Here are the 2 principles that I am going to apply to my personal and professional life.

Principle #1: Don’t Forget What Made You Successful

The first principle is to remember what got you to success.  We often work really hard before we are successful, but once we are successful we get caught up in the day-to-day and forget what got us there to begin with.

This resonated with me with respect to  my personal investment and participation in social media.  I got into social media early, back in 2007.  We were one of the first companies to use Twitter (people actually complained that a company was even on Twitter) and at the time MySpace was still a big marketing opportunity.  I started my blog in 2007 (it started as www.ThisIsWhyImHot.wordpress.com – yes, I have come a LONG way) and I quickly embraced LinkedIn and Facebook.

It was actually my participation in Social Media that led to my initial business success.  My first client was P&G, and they approached me because the brand manager had been reading my blog and following me on Twitter.   He saw that I “got” social media and hired me on as a consultant.  Much of my early business success came because of the reputation I built for myself on social media by sharing my insights, experiences and ideas, and by connecting with smart people and reading their stuff.

Now, my social media participation is sporadic at best.  It is easy to get caught up in the millions of details of my business, and staying on top of social media by reading about it and working with clients.  The reality of social media is that you get out what you put in to it.  I need to renew my effort and enthusiasm for social media and get re-engaged again.

So, my first resolution is to renew my participation in social media.  Read more blogs. Tweet more often (and have actual conversations) and write on THIS blog (and the Boot Camp Digital Blog) more regularly.

Principle #2: Make Small, Disciplined Changes to Get Big, Long-Term Results

The second principle that resonated with me in the book is the principle of discipline in small changes.
The idea here is that a small change – like cutting 125 calories a day or reading 20 pages of an improvement book each day – can have a dramatic impact over time.  The key isn’t to make huge changes, but to make a small change and to be disciplined to apply it every day.  Over time it will become a habit.

This again is where success comes at a cost.  As my business has grown I’ve become busier, and just responding to email can be a struggle.  While I often have the best intentions to make changes, the consistency and discipline in maintaining the changes can be a challenge.
The problem is that it is easy to make excuses – I travel too much, I don’t have time – but excuses don’t make you successful. Doing things does.

So, my indicated action is that each month I’m going to pick one small thing to change in my professional or personal life and work on it.  The TOP of my list is Getting Things Done.  A few months ago I began implementation of the GTD system, and I had soome really productive months where the system really worked for me and I was less stressed out.

I’m going to get back on track with GTD to organize my priorities and work.  As a side note, if you have trouble managing email or priorities, I HIGHLY recommend this book.

So, there you have it.

If you haven’t read this book (I had never heard of it before I received a copy of it from James Malinchak) I highly recommend it.  But don’t just read it.  Apply it.

See you in my next blog post (which won’t be in 90+ days).

This book is definitely worth a read.  While this review covers a lot of the key points it is at a high level.  Many of the best social media marketers use these principles to draw attention to their brands in relevant and meaningful ways via social media.

Buzzmarketing is a powerful concept that is highly relevant in social media and internet marketing.  Many social media success stories are built off of the same principles of word-of-mouth marketing and buzz marketing.  What makes this book so powerful is that it spells out in a clear and simple fashion how to create campaigns that are Buzzworthy.

Whether you work for a large branding company or a small startup with limited budgets, mastering buzzmarketing is essential to creating truly breakthrough growth.  Basically the premise is that typical marketing will give you typical results; buzz marketing will give you breakthrough results.

Summary of book and key learnings

The 6 Secrets of Buzz:
The First Secret: Push the 6 buttons of buzz

The 6 things push people’s buttons and get conversations started:

1. The taboo
2. The unusual
3. The outrageous
4. The hilarious
5. The remarkable
6. The secrets (both kept and revealed)

The Second Secret:  Capture Media

To get media attention position your news as one of the 5 Most Frequently Written Stories:

1. The David and Goliath Story – media loves the underdog and the “big guy” taking advantage of him.
2. The unusual or outrageous story – Renaming a town to half.com
3. The controversy story – John McEnroe the “bad boy” of tennis
4. The celebrity story – Find creative ways to get their endorsements
5. What’s already hot in the media – Find a genuine way for your product to participate in a pre-existing trend.

The Third Secret: Advertise for Attention

There are now more products than ever vying for attention and more marketing in more channels trying to tell us about them.  Traditional channels are cluttered, consumers are exposed to over 1,000 marketing messages a day making it difficult for your message to get through.

