Praise for The New Rules of Marketing and PR pps

Praise for The New Rules of Marketing and PR
“The Internet is not so much about technology as it is about people.
David Meerman Scott, in his remarkable The New Rules of Marketing
and PR, goes far beyond technology and explores the ramifications
of the Web as it pertains to people. He sets down a body of rules
that show you how to negotiate those ramifications with maximum
effectiveness. And he does it with real-life case histories and an en-
gaging style.”
—Jay Conrad Levinson, Father of Guerrilla
Marketing and Author,
Guerrilla Marketing series of books
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR teaches readers how to launch a
thought leadership campaign by using the far-reaching, long-lasting
tools of social media. It is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants
to make a name for themselves, their ideas, and their organization.”
—Mark Levy, Co-Author, How to Persuade People
Who Don’t Want to Be Persuaded, and Founder
of Levy Innovation: A Marketing Strategy Firm
“Revolution may be an overused word in describing what the Internet
has wrought, but revolution is exactly what David Meerman Scott
embraces and propels forward in this book. He exposes the futility of
the old media rules and opens to all of us an insiders’ game, previ-
ously played by a few well-connected specialists. With this rule book
to the online revolution, you can learn how to win minds and mar-
kets, playing by the new rules of new media.”
—Don Dunnington, President, International
Association of Online Communicators
(IAOC); Director of Business Communications,
K-Tron International; and Graduate Instructor
in Online Communication, Rowan University,

Glassboro, New Jersey
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page i
“The history of marketing communications—about 60 years or so—
has been about pushing messages to convince prospects to take
some action we need. Now marketing communications, largely be-
cause of the overwhelming power and influence of the Web and
other electronic communications, is about engaging in conversation
with prospects and leading/persuading them to take action. David
Meerman Scott shows how marketing is now about participation and
connection, and no longer about strong-arm force.”
—Roy Young, Chief Revenue Officer,
MarketingProfs.com, and Co-Author,
Marketing Champions: Practical Strategies
for Improving Marketing’s Power, Influence,
and Business Impact
“As someone who has come up through the marketing ranks to run
several companies, I’ve come to realize that the rules I lived by to
manage the marketing mix have become obsolete. What David
Meerman Scott shows that is so fascinating is that the new rules are
actually better than the old rules because they cut through all the
communications clutter and myths about big-budget advertising.
This book is a must-read for any executive looking to gain a cost-
effective edge in marketing operations and to reach buyers directly
in ways they’ll appreciate.”
—Phil Myers, President,
Pragmatic Marketing
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page ii
“This is a must-read book if you don’t want to waste time and re-
sources on the old methods of Internet marketing and PR. David
Meerman Scott reviews the old rules for old times’ sake while bridg-

ing into the new rules for Internet marketing and PR for your cause.
He doesn’t leave us with only theories, but offers practical and results-
oriented how-tos.”
—Ron Peck, Executive Director,
Neurological Disease Foundation
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR is all about breaking the rules
and creating new roles in traditional functional areas. Using maver-
ick, nontraditional approaches to access and engage a multiplicity of
audiences, communities, and thought leaders online, PR people are
realizing new value, influence, and outcomes. We’re now in a content-
rich, Internet-driven world, and David Meerman Scott has written a
valuable treatise on how marketing-minded PR professionals can
leverage new media channels and forums to take their stories to mar-
ket. No longer are PR practitioners limited in where and how they
direct their knowledge, penmanship, and perception management
skills. The Internet has multiplied and segmented a wealth of new
avenues for directly reaching and activating key constituencies and
stakeholders. A good book well worth the read by all marketing
mavens and aging PR flacks.”
—Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director,
CMO Council
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page iii
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR provides a concise action plan
for success. Rather than focusing on a single solution, Scott shows
how to use multiple online tools, all directed toward increasing your
firm’s visibility and word-of-mouth awareness.”
—Roger C. Parker, Author, The Streetwise
Guide to Relationship Marketing on the
Internet and Design to Sell
“Once again we are at a critical inflection point on our society’s

