David Meerman Scott's Blog, page 89

Content marketing Japanese unusual style

Last week, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, which I wrote with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan was released in the Japanese language. The book is doing great. It's been ranked in the top 20 or so of all books sold on Amazon Japan and most physical bookstores have already sold out so the publisher has ordered another print run. Brian & I are psyched to introduce the ideas of Grateful Dead marketing to Japanese businesses.

Much of the Japanese edition's success can be attributed to Shigesato Itoi, the visionary who brought together the all-star team that worked on the Japanese edition. Itoi-san is a popular cultural figure in Japan who is a pioneer in Web content creation. He's got a remarkable 430,000+ Twitter followers @itoi_shigesato and his Hobonichi site is one of the most active in Japan. Hobonichi is based on excellent content.

A particularly interesting aspect is daily content available for only 24 hours and then disappears. There is no archive of the daily information. This unusual content strategy is exactly the opposite of what SEO experts would tell you to do and therefore, because it is unique, is a very Grateful Dead approach.

Itoi-san and I traded Q&A back and forth about how he creates real-time content.

1) When we met in Boston, you struck me as unique in the Japanese marketplace because you create content for your buyers. Most other people in Japan create content that talks about what the products do. How did you become so "unusual" in the Japan market?

It's almost happenstance. In 1998, I launched Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shimbun, or Hobonichi, with no prospect for selling merchandise. My intention was to take what I think is interesting, edit the stories like a newspaper (Shimbun means newspaper in Japanese), and put it out on the web for many to read. As we were searching for revenue to sustain Hobonichi, I stumbled upon the idea of selling products, which I think is also content, only that it takes physical form. There was no grand plan.

2) How do you create content that is interesting to people?

I see Hobonichi as a shop where we create "content." For us, content is an idea, emotion, or that light bulb that turned on in your head, expressed in various ways such as text, performance, or a physical object, i.e. products. I keep on producing "content" to meet new friends -- readers, customers, collaborators, vendors, who will enjoy them with me. It's like a kid in an open lot with a ball and a bat, starting the game, and always waiting for someone to join.

3) I consider your content to be real-time because it is only available for one day and then it disappears. You do not have an archive of past content. Why do you do this?

It was an intuitive decision I made from the very start. Maybe it's because it allows me to discuss the same theme over and over again. It's natural: don't we do that every day? Perhaps I wanted to replicate this behavior. That said, I still haven't found a good answer for this one.

4) When I met you in Boston early this year, you struck me as someone who is happy with your life's work. Why do you think so many Japanese people are stuck in jobs that they do not enjoy?

I think it's because the Japanese work ethic values obedience to orders and skillful delivery of results. Each of us needs to be our own leader to live our own lives. Unfortunately, those people are not.

5) Why did you decide to work on the Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead project?

I am attracted to things and people who tell me "Being free does not lead to decadence. It brings out potential." My job is to disseminate this message. The more people there are who believe in this, the easier my life will be. Well, at least, I'm hoping it will make my life easier.

Japanese language edition of Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead

Today, the Japanese language version of Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History was published.

If you liked the English language version and read Japanese please check it out. If you have Japanese colleagues who are marketers or music fans, please pass along. If you are a fan of great design and the Grateful Dead you might be interested even if you don't read Japanese.

My co-author on Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead (and HubSpot CEO) Brian Halligan and I both lived in Tokyo in the 1990s, so having the book in Japanese is sort of a homecoming. It has been an exciting project and the finished product is absolutely stellar.

Here is the Facebook page for the book and here is the Amazon Japan page. (As of this writing, the book is ranked number 29 on Amazon Japan among all books they sell). In addition, you can check out an interview with me in Wired Magazine Japan.

Normally I don't write about each translation of my various books (so far nearly 30 languages), but this one is special for a number of reasons.

The book was produced with a true all-star team. Shigesato Itoi corralled the team to create the book and he wrote the foreword. Itoi-san is a popular cultural figure in Japan who is a pioneer in Web content creation. He's got a remarkable 430,000+ Twitter followers @itoi_shigesato and his site is one of the most active in Japan. I'll be interviewing him for an upcoming blog post.