Use Clutter-Free Media to Capture Attention – Look for opportunities of unique places that you can advertise where you will be the only brand.  Examples: peanut bags at ball games, urinal filters, in fortune cookies.  Look for the new medium that isn’t currently tapped.  The key to success? Select a medium where you have their attention – where you know they will take note.  Don’t be one of the billion sponsors on a nascar.

The Fourth Secret: Climb Buzz Everest

Essentially, “Buzz Everest” means the pinnacle of buzz marketing – transform your brand by doing what others thought was impossible in a creative and buzzworthy way.  Find the consumer insights that will generate buzz.  Be creative.  Spend time in one-on-one situations with your target audience.  Doing something new is inherently risky.  You can’t eliminate risk and have breakthrough growth.  You can’t get high returns without high risk.

The Fifth Secret: Discover Creativity

To create effective buzz you need creativity.  This book includes 7 strategies to create creativity (haha).  Seriously – this is a great chapter for those who are not naturally creative.

The Sixth Secret: Police Your Product

You need to monitor your product to know when and why it isn’t living up to expectations.  Nothing kills buzz like a bad product.  Consumers evangelize only for great products.

Interesting Stats:

• Word of moth marketing is 10 times more effective than TV or print advertising (according to a study by Euro RSCG)
• Ad clutter is rising to intolerable levels in America (a 283 index on the “clutter curve”)
• David Ogilvy discovered that about 6 times as many people read the average news article than the average advertisement – people buy content, not ads.
• Viewers don’t watch more than 63% of TV ads (in 2005).
• According to a study by the American Academy of Advertising, when a TV commercial comes on 92% of us change the channel, mute the TV or ignore the commercial.
• 25% of all TV time is ad related – there is too much clutter!
• People are inundated with over 1000 ads per day
• Magazine study in Sunday papers: The more advertising in a given medium the less effective it is.
• America spends more on advertising than the entire GDP of Mexico ($230 billion each year).
• In an average night of prime-time TV the American viewer sees approx. 128 commercials.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Overview – Brand Marketing Book

If you are building a brand or a business you need to think about positioning and branding.  What is it that you want to stand for that is unique and different in the market place?  Positioning isn’t just for big brands – it is for any brand (even your personal brand.

I would definitely recommend this book – it is well worth the read, but I would probably only give it 3.5 stars out of 5.  The main reason is that the examples are WAY out of date (the book is 30 years old).  The principles still apply today, however it is tough to follow a book that is referencing examples from when I was 2 years old.

I have also read another book by the same authors “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” and I liked this MUCH more.

So, bottom line:  It is a good book, worth a read, solid principles, but out of date.  This book is especially relevant if you work for a big company (most of the examples are big company examples), but the principles can also be applied to any business, or your personal brand.

Key Points:

• The position of your brand or business is in the eyes of your prospect or customer.  It doesn’t matter what you think your business or brand stands for or is about.  They key is the perception that your customers have.  “Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect.  That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.”
• Our society is overcommunicated.  Even 30 years ago there were so many commercials that you had to really work to break through the noise.  “We have become the world’s first overcommunicated society.  Each year we send more and receive less”
• It is difficult to change minds If your positioning strategy involves changing that people already think you will have a difficult time.  The best strategies are congruent with what people already think and set to add or move existing perceptions, not totally change them.  Once a mind is made up it is almost impossible to change.  The mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience.
• Create oversimplified messages. You are lucky if people can remember one message and associate it back to your product.  Less is more.  Oversimplify and stick to a single message.  Link one concept to one product.
• Create a category you can win. Define the category differently so that you are the biggest/best/awesomest.  It is better to be a big fish in a little pond and then expand the pond.  Leadership matters.  You have to be #1 or #2.
• Look for the hole.  Then fill it. Where is the positioning white space?  What are your competitors missing in how they are positioned.  What are the customer benefits that are not being addressed or exploited by competitors?  Don’t fall in to the “everybody” trap.  You can’t be all things to all people.  You will end up being nothing at all.
• 80% of learning takes place through the eyes. Words matter.  Especially in the service business.  You need to own a phrase.  Visualize the words that you are using.  The goal is to drive verbal ideas into the mind.
• Isolating a narrow target is usually the first step in finding an effective position. The narrower and better defined target the better.  This will help clarify your position.

This is my first book, and it is actually being modified and turned into a textbook for social media marketing (you may have seen the post on that). I have so many people to thank for helping me get here, and later this week I will post an entire Thank-You post. I can’t tell you how much I value and appreciate all of the support and encouragement I have received over the past few years as I started my business.

I wrote the Field Guide after I started running social media training programs a few years ago, and after training thousands of people I created some systems to help explain and create a system for social media strategic planning and to help businesses understand the social media landscape, which can be overwhelming.

