David Meerman Scott at Social Media Club Sydney

This has been for me a week of social media highs, attending Social Media Club Sydney and the Future of Influence Summit, also in Sydney (with a linked event in San Francisco). So many new ideas and fresh perspectives to consider!

One of several particularly memorable experiences of the week was hearing David Meerman Scott, at Social Media Club Sydney. The presentation was, for me, an excellent blend of insights and illustrations, delivered with a nice blend of seriousness and humor. A couple of items that stood out:

The amazing achievement of Cindy Gordon at Universal Orlando Resort in translating a briefing for 7 bloggers into a viral outreach to an estimated 350,000,000 people around the world, for the launch of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – you can read about it at page 6 ofextract David’s downloadable “The New Rules of Viral Marketing”.

The four ways of getting attention, three old, one new, which in my notes I summarized as Buy (advertising), Beg (PR), Bug (selling), or Earn (publishing free content with blogs etc) – the reference to PR as begging got under the skins of some people in the crowd but the speaker was well up to the challenge.

There is an interview by Valeria Maltoni with David Meerman Scott, in which he explains those four attention-getting approaches.

Having been on the receiving end of ill-considered, basically inept pitches from PR agencies (no, whatever you might think or hope for, dear pitching pr person, I am not a mommy blogger), and at the same time recognizing that there are some very switched-on PR people who are very considered and thoroughly ept, I had no problem with David’s explanations.

Now I really must order David’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, subtitled How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.

Des Walsh

Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.