Itoi-san brought in his friend Shin Sobue to design the book. His book creations are so popular that some of his fans buy his work no matter what the topic of the book! He used fantastic fonts (think late 1960s Haight-Asbury meets Japanese) and managed to capture the improvisational nature of a Grateful Dead concert in a book. Amazing.

The Japanese language version was translated by none other than my lovely wife Yukari Watanabe Scott. Yukari, who has quite the following herself on Twitter @YukariWatanabe and her blog, has tolerated my Grateful Dead fandom since we met in Tokyo nearly 25 years ago.

The book was published by Nikkei BP, which also published the Japanese edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and will soon bring out Real-Time Marketing & PR in Japanese.

Like the original English-language edition, this book features awesome photos by my friend Jay Blakesberg, who has photographed the Dead since the late 1970s.

Thank you team!

Newsjacking the Republican Presidential Campaign HubSpot Style

Today, HubSpot launched the brand new Marketing Grader – a free tool to grade your online marketing. You can read about it on the HubSpot blog.

Newsjacking the Republicans

What I found interesting about the launch was the example they chose to highlight. The info graphic they made shows the Marketing Grader scores for the leading Republican US Presidential candidates.

As we are less than a month away from the Iowa Caucus, the media is focused on who is ahead. There are polls galore looking at who's up and who's down. Into that mix comes an analysis of the candidates online marketing.

The infographic is a long shaped image so I have included it as a small size. Click it to expand or download.

It will be fun to see if any journalists pick this up and run with it in a story.

Social Media ROI Hypocrisy

New research - published here for the first time - proves that executives who demand that Social Media ROI be calculated are hypocrites.

HYPOCRISY

It's ridiculous that executives require marketers to calculate ROI (Return on Investment) on one form of real-time communications: Social media like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. Yet they happily pay for other real-time communications devices for employees like Blackberrys, iPhones, and iPads without a proven ROI.

Often, the first question I am asked at my talks is about ROI. So I turn the question back to the audience as you will see in this very short video shot on location at recent gigs in Amsterdam, Bahrain, Baltimore, Barcelona, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Istanbul, Miami, Rotterdam, Stockholm, and Washington DC.

Direct link to Social Media ROI Hypocrisy on YouTube.

My recommendation to you when faced with executives who demand that you prove social media ROI is to point out the hypocrisy by asking them to show you the ROI of their Blackberry.

I conceived of this video and shot the location scenes myself at my gigs. The final video was produced and edited by my friends at Rewatchable.

Please share. Especially with those in your company who demand that ROI calculation.

Is BMW an email spammer?

UPDATE - On the evening of December 1, BMW of North America responded to the issues I highlighted in this post. Do make sure to read what they said (11th comment down).

+++++++++++++

Many years ago I opted in to emails from BMW because I wanted to get notice when they released short films in their excellent series. For example, I liked The Star featuring Madonna and directed by Guy Richie. At the time these films were a new and exciting form of online marketing and I wanted to know when new ones came out. I wrote about BMW's use of video on my blog back in 2007 and included a mention in one of my books.

Gradually over the years my email address seemed to be added to BMW sales lists as well so I opted out of all emails from BMW last year.

Like most people, I am on a bunch of lists that seem to grow like weeds. Every time I buy something online, I'm added to a new list. I frequently opt out and that's the end of it, but I do not keep a tally of opt outs. There are too many and most companies simply honor my request and stop sending me email.

I distinctly recall opting out of BMW emails so it was strange to me based on my habits that I would mysteriously be added back somehow against my wishes.

So when I again received an email from BMW in November 2011, I opted out again but this time I kept a screenshot record showing I opted out from all items in their list.

The opt out itself was very convoluted. I clicked an UNSUBSCRIBE link on the email and got a sort of "Communications Preferences" error notice followed by an automated email linking me to a place where I could push buttons to opt out of each type of mailing. Click the thumbnail to see what I did.

Note that I do not own a BMW so there is no other way I can think of where I would have been added to their lists.

