The dumbest Public Relations person in the world?
14 May 2008
Readers of this blog know that I get hundreds of unsolicited press releases and PR pitches every week. I'm on a bunch of lists because of this blog, my books, and the magazines I write for. Ugh. I've said before that almost all the crap I get from PR agencies is spam: A broadcast email message se...

The laws of simplicity
11 May 2008
One of the best parts of being on the speaking circuit is the opportunity to meet and chat with fascinating people prior to a gig. Sometimes there is a "green room" where speakers congregate, but more often it's just an empty stage before the audience arrives. Last week I met John Maeda who w...

Top ten PR tips for small businesses
4 May 2008
Last week I participated on a call with John Jantsch who asked me to share my top ten PR tips for small businesses with his audience. John is the author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and he writes the very popular Duct Tape Marketing blog. I h...

World Wide Rave! vs. Unscrupulous and Illegal Viral Marketing Techniques
28 Apr 2008
World Wide Rave: People talking about you and your company and your products. World Wide Rave: When a community is eager to link to your stuff on the Web. World Wide Rave: Tons of people visit your Web site and check out your blog and watch your YouTube videos because they want to (and witho...

The Milken Institute Global Conference: My brain's gonna hurt
27 Apr 2008
I speak at a lot of conferences and events (about one per week on average). It's a cool job because every few days I meet a fresh set of interesting people in a fun setting and learn something new. This week I'm leading a panel discussion at The Milken Institute Global Conference. Holy cow w...

Parents against reprehensible metal music
17 Apr 2008
I was just on Technorati and saw a banner ad that caught my. They almost never do. I probably click on one banner a month. I was attracted first to the Flying Vee with the universal symbol for "no". Then the headline "Parents against reprehensible metal music." "Cool," I thought.

Sex, shaving, and your oral health
11 Apr 2008
Please forgive the gratuitous headline but I couldn’t resist. Two new free ebooks have been sent to me recently and both of them involve sex. Well, sort of. Dianna Huff points us to Dr. Helaine Smith, a Boston, Massachusetts cosmetic dentist. Dr. Smith asks the question: "When was the last tim...

What the heck is Web 2.0 / social media / social networking and how do these concepts relate to the new rules of marketing & pr?
7 Apr 2008
Recently I've noticed that many people have been using a bunch of definitions, including "New Rules of Marketing", "Web 2.0 marketing", "social media marketing", and "social network marketing" interchangeably. (Feel free to substitute "PR" for "marketing" if that’s appropriate for you.) I don't...

Show, Don't Tell: the SAP Marketing Community Meeting
2 Apr 2008
Imagine that you are a senior executive at a large enterprise, one with over 2,000 people who work in global marketing. What would you do if you wanted to provide them with ideas about online marketing, social media, viral marketing, and other so-called "Web 2.0 marketing" concepts? Well, you cou...

Al Gore: PR agent for planet earth
31 Mar 2008
Al Gore was on 60 Minutes last night and I was struck with how successful he is in the role of Public Relations. (Please note: This is not a political blog. I am not commenting on presidential politics or on the politics of global warming. This is commentary on Gore as a communicator.) PR ...

When reaching out to bloggers, don't ask for them to write about you!
28 Mar 2008
Lately I've been getting dozens of pitches a week from PR people who want me to write about their stuff on this blog. Most of the pitches are just spam, with the PR types using the exact same techniques that they have used with journalists for years. To paraphrase the Wikipedia entry, spam i...

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles blog and open-source Chinese restaurants
23 Mar 2008
Because I am on airplanes nearly every week traveling to my speaking gigs, I read a lot of books -- novels, thrillers, and nonfiction. I look for things that I can enjoy. It's all about entertainment and amusement to make the downtime on the plane ride fun. I just finished The Fortune Cookie...

ANALYSIS: Value of quote in the Wall Street Journal with a link to your blog and product
20 Mar 2008
Many business people consider a "hit" in The Wall Street Journal as one of the best ways to get noticed. VC funded startups happily pay tens of thousands of dollars a month to public relations agencies to pitch them to reporters at the Journal and other important business publications like BusinessW...

