Web 4.0: R U Ready?

“It’s not web 2.0. It’s not web 3.0. It’s simply life.”

Peter Shankman, Social Media Expert

At the PRSA-LA Social Media Workshop, Peter Shankman returned to themes first introduced by Emanuel Rosen. Throughout his entertaining stories, he repeatedly  illustrated the foothold the individual is gaining over traditional marketing and public relations efforts thanks to the developments in technology. Celebrated reviewers of services, restaurants, media, and other such venues are increasingly  less effective and credible.

Moreover, each our personal networks is fluid and changing. The relevance of connections fluctuates throughout the day. Those seeking to use social media effectively for branding or influencing will need to work within established but changing communities.

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The New Rules of Marketing & PR

By David Meerman Scott

ISBN: (978-0-470-37928-8) This revised edition was published 2009 by John Wiley & Sons.

Take Away Message:

The Web allows real-time, many-to-many interactions between the public and the organization. Therefore, marketers need to think like PR pros and PR pros need to think like facilitators who engage the public in an ongoing dialogue.

REVIEW

Rules are tricky things. I tend to see rules as fixed, unchanging and rigid. So any book about rules, especially one about rules for marketing or PR where success usually comes by bending or breaking the rules is immediately suspect. But David Meerman Scott likes the rules he outlines in The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Since the old rules, listed on page 12, guiding marketing and public relations are now obsolete thanks to the Internet, new ones are needed. I think for Scott, rules are designed to shape fair play. Since the game board has moved from analogue to digital, the rules of fair play must also change (and he presents new rules on page 25). Yet, rules have no meaning without authoritative enforcement, and the web remains a lawless frontier despite efforts to regulate and police online activity.

So why pretend? Scott needs rules to frame a more meaningful argument: that the professions of marketing (i.e. sales and branding) and public relations (i.e. image development and protection) are no longer distinct. Tactics that worked when television and magazines held sway are not going to be effective in the digital age. Scott’s rules serve to guide PR and marketing professionals through a new domain—he is a tour guide trying to explain the Wild West to Japanese tourists.

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