After that opt out, I again got an email from BMW!

This one was from BMW of North America with a subject line "Shop BMW gifts on Cyber Monday." This email most certainly arrived after I expressed my preference to receive no more emails and recorded the attempt.

Perhaps there is an explanation and if so I would love to hear it.

Maybe there are many different lists for BMW and they require different opt out methods (this one was from BMW of North America)? Perhaps it is user error and I did something wrong several times in a row? Perhaps their system takes many days to process requests and I need to independently opt out of each type of mailing (silly in a real-time world but possible)? I really want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Even if there is a good explanation for what happened to me, I would like to suggest that as a company that prides itself on quality and engineering, BMW is failing with their marketing.

I wanted to see BMW videos and ended up being hit up to buy Holiday gifts from BMW.

Email marketing is a certainly a component of quality and engineering, and BMW need to re-think how they communicate. The 4 step opt out procedure itself is sort of stupid and the fact that it doesn't actually opt me out is unacceptable.

8 ways to get people to discuss your new product in social media

On November 14, 2011 I introduced my new book Newsjacking to the market.

One of the challenges of my work is that I write and speak about strategic marketing. I have to admit something right here: I obsess over the use of my own marketing strategies to market my work. Heck, if I can't launch my own book, how good are the ideas, right? I was under pressure.

In order to generate the most excitement around Newsjacking, I chose to do some particular things that I hoped would help to launch the book with excitement. These are the ones that worked well for me and that I would do again in the future.



I'd suggest that these techniques should be used at launch to get people to discuss any new product in social media. It is not just for books.

1. Don't talk too early.

I chose not to talk about the book ahead of time. In fact I never used the word "newsjacking" anywhere on the web prior to November 14, which was launch day. I find that people have short attention spans. If I say "a book is coming" but people cannot actually read it, few will act. So I chose to keep quiet.

2. Choose a memorable name.

The title I used - "Newsjacking" – had been used before by people like Urgent Genius but it was not very popular a term, especially outside the UK. Most people were hearing the word for the first time and it was memorable to them.

3. Inject some controversy.

The concept of newsjacking feels like a black hat technique to many people and some wondered if it was ethical. (Newsjacking is perfectly legitimate, as I do explain in the book). But that sense of perceived negativity is a powerful tool to get people talking. John Jantsch wrote Is Newsjacking a Legitimate Tactic? And Erica Glasier wrote Ethical question: Is newsjacking black hat? These blog posts were tweeted hundreds of time, spreading the ideas in the book.

4. Seed the market.

I gave an early heads up (about 24 hours notice) to a few friends so they could prepare blog posts that ran on my launch day.

5. Have a news hook and newsjack.

I chose to launch Newsjacking, which is in e-book only format, on the same day that the new Kindle Fire launched. My goal was to newsjack the Kindle Fire announcement and that tactic actually worked because writers for publications such as the Vancouver Sun, Forbes, and MediaBistro talked about my book in context of the new Kindle Fire.

6. Respond to people in real-time.

I did my best to comment on each of the dozens of blog posts about Newsjacking in real-time, I also tried to react to as many of the thousands of tweets as I could without cluttering my stream too much. It was exciting to participate in the launch this way.

7. Don't forget international markets.

I woke up very early to interact with people in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. And I checked in again in the evenings to connect with Australia and New Zealand. I was psyched that people wrote about the book in many markets and found blog posts in multiple languages including Japanese, German, and Dutch.

8. Measure, report, and improve.

I measured via TweetDeck, TweetReach, and Google to see how the Newsjacking meme was spreading. I reported the progress to my publisher so they could help push things along and when possible, I tweaked what I was doing to improve. Note the takeup of the meme "newsjacking" in just the 48 hours after my launch as measured by TweetReach (below).

Qantas Airways Twitter #fail

This morning my Australian friends lit up Twitter talking about an epic Twitter #fail from Qantas Airways. I saw messages from Trevor Young, Jim Stewart and others pointing me to what was the top trending topic in Australia today.