evolutionary path, with individuals wrestling away power and con-
trol from institutions and traditional gatekeepers who control the
flow of knowledge and maintain the silo walls. As communica-
tions professionals, there is little time to figure out what has
changed, why it changed, and what we should be doing about it. If
you don’t start doing things differently and start right now, you
may as well start looking for your next career path. In a world
where disruption is commonplace and new ways of communicat-
ing and collaborating are invented every day, what does it take for
a hardworking, ethical communications professional to be suc-
cessful? David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing
and PR, is an insightful look at how the game is changing as we
play it and some of the key tactics you need to succeed in the
knowledge economy.”
—Chris Heuer, Co-Founder,
Social Media Club
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page iv
Also by David Meerman Scott
Eyeball Wars: A Novel of Dot-Com Intrigue
Cashing in with Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital
Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page v
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page vi
The New Rules
of Marketing
and PR
How to Use News Releases,
Blogs, Podcasting,
Viral Marketing, & Online
Media to Reach Buyers Directly

David Meerman Scott
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page vii
Copyright © 2007 by David Meerman Scott. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under
Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either
the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through
payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center,
Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400,
fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to
the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions
Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken,
NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at
/>Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have
used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or
warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this
book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by
sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies
contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. The publisher is not
engaged in rendering professional services, and you should consult with a
professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable
for any loss of profit or other commercial damages, including but not limited to
special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services please contact our

Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974,
outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content
that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more
information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
ISBN 978-0-470-11345-5
Printed in the United States of America.
10987654321
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page viii
For the Scott women
My mother, Carolyn J. Scott;
my wife, Yukari Watanabe Scott;
and my daughter, Allison C.R. Scott
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page ix
ffirs.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page x
Contents
Foreword xvii
Introduction xxi
The New Rules xxiii
Trying to Write Like a Blog, But in a Book xxiv
Showcasing Innovative Marketers xxvi
I How the Web Has Changed the Rules of
Marketing and PR 1
1
The Old Rules of Marketing and PR Are
Ineffective in an Online World 3
Advertising: A Money Pit of Wasted Resources 5
One-Way Interruption Marketing Is Yesterday’s Message 6
The Old Rules of Marketing 8
Public Relations Used to Be Exclusively about

the Media 8
Public Relations and Third-Party Ink 10
Yes, the Media Are Still Important 10
Press Releases and the Journalistic Black Hole 11
The Old Rules of PR 12
Learn to Ignore the Old Rules 14
2 The New Rules of Marketing and PR 15
The Long Tail of Marketing 17
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, Please 19
Bricks-and-Mortar News 21
Advice from the Company President 23
The Long Tail of PR 24
The New Rules of Marketing and PR 25
The Convergence of Marketing and PR on the Web 26
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xi
3 Reaching Your Buyers Directly 27
Let the World Know about Your Expertise 31
Develop Messages Your Buyers Want to Hear 31
Buyer Personas: The Basics 32
Think Like a Publisher 35
Tell Your Organization’s Story Directly 36
Know the Goals and Let Content Drive Action 37
Content and Thought Leadership 38
II Web-Based Communications to Reach
Buyers Directly 41
4
Blogs: Tapping Millions of Evangelists to Tell
Your Story 43
Blogs, Blogging, and Bloggers 45
Understanding Blogs in the World of the Web 47

The Three Uses of Blogs for Marketing and PR 50
Monitor Blogs—Your Organization’s Reputation
Depends on It 51
Comment on Blogs to Get Your Viewpoint
Out There 53
Do You Allow Employees to Send E-Mail?
How about Letting Them Blog? 56
Breaking Boundaries: Blogging at McDonald’s 57
The Power of Blogs 59
Get Started Today 60
5 The New Rules of News Releases 61
News Releases in a Web World 63
The New Rules of News Releases 64
If They Find You, They Will Come 64
Driving Buyers into the Sales Process 67
Reach Your Buyers Directly 68
6 Audio Content Delivery through Podcasting 69
Putting Marketing Back in Musicians’ Control 71
Podcasting: More Than Just Music 74
xii Contents
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xii
7 Forums, Wikis, and Your Targeted Audience 77
Your Best Customers Participate in Online Forums—
So Should You 81
Your Space in the Forums 85
Wikis, List Serves, and Your Audience 87
Creating Your Own Wiki 89
8 Going Viral: The Web Helps Audiences Catch
the Fever 91
Minty-Fresh Explosive Marketing 92