Meet Greg the (software) Architect
11 Mar 2008
The good people at TIBCO Software have a great series of videos about Greg the Architect. TIBCO is one of those enterprise software companies that has a difficult marketing challenge – how to make what they do interesting. The About page says: "TIBCO Software Inc. provides enterprise software tha...

Why CEOs and executives must work harder to blog successfully than mere mortals
9 Mar 2008
In the past year, I've had many conversations with CEOs, Presidents of companies, and other senior executives about the new rules of marketing and about blogs in particular. I've always wondered why these senior executives have so much more trouble creating a popular blog than mere mortals. Why,...

The new rules at universities – authors connecting with students
4 Mar 2008
I went to Kenyon College, graduating in 1983 with a BA in Economics. I took only one English class and got a "gentleman’s C" so it's an odd thing that I should end up writing books. Go figure. While at Kenyon, the professors' ideas were clearly important to the education process. Reading and in...

Understanding an audience and creating great content
25 Feb 2008
At every speech I give, I suggest one of the best ways to create great Web content is for companies to hire a journalist, either full or part time, to create it. Journalists (print or broadcast) are great at understanding an audience and developing information that buyers want to consume. At ...

CNN: Time to retire the inane "best political team on television" phrase
19 Feb 2008
I'm enjoying the US Presidential race. As a marketer, it is fascinating to see how the candidates position themselves. And as a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, I also enjoy the snippets of candidates speaking on the stump. Each primary night, I channel surf for hours as the returns com...

Ask me anything about Viral Marketing
18 Feb 2008
UPDATE - Due to a scheduling problem with the technology provider, the live event needs to be postponed to Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 6:00PM eastern time. Sorry for the inconvenience. ++++++ I'll be on a live teleseminar Tuesday February 26th, 2008 at 5:00 PM EST to discuss viral marketing in de...

Video mashups: Easy to create and informative for visitors
14 Feb 2008
Alert readers of this blog know that I am a believer in the power of YouTube videos for any organization to show the world what they are doing. Video, done well, is great marketing. Many people (particularly those from large companies) push back and say things like: "We can't do a video like Ble...

New Rules of Viral Marketing update and free virtual book tour teleseminar
8 Feb 2008
It's been twenty days since I released my new ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free. I'm amazed at the stats. In just 20 days: > 42,810 downloads (based on my Web analytics) > Close to 100 blog posts about the ebook (depends on which blog searc...

Personal branding, great design, and a new masthead
7 Feb 2008
I'm a huge believer in the power of personal branding on the Web. How cool is it that you can create interesting content that people want to read and share? Things like ebooks, blogs, YouTube videos and the like show the world your passions. And then interested people seek you out. For nearly a d...

Why most CMOs get fired
2 Feb 2008
A few weeks ago I get a call from Gary Stern, a columnist for Investors Business Daily. Gary says, "I'm doing a story on the average tenure of Chief Marketing Officers, which is only 26 months. This is much shorter than 44 months, which is how long CEOs last. Can you comment?" "Oh, boy can I,...

Do you know this person? Is it you?
1 Feb 2008
Practically every day, people ask me for help and advice in creating the sorts of new rules marketing and PR that I speak about and write about. This is always a difficult request that I never really know how to answer. "Read my book and my blog" sounds egotistical. "Attend my seminar" soun...

The Truth in Ad Sales
26 Jan 2008
Alert readers of this blog will recall that I really enjoy smart YouTube video spoofs on all things marketing. For example, a few weeks ago I shared the Make My Logo Bigger video. Today, for your viewing pleasure, is The Truth in Ad Sales. We're taken inside an Agency in London where we meet...

The New Rules of Viral Marketing - free ebook!
20 Jan 2008
The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free > Imagine you're the head of marketing at a theme park, and you're charged with announcing a major new attraction. What would you do? > What would you do if you were a vice president of marketing for a t...

Will your company be successful in the year 2208?
18 Jan 2008
I spent an enjoyable day this week with my editor and his colleagues on the marketing, editorial, and PR teams at my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. to discuss new initiatives for my current book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR and ideas for future book projects. For example, there will be an Am...

