His cover was the first draft of covers for his book. It was the first one of 5 concepts.
The testimonials on the back of his book are all fake. His footnotes are funny. He actually outted authors who write their own testimonials or get unauthentic ones.
Scott encourages people to keep their phones on.
The only thing you have to take away today is that “Marketing Is Not A Task” – everything is marketing. Every time you tweet, every time you go to a conference, it’s branding. If you’re puking outside on the street because you got sick at an event, that’s your brand.
Your front line is your biggest brand. It’s the most engaging tool you have.
“Old and Cold” is a bad combination for anything. He had a cold, old breakfast at a buffet and when he told the waitress, she just stared. Then she stared before getting a manager who created a remedy. He didn’t tweet or blast the restaurant publicly – the manager offered additional food, but then took care of the bill. What happened next was key – the chef flagged him down and explained why the food was bad. He said there was no excuse, but explained the situation. Then he asked what he could do – Scott told him he already solved the issue by just giving a damn.
One chef, not the CEO or the manager, was the brand of that restaurant. He fixed the issue, gave a damn and defined the brand for Scott. He wasn’t trying to push the brand, he was just trying to make things right.
“People Spread Awesome” – No one says “You need to go read Scott’s new blog! It’s pretty okay!” People only spread awesome. Bloggers write for frequency rather than “awesome” – the frequency is “whenever you have something to say.” Be frequent with “Awesome.”
No one’s said “This blog is okay, but it’s published weekly so that’s not bad.” The reaction should be “It’s got to be good, it was blogged!”
Creating Awesome isn’t creating Content.
“When you shift a communication method, you shift a population.” Social media is shifting a population.
But what we need to do is fix the bright, shiny product syndrome. You need to fix your company, fix your products. Social media isn’t for everybody. If you suck, you just suck harder in social media. If social media isn’t for you, don’t use it.
If you want to use Reddit or Digg, you need to cater to the geek crowd. What’s interesting is that his site started getting traction on Reddit and Digg – but Facebook and Twitter carried it.
Stopping the Spread: When we create content, we do things to stop the spread. Look at the RSS feed. In the prime space on the blog, you have the RSS logo. This only appeals to geeks.
“I am a geek and I don’t subscribe this way. You should have a system that people actually use. Make the email signup as prominent, if not MORE prominent than the RSS. It’s not your job to tell your audience how to consume your content – you just want them to consume it.”
What are people doing to enable mobile? If people are roaming, will they want to visit your site? People are shifting to mobile – it doesn’t matter if YOU don’t like viewing sites on your mobile device, other people do.
Zynga, the company behind farmville, is worth ~$5billion. You can pay them any which way – they will take your money however you want to give it. The harder you make it for people to connect, the higher your drop rate goes. Think about what you need – you don’t need a phone number for a mailing list! You need a first name and email address!
SEO – it gets you an initial hit, but no one tells their friends about something that’s keyword rich.
AdSense – if you have AdSense, people end up leaving your site to go to someone else.
Popups – it’s like throwing a shoe at a customer on the way out of your store to stop them and then asking them to buy something that you’re desperate to sell at a discount. “Assault may work from time to time because people will pay you to stop abusing them, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good sales tactic.”
Captcha – What is that?!? It can look like a drunk bat that’s been hit by a car. You don’t need to put a Captcha when people are trying to buy something. Using Askimet and Disqus, Scott’s gotten less than .2% spam actually posted to his blog.
Moderation – stops people from engaging in real-time and being inclined to share.
Social media success doesn’t exist. It’s a tool. You need to pick your tools and use them to build the relationships you want to have in social media. Relationships take time, they take investment. You can’t get 10,000 followers without tweeting. The reason for his success is that 75% of Scott’s tweets are replies. Building relationships this way gets you more re-tweets.
This book tour was based on relationships from Twitter. Relationships are the business of Twitter. “No entrepreneurs say it’s easy – they work their asses off. It’s the implementation of ideas.”
“Technology should not change your etiquette and common courtesy.”
The problem with ROI is that people don’t understand the R or the I every time. Sometimes this just isn’t monetary. There are other metrics.
We need to remember that social media is public. Your mom can see it, but customer service is public, too. People can see what you’re telling your customers.
Trolls. Trolls are people who attack others online. You need to know when you engage in this area. If you engage jackasses online, the end result needs to be worth it. If non-influential people aren’t offering you something constructive online, they don’t deserve your time. You can post responses, but why?
You can ignore those people and just be yourself online.