Monitoring the Blogosphere for Viral Eruptions 93
Creating Viral Buzz for Fun and Profit 96
The Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich and
Jerry Garcia’s Toilet 96
When You Have Explosive News, Make It Go Viral 97
9 The Content-Rich Web Site 101
Political Advocacy on the Web 102
Content: The Focus of Successful Web Sites 105
Putting It All Together with Content 106
The Great Web Site: More an Art Than a Science 108
III Action Plan for Harnessing the Power
of the New Rules
111
10 You Are What You Publish: Building Your
Marketing and PR Plan 113
What Are Your Organization’s Goals? 114
Buyer Personas and Your Organization 116
The Buyer Persona Profile 118
The Importance of Buyer Personas in
Web Marketing 121
In Your Buyers’ Own Words 122
What Do You Want Your Buyers to Believe? 125
Developing Content to Reach Buyers 127
Launching a Baby Dinosaur 128
Stick to Your Plan 132
Contents xiii
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xiii
11 Online Thought Leadership to Brand Your
Organization as a Trusted Resource 133
Developing Thought Leadership Content 134

Forms of Thought Leadership Content 135
How to Create Thoughtful Content 138
Leveraging Thought Leaders outside of
Your Organization 139
How Much Money Does Your Buyer Make? 140
12 How to Write for Your Buyers 143
An Analysis of Gobbledygook 144
Poor Writing: How Did We Get Here? 145
Effective Writing for Marketing and PR 147
The Power of Writing Feedback (from Your Blog) 148
13 How Web Content Influences the Buying Process 151
Segmenting Your Buyers 153
Elements of a Buyer-Centric Web Site 155
Using RSS to Deliver Your Web Content to
Targeted Niches 159
Link Content Directly into the Sales Cycle 160
A Friendly Nudge 161
Close the Sale and Continue the Conversation 162
An Open-Source Marketing Model 163
14 How to Use News Releases to Reach
Buyers Directly 167
Developing Your News Release Strategy 168
Publishing News Releases through a
Distribution Service 169
Reaching Even More Interested Buyers with
RSS Feeds 171
Simultaneously Publishing Your News Releases
to Your Web Site 171
The Importance of Links in Your News Releases 172
Focus on the Keywords and Phrases Your

Buyers Use 173
Include Appropriate Social Media Tags 175
If It’s Important Enough to Tell the Media,
Tell Your Clients and Prospects, Too! 176
xiv Contents
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xiv
15 The Online Media Room: Your Front Door for
Much More Than the Media 179
Your Online Media Room as (Free) Search
Engine Optimization 180
Best Practices for Online Media Rooms 181
An Online Media Room to Reach Journalists, Customers,
Bloggers, and Employees 189
Really Simple Marketing: The Importance of RSS Feeds
in Your Online Media Room 191
16 The New Rules for Reaching the Media 193
Nontargeted, Broadcast Pitches Are Spam 194
The New Rules of Media Relations 195
Blogs and Media Relations 196
How to Pitch the Media 197
17 Blogging to Reach Your Buyers 201
What Should You Blog About? 202
Blogging Ethics and Employee
Blogging Guidelines 204
Blogging Basics: What You Need to Know
to Get Started 206
Pimp Out Your Blog 208
Building an Audience for Your New Blog 210
Tag, and Your Buyer Is It 211
Blogging Outside of North America 212

