remember, the marketer’s primary job is to be the aggregator of customers and potential customers. The marketer’s secondary job now and in the future is to create compelling environments that attract people.”

I agree and disagree with this. I believe that creating the proper environment for customers includes a combination of controlled and consumer messaging. Creating ongoing and consistent information is important for your business’s credibility. This controlled information can then be distributed through a variety of uncontrolled mechanisms that create a truly valuable customer environment.

“Let me point out, at the risk of sounding profound in a clichéd way, that everybody has become media. So as you get into the Social Web, you are media. Individuals are media, organizations are media. They are writers, editors and publishers, sorting, prioritizing and presenting compelling content in an interesting way makes it important.”

So true Larry. Every business should consider themselves a publisher. The communications we send out today as businesses should resemble more the editorial-based content we read in the trades or traditional media vehicles, not as sales collateral. Some of the biggest publishers in the world are not traditional publishers (Oracle, Microsoft).

On Viral Marketing: “Yet silly virality, for all its popularity, is not really word-of-mouth. The concept we should be talking about is
content-based virality. How do companies get solid viral content, something that does more than simply attract attention to itself? In healthcare, the content could be about lowering cholesterol or improving quality of life. People talking to other people about these topics will create a viral dialogue with content.”

So many businesses are interesting in viral marketing for the sake of it. True viral marketing revolves around the great content a company can create that hits the deepest issues for the targeted buyer. The best viral marketing educates about a truly important customer issue.

“The new marketing will be collateral-free, with material that is more compelling, customized, visual and up-to-date. Information can be a powerful customer relationship tool, but it doesn’t have to be printed in an ad or booklet.”

I’m not sure how far Larry will take this in his book, but I’m a big believer in print for the right reasons. Printed custom newsletters and custom magazines can still be some of the best customer-relationship vehicles…if the content if focused on the customer. That’s one of the reasons why customer printed magazines still have some of the highest growth rates in the custom publishing/content marketing industry.

Overall, this looks like an extremely interesting read. For information on buying the book, click here.

>>If you liked this article, try Junta42 for more.