Turns out the Australian airline announced a contest on Twitter.

Most times a contest like this would be just one of thousands that populate Twitter at any one time. Normally there would be no backlash.

Timing is important

The reason this blew up is due to terrible timing. In the past month, Qantas had faced a major strike, which grounded the fleet and has experienced ongoing disputes with the unions that represent pilots, mechanics, baggage handlers, and caterers.

The travelling public was greatly inconvenienced during this period of turmoil and cancelled flights. I had friends who couldn't make it to America for long-planned meetings because of the strike.

Qantas offering this frivolous contest struck people as insensitive.

The frustration was taken out by people who used the #QantasLuxury hashtag to vent their frustrations. Here are a few I found:

@2FBS: #QantasLuxury is dressing your staff in t-shirts that say "We're Sorry" and believing that makes up for missing a friends funeral.

@GrogsGamut: #QantasLuxury - when the passengers arrive before the couriers delivering the lockout notices do

@mrpaulb: #QantasLuxury is having gold plated taps in the bathroom where some poor qantaspr person is throwing up right now

@indednsible: #qantasluxury is when they enforce 11 hours of artificial night on the MEL-LAX flight, and hand you a plastic bag full of junk-food.

@Ivalaine: #qantasluxury having your bags "misplaced" not just at arrival after 28 hours of travel. but then "misplacing" them again when you get home

I've learned a bunch of things from this.

1) Timing is important. If you are dealing with sensitive corporate issues, you should think carefully before implementing a fun campaign.

2) When you offer people a chance to use a Twitter hashtag, they will. But you don't have any control over what they say. You need to be prepared for negativity.

3) The prize in this contest was lame. You get the amenity kit that first class passengers get. Big deal – some PJs and a toothbrush. If you want to do a contest right, offer a really valuable prize.

4) As I've talked about many times, in a real-time world news jumps quickly from social media to mainstream media. As of this writing, there are well over 100 mainstream media stories about this. I'm sure there will be many more.

5) Anyone seen a newsjack of this story yet?

Make your writing easy to understand

Doug Brockway points us to some world-class gobbledygook from a company called ITA Software by Google.

Yikes, what does this company do?

I looked at a bunch of pages on the company's site and honestly didn't understand what they do. It wasn't until I went to some external sites that I sort of figured it out.

Here is the about page. (I have pasted the headline and first two paragraphs below). Click the thumbnail to see the screenshot of the page as of November 21, 2011.

Travel Technology's Game Changer

ITA Software is a leading provider of innovative solutions for the travel industry.

Founded in the mid-nineties by MIT computer science graduates, ITA Software has pioneered a new generation of travel technology. Our world-class engineers and travel industry experts are solving the industry's most complex computing challenges, and in doing so reshaping its very foundations.

This is not a good way to talk about what you do.

Here is the product page. Click the thumbnail to see the screenshot of the page as of November 21, 2011.

The problem with using language like game changer, innovative solutions, next generation, world-class, customer-centric, and the like is that these words and phrases are so overused as to have become meaningless.

Here is an analysis I did on gobbledygook phrases so you can avoid the most overused ones. (Incidentally, the most overused phrase in my analysis was innovation / innovative.)

Make your writing easy to understand

I've taken a stab at re-writing the about us section for ITA Software by Google by learning more about what the company actually does. My suggestion is certainly not perfect, but it is, to my mind at least, easier to understand than the one currently being used by the company.

Software for the air travel industry

ITA Software by Google helps air passengers, airlines, and online travel agencies by making it easier for people to comparison shop for flights. Because of the huge volume of real-time transactions in airline pricing, the ITA Software engine is central in the travel industry's most complex computing application.

The company was founded in the mid-1990s by computer scientists from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and was acquired by Google in 2011.

What do you think?

Kindle Fire delivers a new kind of business book

Today the long awaited Kindle Fire is released. I am looking forward to getting mine.

The Kindle Fire is the new full-color tablet from Amazon. It is part of the Kindle family, which I've continually upgraded upon new releases. I take my Kindle on all my air travel, for me it is the ideal way to consume content on the road.