What Are You Waiting For? 214
18 Podcasting and Video Made, Well, as Easy
as Possible 217
Podcasting 101 217
My Audio Is Your Podcast 221
Video and Your Buyers 223
Knifing the Competition . . . and It’s All
Caught on Video 226
19 Social Networking Sites and Marketing 229
Check Me Out on MySpace 229
Do You Squidoo? 231
Contents xv
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xv
Optimizing Social Networking Pages 233
Second Life: Marketing in a Virtual World 235
20 Search Engine Marketing 241
Search Engine Optimization 243
The Long Tail of Search 244
Carve Out Your Own Search Engine
Real Estate 245
Web Landing Pages to Drive Action 246
Search Engine Marketing in a
Fragmented Business 249
21 Make It Happen 253
Great for Any Organization 255
Now It’s Your Turn 258
Acknowledgments 259
Index 267
About the Author 276
xvi

Contents
ftoc.qxd 5/10/07 4:21 PM Page xvi
Foreword
Y
ou’re not supposed to be able to do what David Meerman Scott
is about to tell you in this book. You’re not supposed to be able
to carry around a $250 video camera, record what employees are
working on and what they think of the products they are building,
and publish those videos on the Internet. But that’s what I did at Mi-
crosoft, building an audience of more than four million unique visi-
tors a month.
You’re not supposed to be able to do what Stormhoek did. A win-
ery in South Africa, it doubled sales in a year using the principles
discussed here.
You’re not supposed to be able to run a presidential campaign
with just a blogger, a videographer, and a Flickr photographer. But
that’s what John Edwards did in December 2006 as he announced he
was running for President.
Something has changed in the past 10 years. Well, for one, we
have Google now, but that’s only a part of the puzzle.
What really has happened is that the word-of-mouth network has
gotten more efficient—much, much more efficient.
Word of mouth has always been important to business. When I
helped run a Silicon Valley camera store in the 1980s, about 80 per-
cent of our sales came from it. “Where should I buy a camera this
weekend?” you might have heard in a lunchroom back then. Today
that conversation is happening online. But, instead of only two peo-
ple talking about your business, now thousands and sometimes mil-
lions (Engadget had 10 million page views in a single day during the
Consumer Electronics and MacWorld shows in January 2006) are ei-

ther participating or listening in.
flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xvii
What does this mean? Well, now there’s a new media to deal with.
Your PR teams had better understand what drives this new media
(it’s as influential as the New York Times or CNN now), and if you
understand how to use it you can drive buzz, new product feedback,
sales, and more.
But first you’ll have to learn to break the rules.
Is your marketing department saying you need to spend $80,000
to do a single video? (That’s not unusual, even in today’s world. I just
participated in such a video for a sponsor of mine.) If so, tell that de-
partment “Thanks, but no thanks.” Or, even better, search Google
for “Will it blend?” You’ll find a Utah blender company that got six
million downloads in less than 10 days. Oh, and 10,000 comments
in the same period of time. All by spending a few hundred bucks,
recording a one-minute video, and uploading that to YouTube.
Or, study what I did at Microsoft with a blog and a video camera.
Economist magazine said I put a human face on Microsoft. Imagine
that. A 60,000-employee organization and I changed its image with
very little expense and hardly a committee in sight.
This advice isn’t for everyone, though. Most people don’t like run-
ning fast in business. They feel more comfortable if there are lots of
checks and balances or committees to cover their asses. Or, they
don’t want to destroy the morale of PR and marketing departments
due to the disintermediating effects of the Internet.
After all, you can type “OneNote Blog” into Google, Live.com, or
Yahoo!, and you’ll find Chris Pratley. He runs the OneNote team at
Microsoft. Or, search for “Sun CEO.” You’ll find Jonathan Schwartz
and his blog.
You can leave either one a comment and tell them their product

