Hello and thanks for visiting. This is the former blog of David Meerman Scott’s Social Media Master Class. To view the new and improved blog, please go here. Thanks so much.

Yep. 5 Sleeps. Count them. And then the Freakin Early Bird (FIB) offer expires. True. It’s hardwired into the system, cannot over-ride. 

$675 + GST for a full day masterclass with David Meerman Scott + interactive panel + copy of World Wide Rave + cocktail party + snuggie. Ok. That was too much.

At any rate, awesome value as it goes up to $745 + GST until July 31, $815 + GST for any tickets left in August.

Book Sydney here – Sep 2

Book Melbourne here – Sep 4

And big thanks to Trevor Young of PR Warrior  for his review of WWR…for more details have a look.

In David’s  new book, World Wide Rave, he introduces a list of 6 Rules of the Rave. These Rules of the Rave are what David sees as predictors of success if you intend on having millions of people talking about your product/service or company. Over the next six weeks we will introduce each rule and provide some examples of how they apply to the Australian market.

Rule 1: Nobody cares about your product.

Ouch. That hurt didn’t it? When you follow this rule, you throw away all the advertising and marketing books on how to write great copy about your products (well, perhaps just shelve them?). All you have to do is simply make your product solve your customers’ problems. Great sales folk know  it’s more about benefits, and less about features. What will this product/service do for you and your problems / or needs?

Now to do this, you really need to understand your “buyer persona”. For those fans of  The New Rules of Marketing and PR, you will be familiar with the term. A buyer persona extends the traditional understanding of customer segmentation and buyer demographics. It’s about really understanding the mindset and the motivations.

In Australia, Queensland Tourism, and their advertising agency Cummins Nitro really nailed this rule when they introduced the “Best Job in the World” Campaign.  In understanding their buyer persona, they provided a solution to a common problem (my job is boring / I’m not paid enough). I mean seriously, who wouldn’t want 6 months at $150K as an island caretaker?? 

In so doing, they generated between $100 – $200 million worth of free publicity with the whole world talking about the promotion. Not a word about the product. Brilliant.

 [ 23/6 WHOAH! UPDATE - Cummins Nitro awarded not one but 2 Grand Prix awards at Cannes Lions for this campaign. Kudos!!! thanks Mumbrella.]

E-books work too!

When you understand your buyer persona, you understand the potential solutions to their problems. This is why the free e-book becomes a really important marketing tool, and potential for creating a world wide rave.  Still in the tourism sector, The Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) published a free social media marketing e-kit which is a step-by-step guide  online marketing for tourism operators .  They’ve now achieved just over 70,000 downloads and gained international attention. Hat tip to the good folks at  www.untanglemyweb.com who were the primary online marketing consultants for the project.

So in thinking about Rule 1 of the Rave, what’s been your favourite example of an Australian company understanding the buyer persona and meeting their need?

Attending Tweetupmellers? You’re in the running for a set of David Meerman Scott’s best selling book The Rules of Marketing and PR, and his latest book World Wide Rave! I think I hear the distant cries of “Woop Woop”" ? !

What’s Tweetupmellers?

When people on Twitter meet in real life, it’s often called a “Tweetup”.  There’s a whole stack of them occurring all over the country.  Tweetupmellers is the real time, face-to-face networking baby of Sam Mutimer or Sam 2.0 as she is better known. This Thursday’s event (The Social in Windsor)  is turning into a cracker! 51 currently attending and the numbers are expected to rise! Follow them: @tweetupmellers or have alook at the Facebook fanpage for more details

Twitter Round Up

While we’re on the topic (and do be assured that Social Media and Online Marketing is not just about Twitter), for many people, Twitter has replaced a RSS feed. Here’s a list of the posts we liked this week found on Twitter.

 Is Social Media the New Punk Rock – Gerry McCusker’s Punk Rock / Social Media youtube clip via @themediapod

[25/6/09 UPDATE - Goodness! Check out the debate on Mumbrella about this clip! Awesome work Gerry!!]

How will you be judged? A cautionary tale on how your online persona is viewed by @anotheradwanker

Latest list of top Australian marketing blogs  via @bandt

An interesting discussion on the lack of marketers in the  top marketing blogs  via @katekendall

Is Social Media killing PR ? A provocative look at “Marauding Bloggers”…by @trevoryoung

If you had a favourite, you think should be on the list, let us know! Later in the week we’ll introduce you to the “First Rule of the Rave” (cue fanfare!)

A popular post by David earlier this week (http://www.webinknow.com/2009/06/everybody-is-wrong.html) repeated here with permission.  It begs the question:

What conventional wisdom that “everybody knows” can you challenge?

I’ve gotten tremendous pushback from thousands of people over the past decade on these ideas. But I’ve also had thousands of people reach out to me to say that these ideas have been incredibly helpful to them.

Some of the best ideas come from contrarians.

Here are some things I’ve challenged in the past ten years.

“Everybody knows that marketing is about promoting your product.”

Everybody is wrong. When you adhere to the famous “four Ps of marketing” and talk up your product (the first P) you end up with egotistical nonsense. Nobody cares about your products. They care about themselves and solving their problems. Marketing is about understanding your buyer personas and creating information that they want to consume.

“Everybody knows that PR is about pitching the media.”

Everybody is wrong. These days, journalists don’t passively wait to see what brilliant PR pitches are sitting in their email in-box. In fact, they increasingly see email pitches as spam. However journalists are looking for story ideas all the time by searching Google, reading blogs, and following Twitter. Are they finding you?