The Kindle Fire (as well as the Apple iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook) bring a non-linear experience to reading a book. You can instantly jump from one part of the book to another. And it is in full color.

Kindle Fire delivers a new kind of business book

I specifically wrote my new book Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage to take advantage of these full color interactive components. Newsjacking was conceived, written, and published as an e-book only publication.

Amazon leads the way in this marketplace for one simple reason, content. Amazon is a content company that happens to create technology. The Kindle is built to serve the content, not the other way around. For that reason, I predict it will become very popular.

Most tablets are just technology. The computer is built because every company needs a tablet but it is not purpose built to drive a content experience. Apple (with the iPad) and Amazon are both pioneers in this new world of optimized electronic content.

As an avid reader, one of the most compelling aspects is interactivity – you can instantly link from the book to external content. It means a book read on an iPad or Kindle Fire is like reading a blog post with links to valuable content from other places. It means you can check out the Twitter feed of the expert cited in the text or watch a video that provides context to a concept.

As a content creator, it is fantastic to work within these platforms. Readers get a terrific experience.

Incidentally, I'm not advocating that print is going away. Heck I read a daily print newspaper, many print books, and a bunch of print magazines. But strongly believe there is room for both print and optimized e-content.

Another important aspect of the Kindle Fire and iPad is the instant nature of content consumption. I've heard from about 50 people who, in less than a day, saw my new book, downloaded Newsjacking, read the entire thing (which takes about an hour) and wrote reviews, blog posts, or tweets about the book.

Now that's real-time.

Are you getting a Kindle Fire? Do you read books on an iPad?

Newsjacking!

Today my newest book is released.

Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage

The traditional PR model -- sticking closely to a preset script and campaign timeline -- no longer works the way it used to. Public discourse now moves so fast and so dynamically that all it takes is a single afternoon to blast the wheels off someone's laboriously crafted narrative.

Enter newsjacking: the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.

A new kind of business book

I wrote Newsjacking to take advantage of the many features of the ebook format used by Amazon's new Kindle Fire, Apple's iPad, and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Here's the book on Amazon. and here it is for iPad. For example, with the interactivity to Web content built into these readers, when I talk about a blog post in the book, I link directly to the blog post.

Newsjacking is in full color and contains infographics to illustrate the important points.

While Newsjacking is ebook only, it is from Wiley, my long-time publishers. Newsjacking will not be printed on dead trees. It is a short and punchy book (you can read the entire thing in about an hour) and is priced right. Read more about my ideas (and the many excellent comments from others) on the transformation of books.

You can get your copy of Newsjacking and begin reading right now via Amazon Kindle, Apple iBook (for iPad and iPhone), an Android edition, and Scribd. It is coming very soon for Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony ereader.

Anybody can Newsjack.

As journalists scramble to cover breaking news, the basic facts -- who/what/when/where -- are often fairly easy to find, either on a corporate website or in competing media outlets' copy.

The challenge for reporters is to get the "why" and the implications of the event.

Why is the company closing its plant? The corporate website may offer some bogus excuse like "because it wants to spend more time with its family." Competitors may quote some expert's speculation on the real reason, but a reporter can't cite that without adding something self-demeaning like "according to an expert quoted in the New York Times."

When a story is breaking, journalists need original content—and fast.

Enter newsjacking.

If you are clever enough to react to breaking news very quickly, providing credible second-paragraph content in a blog post, tweet, or media alert that features the keyword of the moment, you may be rewarded with a bonanza of media attention.

Newsjacking creates a level playing field —- literally anyone can newsjack —- but, that new level favors players who are observant, quick to react, and skilled at communicating. It's a powerful tool that can be used to throw an opponent or simply draft off the news momentum to further your own ends.

I stuffed Newsjacking with tons of examples: Rick Perry, Larry Flynt, Oakley, and the London Fire Brigade to name a few.

There's an action plan for how you can newsjack and own the second paragraph of the news story that everyone in your market is watching.

Newsjacking is both a new PR technique and a new kind of business book.

I'm interested in your thoughts.