sucks and see what they do in response. Or, even better, tell them
how to earn your sale. Do they snap into place?
It’s a new world you’re about to enter, one where relationships
with influentials and search engine optimization strategy are equally
important, and one where your news will be passed around the
world very quickly. You don’t believe me?
xviii
Foreword
flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xviii
Look at how the world found out I was leaving Microsoft for a Sil-
icon Valley startup (PodTech.net).
I told 15 people at a videoblogging conference—not A-listers
either, just everyday videobloggers. I asked them not to tell anyone
until Tuesday—this was on a Saturday afternoon and I still hadn’t
told my boss.
Well, of course someone leaked that information. But, it didn’t
pop up in the New York Times. It wasn’t discussed on CNN. No, it
was a blogger I had never even heard of that posted the info first.
Within hours it was on hundreds of other blogs. Within two days
it was in the Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times, on the front
page of the BBC Web site, in BusinessWeek, Economist, in more than
140 newspapers around the world (friends called me from Australia,
Germany, Israel, and England, among other countries) and other
places. Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft’s PR agency, was keeping track
and said that about 50 million media impressions occurred on my
name in the first week.
All due to 15 conversations.
Whoa, what’s up here? Well, if you have a story worth repeating,
bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers (among other influentials)
will repeat your story all over the world, potentially bringing hun-

dreds of thousands or millions of people your way. One link on a site
like Digg alone could bring tens of thousands of visitors.
How did that happen?
Well, for one, lots of people knew me, knew my phone number,
knew what kind of car I drove, knew my wife and son, knew my
best friends, knew where I worked, and had heard me in about
700 videos that I posted at on behalf of
Microsoft.
They also knew where I went to college (and high school and
middle school), and countless other details about me. How do you
know they know all this? Well, they wrote a page on Wikipedia
about me at a sin-
gle thing on that page was written by me.
Foreword xix
flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xix
What did all that knowledge of me turn into? Credibility and
authority. Translation: People knew me, knew where I was coming
from, knew I was passionate and authoritative about technology,
and came to trust me where they wouldn’t trust most corporate
authorities.
By reading this book you’ll understand how to gain the credibility
you need to build your business. Enjoy!
R
OBERT SCOBLE
Vice President Media Development, PodTech.net
Co-author, Naked Conversations
Scobleizer.com
xx
Foreword
flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xx

Introduction
A
t the height of the dot-com boom, I was vice president of mar-
keting at NewsEdge Corporation, a NASDAQ-traded online
news distributor with more than $70 million in annual revenue. My
multimillion-dollar marketing budget included tens of thousands of
dollars per month for a public relations agency, hundreds of thou-
sands per year for print advertising and glossy collateral materials,
and expensive participation at a dozen trade shows a year. My team
put these things on our marketing to-do list, worked like hell to exe-
cute, and paid the big bucks because that’s what marketing and PR
people did. These efforts made us feel good because we were doing
something, but the programs were not producing significant, measur-
able results.
At the same time, drawing on experience I had gained in my pre-
vious position as Asia marketing director for the online division of
Knight-Ridder, then one of the largest newspaper companies in the
world, my team and I quietly created content-based, “thought lead-
ership” marketing and PR programs on the Web. Against the advice
of the PR agency professionals we had on retainer (who insisted that
press releases were only for the press), we wrote and sent dozens of
releases ourselves. Each time we sent a release, it appeared on online
services such as Yahoo!, resulting in sales leads. Even though our ad-
vertising agency told us not to put the valuable information “some-
where where competitors could steal it,” we created a monthly
newsletter called TheEdge about the exploding world of digital news
and made it freely available on the homepage of our Web site because
it generated interest from buyers, the media, and analysts. Way back in
the 1990s, when Web marketing and PR was in its infancy, my team
flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xxi