Part 1: The Social Media Planning System

I created the social media system, which is the underlying model for the book based on working with many companies and individuals on their social media marketing strategies. One thing I learned was that most business owners lacked a real solid social media plan. They weren’t getting results from their social media marketing because they didn’t really approach it with a plan. Someone told them they had to get on Twitter or that all of their competitors were on Facebook, so they created accounts and started posting content. They came to me because they weren’t getting results.

The Social Media System is a planning method that helps businesses get results by laying out a strategic plan. This is the part that most businesses skip in their rush to get on social media and it is also why most businesses don’t get value from social media. They have no real plan – they just throw stuff out there without a real audience in mind.

Part 2: The Social Media Field Guide – The Landscape

The second part of the Social Media Field Guide is the Field Guide model, which is a model to help businesses wrap their heads around the key opportunity areas in social media. Rather than tactically focusing on the social media tools like Facebook and Twitter the Field Guide encourages businesses to think about the broader functionality of social media. The Social Media Field Guide categorizes social media into 8 categories – Publishing, Sharing, Social Networks, Microblogs, Collaboration and Co-Creation, Discussion and Review, Public Relations and Mobile. Rather than focusing on an individual tool, businesses should think about how they can leverage each of these categories, and then drill deeper into the specific tools.

In addition to the book, the Social Media Field Guide also comes with a FREE ACTION PLANNER DOWNLOAD so that you can put the Field Guide into action.

In the past 10 years of , I’ve traveled to Brazil, Vegas, NY, San Francisco, London, Toronto and countless other cities where I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to thousands of business owners, marketers and social media managers. These experiences have helped me in creating this essential resourceful media guide full of great tips and advice. It also served as a great tool used in my social media certification program held at the newly established Institute for Social Media at Cincinnati State.

I’ve already received some great feedback about the book and I would like to hear what you think! Click here to order your copy of the Social Media Field Guide.

Also, stay tuned for the official announcement, but I will be hosting a book party and showcasing my new office space on January 20th.

For more information on my new book, visit http://bootcampdigital.com/social-media-book/.

Overall: Great book, strong examples and really useful concepts.

Read this if: You want to build your brand online.  Even if you know how to use social media and social sites – this is a great resource for actual marketing and brand building.

Categories: Marketing, Social Media, PR

Key Take Aways:

• Build a Strong Web Presence – More than ever people are searching and research information about purchases online.  At the same time many web sites are full of ads instead of clearly providing the information that people are looking for.  Make your website usable and fill it with great content.
• Social Media and PR are Linked – Reporters increasingly search for topics and companies to discuss online vs. waiting for your press release.  Make your site searchable and have a great press page.  That being said, traditional press might not be the best way to reach your audience.  Consider niche blogs and try to build relationships.  Lots of reporters get their ideas from these sites already.  This allows you to have a pull PR strategy (reporters contact you because you are the expert) vs. a Push strategy (you send reporters your press release and they usually ignore it).
• Build PR for the Consumer Market – Rather than going after a few big publications (which are really hard to get anyways) write press releases that are consumer friendly.  Remove the jargon and formality and make them easy to understand so that bloggers get excited and will write about you.
• Content is King – Content is the key to your social media strategy.  Great Content = you are a trusted resource = call to action.  View social marketing as creating a relationship vs. a one night stand.  Don’t think of social marketing as a transaction.
• Deliver Content When & Where it is Needed – This serves to brand your organization as a thought leader.  The content that you syndicate online (through blogs, podcasts, twitter, etc) should be inherently valuable to your target audience.  To do this you need to know: Where is your audience? How do you reach them? What are their motivations? What problems can I help them solve? What content will compel them to trust me and buy from me?  Know your goal and let your content drive the action.
• Using Blogs, Podcasts, Chat Rooms, Message Boards, Wikis and Listserves – When getting started, first monitor and listen, then participate and get known, and then create your own content.  You need to understand the community and audience before you participate.  Keys to success: React quickly, provide useful content regularly, be open and honest, show your personality, apologize when you need to.  Build an editorial calendar to keep your content fresh and on topic.
• Integrate your Social Media Around a Hub (your website) – Your website should be the hub of your social media activity, and all of your assets (on your site and in social media) should support telling a consistent story about your company or brand.  Pay attention to how your content is organized and how it will ultimately drive action.  Talk like “one of them”.
• Develop Thought Leadership – Position yourself of your organization as thought leaders.  Don’t talk about your company but showcase your expertise by talking about the category, industry or trends.  Be a unique resource for people.  You can also achieve this with ebooks, newsletters, webinars, wikis, research reports, whitepapers, podcasts and videos.
• Tips for getting started in social networks: 1) Target a specific audience 2) Be a thought leader 3) be authentic and transparent 4) Creates links 5) Encourage contact 6) Participate 7) Be easy to find 8 ) Experiment

This is just an overview of the book – definitely worth the read.  I’ll also have to check out the new book and let you know what I think about it.

