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Book Reviews

2.0 Good Books on Marketing 2.0:

Larry Weber's
Marketing to the Social Web

and

David Meerman Scott's
The New Rules of Marketing and PR

by Katie Delahaye Paine

There might be a thousand people on the planet that fully grok the implications of social media on the world of marketing. Then there are another ten thousand or so who think they understand it. And then there's the rest of the marketers on the planet who are clueless about what is about to hit them. For any of the millions in that third category, here are two new books that should really help.

Marketing to the Social Web

In Marketing to the Social Web, Larry Weber relies on his decades of experience as a marketer and PR guy (founder of Weber now Weber Shandwick, one of the agencies I dealt with when I was director of corporate communications at Lotus) to provide a good explanation of what is about to happen and how to cope. He's great on the history and his personal stories and experience with the people he's talking about lend a level of credibility that is missing from many of these sort of books.

Here's a quote from the first chapter (and you can download the whole chapter here):

Rather than broadcasting marketing messages to an increasingly indifferent, even resentful, audience jaded by the 2,000-plus messages the average American is reputedly exposed to every day, marketers should participate in, organize, and encourage social networks to which people want to belong. Rather than talking <I>at<I> customers, marketers should talk <I>with<I> them. And the social web is the most effective way in the history of the world to do just that on a large scale.

His lists are great, like "Seven Steps to Marketing on the Social Web" and "Ten Rules for Private Communities." He covers all the bases from blogs and social networks to podcasting and the future of TV. And, of course, I have to give the book extra points because he includes a good chapter on measurement that even I can't find anything to argue with.

Do I consider Marketing to the Social Web a must read for every marketer? No. It's too focused on big success stories and broad brush strokes of what is happening in big consumer markets, and a bit too based on one man's opinion for my taste. But will I quote it often? Absolutely. It is chock-full of great stories and terrific statistics, and for many it will be a very worthwhile read.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

On the other hand David Meerman's Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR is a must-read for marketers, regardless of whether you are marketing a yoga studio in New Hampshire or luxury automobiles in Beverly Hills. It is truly a how-to book that gives basic instructions for any marketer to get going in the new social marketing space.

Compared to Weber, Scott devotes relatively little time to the ancient history of marketing, preferring instead to present how to write for a blog, how to podcast, how to write a press release that's not for the press, how to use social networking sites, how to change your web content to complement your social media strategy and how to use search engine optimization in this new environment.

Of course the one thing missing from Scott's book is any mention at all of measurement. But that's okay, you can read my book to get that…

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