and I ignored the old rules, drawing instead on my experience work-
ing at an online publisher, and created a marketing strategy using
online content to reach buyers directly on the Web. The home-
grown, do-it-yourself programs we created at virtually no cost con-
sistently generated more interest from qualified buyers, the media,
and analysts—and resulted in more sales—than the big-bucks pro-
grams that the “professionals” were running for us. People we never
heard of were finding us through search engines. I had stumbled on
a better way to reach buyers.
In 2002, after NewsEdge was sold to The Thomson Corporation, I
started my own business to refine my ideas, work with select clients,
and teach others through writing, speaking at conferences, and con-
ducting seminars for corporate groups. The object of all this work
was reaching buyers directly with Web content. Since then, many
new forms of online media have burst onto the scene, including
blogs, podcasts, video, and virtual communities. But what all the
new Web tools and techniques have in common is that together they
are the best way to communicate directly with your marketplace.
This book actually started as a Web marketing and PR program on
my blog. In January 2006, I published an e-book called The New
Rules of PR,
1
immediately generating remarkable enthusiasm (and
much controversy) from marketers and businesspeople around the
world. Since the e-book was published, it has been downloaded
more than 200,000 times and commented on by thousands of read-
ers on my blog and those of many other bloggers. To those of you
who have read and shared the e-book, thank you. But this book is
much more than just an expansion of that work, because I have
made its subject marketing and PR instead of just PR and because

I’ve included many different forms of online media and conducted
more than a year of additional research.
This book contains much more than just my own ideas, because I
have blogged the book, section by section, as I have written it. Thou-
xxii
Introduction
1
/>flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xxii
sands of you have followed along, and many have contributed to the
writing process by offering suggestions via comments on my blog
and e-mail. Thank you for contributing your ideas. And thank you
for arguing with me when I got off track. Your enthusiasm has made
the book much better than if I had written in isolation.
The Web has changed not only the rules of marketing and PR, but
also the business-book model, and The New Rules of Marketing and
PR is an interesting example. My online content (the e-book and my
blog) led me directly to a print book deal. I was fortunate to meet Joe
Wikert,
2
vice president and executive publisher in the Profes-
sional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and writer of the
terrific Publishing 2020 blog, at a conference in San Francisco. Joe
and I linked up and commented on each other’s blogs and I thank
him for his help in navigating Wiley, which resulted in the book you
are reading now. I also published early drafts of sections of the
book on my blog. Other publishers would have freaked out if an
author wanted to put parts of his book online (for free!) to solicit
ideas. Wiley encouraged it. In fact, some of my favorite books
evolved on blogs, including Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble
3

and Shel Israel,
4
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson,
5
and Small Is the
New Big by Seth Godin
6
—great company indeed. Thanks for lead-
ing the way, guys.
The New Rules
One of the more interesting debates about this book has been over
its title. Many people have told me they like the title because they
know what they will be getting. It’s descriptive. But others have
Introduction xxiii
2
/>3
/>4
/>5
/>6
/>flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xxiii
fought me, saying that there are all kinds of new rules being touted
in books and elsewhere but that rarely deliver. “New rules” are just
hype, they say. One such comment, on Brian Clark’s terrific Copy-
blogger,
7
said people who create “new business ideas” only distract
you from the fundamentals of business and communication, which
haven’t changed for hundreds of years. While it’s true that a search
on Amazon for “new rules” brings up thousands of book titles, the
Web truly does offer marketers a new way of doing things. I am con-

fident in my choice of title, because before the Web the only way you
could get your organization noticed was to buy advertising of some
kind or convince a journalist to write about you. Telling your organi-
zation’s story directly (via the Web) is new, because, until now,
you’ve never been able to reach a potential audience in the millions
without buying expensive advertising or getting media coverage.
Here’s the problem, though: There are many people who still ap-
ply the old rules of advertising and media relations to the new
medium of the Web, and fail miserably as a result. I am firmly con-
vinced that we’re now in an environment governed by new rules,
and this book is your guide to that (online) world.
Trying to Write Like
a Blog, But in a Book
As the lines between marketing and PR on the Web have blurred so
much as to be virtually unrecognizable, the best media choice is of-
ten not as obvious as in the old days. But I had to organize the book
somehow, and I chose to create chapters for the various online me-
dia, including blogs, podcasts, online forums, social networking, and
so on. But the truth is that all these tools and techniques intersect
and complement one another. Some things were difficult to place
xxiv
Introduction
7
/>flast.qxd 5/10/07 4:22 PM Page xxiv