“Everybody knows that the press release is dead.”

Everybody is wrong. The press release is an effective media to reach buyers directly. When you craft a release from your buyers’ perspective and send it through one of the press release distribution services, your news hits people’s Google Alerts, is indexed by the news search engines, and is syndicated to hundreds of news portals, vertical market sites, and via RSS feeds.

“Everybody knows that newspapers are dying.”

Everybody is wrong. When television came around, people predicted the death of radio. Radio didn’t go away, but the ways people consumed radio content changed because people didn’t sit around watching the radio in their living rooms anymore. The Web will not kill newspapers. But individual newspapers like my hometown paper The Boston Globe have to change and adapt to survive.

“Everybody knows that working for a big company means you have job security.”

Everybody is wrong. Just ask people who worked for Bear Stearns or Enron or Worldcom or Lehman Brothers about job security. You make your own security by being excellent at what you do. I was fired three times. Now, by working for themselves, millions of people have the greatest job security there is.

Here’s a new one I am hearing more and more.

“Everybody knows that social media changes everything.”

Everybody is wrong. Yes, social media is changing the ways that companies are communicating on the web. But that doesn’t mean that offline marketing and communications is changing. You still need to meet with customers. Sometimes attending or exhibiting at a trade show is a good idea. TV and magazine advertising can still be effective. And getting your company into the Wall Street Journal or seen on Oprah (or your trade publication) has tremendous value.

What conventional wisdom that “everybody knows” can you challenge?

It’s true! Next Digital and Jennifer Frahm Collaborations are bringing David Meerman Scott to Australia for two one day intensive and interactive masterclasses on social media and online marketing.

Mark your diaries:

Sydney 2 September, Convention & Exhibition Centre

Melbourne 4 September, Champions, Federation Square,

Super Early Bird price (ends June 30 2009)

$675 AUD ex GST

David Meerman Scott is the best bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and most recently World Wide Rave. He’ll work with you on how to:·

• use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing and online media to reach consumers directly
• trigger millions of people to share your ideas and stories·
• transform your marketing and PR efforts·
• understand your buyer personas and stop wasting money·
• create value for your marketing strategy·
• build knowledge and confidence to talk the language of social media with clients and executive·
• recognise how your existing business models may need to change

It’s a day designed to inspire you, offering insight, real case studies and provocation. Additionally, David will join an industry panel at the end of the day to explore some of the big issues for Australian Marketers and PR agencies. Finish the day with networking drinks and collect your copy of World Wide Rave!

Who should attend?

Marketing executives, Marketing Managers, Marketing consultants, Corporate Communications Managers, Stakeholder communications managers, Advertising Managers, PR Executives, PR Managers, PR consultants, Digital visionaries, Entrepreneurs

 Hi, I’m Jennifer Frahm (@jenfrahm on Twitter). Welcome to the supporting blog of David Meerman Scott’s Australian Masterclass series in Sydney and Melbourne, we’re going to be posting updates, case studies, thoughts on the upcoming events with David here.  Some of you may be wondering: How did this happen? It’s kind of an interesting story, almost a post script of my earlier post on my other blog of my first 100 days of Twitter.

So Easter Saturday, I saw David tweet he was heading over to Wellington for a 2 day seminar the following week. There’s not much hierachy in Twitterland, and while there are some Twitter-celebs who don’t engage with the newbies, I had a hunch David might be different. I sent him a tweet asking if he had plans to come to Australia (well c’mon, you fly all that way to NZ and don’t come here?). He didn’t have time, but indicated his interest in coming later. So a week later I sent David a proposal to consider. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing, conversations, and a skype or two later, and voila: A Social Media and Online Marketing Masterclass is born!

You see, I run events for IABC Victoria, work in communications consulting, have worked in marketing, and hang out with marketing managers and PR folk, socially and for business. I knew that a number of them were struggling professionally with what to do about Social Media. It was even more stressful for them as their GMs and CEOs and clients were expecting them to be able to advise them on what their organisations should be doing! I figured the time was right for a high level Masterclass pitched at Executives.

 David is the best selling author of the The New Rules of Marketing and PR (a bit of a bible really) and most recently World Wide Rave. Another colleague Mark Parker (@smartselling) saw him present last year and was blown away - he said,

I had the opportunity to hear David speak at the New Marketing Summit in Boston in October last year. David delivered the key note speech at the event and chaired a number of panel sessions. Of the many great speakers at the event, David stood out for me because he clearly knows what he is talking about and has an almost Australian sense of self-deprecating humour.

David Meerman Scott coming down under to talk social media and online marketing is great news for those of us involved in this space.

I would encourage anyone involved in marketing, sales, or PR to attend the events in Melbourne or Sydney – you won’t regret it.

But the Twittering didn’t stop there! I knew I wanted a Digital Agency and a PR Agency to partner with. The great thing about Twitter is you get to see people in a fairly unedited fashion (what they read, how they interact, how much thought leadership they offer). I knew who I really wanted to work with. So I reached out to one of my followers @nextbrett from Next Digital and got some contacts, and then to @trevoryoung of ParkYoung, and now I am thrilled to say I couldn’t have better partners on a very exciting project!

Sounds like Twitter may have a little more to offer than just answering “what are you doing now” ?

Follow us at @SocialMediaMC for more updates…