Has anyone else read this great book on social media marketing and PR?  What did you think?  Are there other books you would recommend?

Note: The links in this post are amazon affiliate links.

I was fortunate enough to get a copy of Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back by Rohit Bhargava for free at a BlogHer party at Guy Kawasaki’s house over the summer. I then had the pleasure of meeting Rohit and Blog World Expo and CES.  Great Book!  Definitely worth reading.

Rating (on the 5 * scale)

Overall: *****5 READ IT

Readability: *****5

Writing Style: *****5

Useful: ****4

Interesting: ****4

Overview

Personality Not Included is a book about how brands can attain or regain personality (which seems like a Web 2.0 version of brand character or brand equity). As with much of *new* marketing the concept isn’t breakthrough (people like brands that have strong clear personalities errrr equity) but the ideas and concepts on how to build personality are, especially in an era where social media and world of mouth are hot topics.

The book is more focused on larger organizations and established brands (the sub-title is “Why companies lose their authenticity and how great brands get it back”), but many of the concepts can apply to smaller organizations as well.

Definition: personality is “the unique, authentic, and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about” and is what moves people from passive consumers to active, passionate brand enthusiasts.

Summary

The theory chapters are great and get you thinking about how much personality your brand has, how “accidental spokespeople” are shaping your brand, how to define your organizations personality, building an organization story that inspires and finding opportunities where you can improve your personality.

Key Concepts:

• “Personality Moments” opportunities for your brand personality to shine – often when least expected.

Theory

• Chapter 1 – Organizations lose their personality with layers, advertising, the need for consistency, focusing on policies over logic and prioritizing risk management. This makes them ordinary.
• Chapter 2 – The “accidental spokesperson” – people who become the spokespeople for your brand. There are 5 – The Founder, The Character, The Authority, The Celebrity and The Enthusiast. Find them and leverage them.
• Chapter 3 – How to Define Your Organizations Personality – Rohit introduces the UAT tool – Unique -> Authentic -> Talkable = Personality!
  • How to be Unique: 1) Find the uncontested space, 2) Position yourself, 3) Create a twist, 4) Think outside your region
  • How to be Authentic: 1) Define a credible heritage, 2) Demonstrate passion and belief, 3) Foster individuals instead of people, 4) Have motives beyond profit
  • How to be Talkable: 1) Offer something of value that is limited, 2) Have a hook that is sharable, 3) Get out of the way
• Chapter 4 – Interesting, useful and inspirational! How to craft a backstory that people care about using the techniques of Hollywood screen-writers. The 5 key elements to a backstory – Characters, Challenge, Vision, Conflict and Triumph. This chapter is a must read.
• Chapter 5 – Getting your organization to embrace personality. Not my favorite… it focuses on how to create organizational change (see the bad below).
• Chapter 6 – Finding and using personality moments is a great chapter; thought provoking and full of great examples. 2 key concepts that I liked here: 1) Marketing should focus beyond getting the initial sale and 2) Find the moments when you can best sell and represent your personality.

Action

The second section has techniques and guides & tools.

Techniques – 10 techniques are presented for how to bring your personality to life with different types of marketing. I could list them, but you really have to read the section (it is fairly short) to actually understand them.

Guides and Tools – The last section has useful guides and tools that relate back to the various chapters. Great as a quick reference to implement something that was discussed.

The Good

• Great writing style – easy to read, includes visual aides, and (not surprisingly) seeping with personality
• The tools section at the end just plain rocks. It will help you to actually use the concepts presented in the book, and is a great quick reference for those looking to implement.
• Lots (over 100) of examples, which are interesting and inspire creative thinking.
• Theory and action – the book is clearly divided into the theory section and the action section – understand WHY it matters and HOW to implement it.

The Bad

• Chapter 5. The Chapter is essentially about inciting organizational change and discusses techniques for encouraging change. I would imagine that a small % of the people reading this book 1) work in a large enough organization for this to be an issue and 2) are in a position to actually incite a change using these techniques. Plus, there are many thorough in-depth books written about this subject. Unless you are in one of those positions, I would probably skip this section – it reminded me of a college textbook about leading organizational change.

Have you read the book?  Thoughts?
BUY IT NOW!