Thank you fellow business book authors
16 Jan 2008
11,000 business books are published each year. The published ideas in these books educate, inform, and influence how people go to work every day. As an author, I like to think that our efforts help to make people more successful. It is an honor that tens of thousands of people have invested time and...

Holy Crap-A-Rooni -- I've been busted by Nick Selby!
14 Jan 2008
I hate when I have to fill out those damn registration forms for the 50 or so conferences and events I speak at each year. I know that whatever I put into the form will appear on the damn badge that I'll need to wear. Name? ___________ Check – got one of those. Hmm... No space for middle name,...

The most significant marketing news in the 2008 Presidential race! (and you probably missed it)
11 Jan 2008
Yesterday John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama. This is not a political blog. So I won't comment on that aspect of the news. What is absolutely amazing to me is that the vast majority of mainstream media have misunderstood the HUGE significance of this news from the marketing perspective. Let...

Join me for a free live conversation with Seth Godin and Michael Port to discover the one thing that will make or break your marketing
9 Jan 2008
Alert readers of this blog will recall that last month I reviewed Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin's terrific new book. Good news—I'll be speaking with Seth as part of his virtual book tour and I would like you to participate. All it will cost you is an hour of your time. On Monday, January ...

What are the search terms your buyers use to find products and services like yours? Where does your company rank on Google for those terms?
7 Jan 2008
Three months ago, Mike Volpe at HubSpot blogged about his experience speaking with a friend at EMC, a huge company (roughly ten billion US $ revenue). Mike and the EMC person discussed the most important search terms for EMC and came up with two critical ones "data storage" and "information infrastr...

Say No To Dirt
2 Jan 2008
Imagine you're a marketing manager for a company that makes toilets. Your company just came up with a spiffy new self-cleaning model. What do you do? Most marketing managers would talk about their "flexible, scalable solutions for toilet cleaning processes using cutting edge technology" or some s...

Attention Delta Airlines -- Do you really have to rub it in?
24 Dec 2007
Nearly a year ago (February 4, 2007 to be exact), I planned, booked, and paid for a vacation for my family this holiday season to Belize. My daughter, a freshman in high school, has very limited availability due to the school calendar and her competitive swim schedule (she trains every day for 10 mo...

For best results, stick it in the fridge
19 Dec 2007
Have you noticed that most product packaging falls into two categories. It's either dreadfully boring (as if it were written by someone who has never has any fun). Or it is chock full of inane corporate gobbledygook "this flexible, cutting-edge product will improve your business process." I alwa...

Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae – buy a copy for your boss*
15 Dec 2007
When I deliver keynote speeches and run seminars at companies, I am often asked for advice on how to convince the bosses that the new rules of marketing really work. Frequently people say something like: "My bosses make me prove ROI before I can do this online thought leadership and viral marketing ...

An open letter to Warner Music Group: Lighten up! Your fans are promoting Led Zeppelin for you… for free
13 Dec 2007
Dear Warner Music Group Executives: The BBC reports that twenty million people wanted to purchase tickets to the historic Led Zeppelin show held at the O2 Arena on December 10, 2007. With only 20,000 tickets available, needless to say there were many disappointed fans who couldn't be there when t...

This Year in Marketing Blogs: GrokDotCom's list of Definitive Posts of 2007
13 Dec 2007
GrokDotCom has created a list of the definitive marketing posts of 2007. They say: “Blogs have taken over, creating a feedback loop between journalists and readers, businesses and customers, you name it — conversation has officially changed the game.” This is an absolutely terrific ...

"Make my logo bigger!"
12 Dec 2007
Is your tiny-logo-loving-designer always cramming your beautiful logo into an obscure corner of your ad? Well not anymore with Make Your Logo Bigger Cream! Boring white space on your website? You can eliminate that white space and fill it with your marketing messages with White Space Eliminator!

A Brand Your World personal branding summit audio archives available
8 Dec 2007
Last month, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Tom Peters' thought provoking-article on Personal Branding "The Brand Called You" published in Fast Company, I participated in A Brand You World, one of the largest global events ever on the subject of personal branding. If you didn't have a ...