Create a rave

After hearing firsthand from David Meerman Scott during a visit he made to the Twin Cities last fall, and getting a sneak peek back then at his now-published new book World Wide Rave, I recently got a copy and took some time to read through his longer take and analysis on the major points he developed for it.

Great stuff. Like one of his previous books, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, the topics that Meerman Scott covers in World Wide Rave intrigue me both as a corporate communicator by day and as a digital media business owner on the side.

Getting people to get interested in your content and your business or organization - and then getting them to share your content and ideas – is the name of the 2009 game and beyond. Businesses who don’t get that right now, are losing opportunities by the day, by the hour.

But it’s not about pitching your products and “solutions.”

And you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to play this game. Yes, I’m a disciple. I don’t hesitate to discuss these ideas and tactics with any business leader or business owner I run into.

It is such an exciting time to be in the middle of this shift in strategy for public relations and marketing, especially for me, coming from a television news background to a corporate setting. The shift in the amount of attention marketers are paying to radio/TV and print outlets compared to the Web is one thing.

But what’s more intriguing in all this is how businesses and organizations can push out their own content and integrate it across social media channels.

You have a story or two to tell, right? Is the media telling it for you?

No? Then it’s time to look to World Wide Rave to get some ideas.

There’s a boatload of content in the book – including many great examples of people who have had success in social media, that you haven’t read about before - but here are a few of my thoughts:

*Your “world” can be as small or as big as you define it. If you’re a high school football coach, your ”World Wide Rave” happens when you do things to reach and impact everyone in your city that cares about your school and your team. A weekly podcast perhaps?

*In a subchapter titled “A World Wide Rave is not about sales leads,” Meerman Scott hits on the measurement aspect of producing your own content for the Web that trips many companies up.

Don’t think in terms of press clips – the old ways – because they don’t capture the way ideas travel on the Web, and get shared, linked to, etc… Also, don’t make people register to get your free white paper, your podcast, etc… Why put up that barrier? Give it to them - and hope they share it.

*Meerman Scott titles one of his subchapters “Hire a journalist.” Couldn’t agree with that more as a good tactic for a corporate communications department to do. Of course, I’m biased. But creating content that people want to share demands that you tell a story. Who better to help you craft a story than someone who can “see” the compelling elements where your corporate-trained mind can’t?

Look, no one has pulled the plug on traditional media just yet. Podcasts are popular but radio’s still kicking.

TV shows and movies are watched on the Web and mobile devices but the TV stations are still around and movie theaters are still being built every day.

Blogs are gaining credibility and influence as trusted content providers but newspapers are… well, maybe there’s one traditional media channel in more trouble than the others.

I’m still very much in the camp that new media efforts and social media are “in addition to” tactics and not “instead of.”

But if you haven’t fully thought about the possibilities of what can happen when you take a story about your business (not about your products) from your mind to the masses – instead of solely relying on the media - pick up David Meerman Scott’s World Wide Rave to get smarter about how to do it.