The New Rules of Marketing & PR

Our book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” was full of useful information and it was really hard to pick one idea that I most agree with because there were many. Chapter 15 talks about mobile marketing and mobile marketing is one of the many ideas that I strongly agree with from our book. On page 235, it says, “because buyers use their mobiles to search for products and services in the time of need. You’ve got an opportunity to move them from being a one-time looker to a long-term fan.” Mobile marketing is what will make those customers come back. Working at a retail company, I can say that mobile marketing is huge. An article “Why Should Marketers Care About Mobile Marketing” points out some great points of why mobile marketing is important. Some of the points are mobile is arguably the closest you can get to the consumer, the physics of media indicate that the new channel has the biggest advantage, mobile right now is a great deal.

One of the ideas that I disagree with from our book was in chapter 15. QR codes were really hot about a year ago but things haven’t been as hot as they once were. To me, I have never understood the whole idea of QR code. The only time I have used one was at 54^th street to get coupons. I disagree with the idea of QR codes because it is fading and the importance of them is not there. An article “Are QR codes losing their magnetism?” would agree that QR codes are fading. One of the problems with having QR codes everywhere is marketers did not use it well. Once marketers understand how to properly use QR codes, they could be a great look for consumers to learn more

One chapter that stood out to me the most was in Chapter 4 Social Media and Your Targeted Audience. We have learned through out this semester that Social Media is growing and it is only going to get bigger and more influential. Social media is a huge part of our everyday life. One of the first things I do when I get up in the morning is check my social media and see what has been going on.

In chapter 4 it talks about social media and how people are able to express their opinions on things like social networking, blogs, video and photo sharing, chat rooms and message boards, listservs, wikis, social bookmarking, mobile applications. Social media allows people like us to share information with anyone that is willing to listen. One of the things that I have noticed is that not everyone feels the same way about social media and chapter 4 makes a great point. On page 54 of our book it says, “The best way to think about social media is not in terms of the different technologies and tools but, rather how those technologies and tools allow you to communicate directly with your buyers in places they are congregating right now.” I think it is really important that people realize that social media could be really helpful and useful, you just got to give it a chance. 

Over all, I think that this book was great. Since it was so up to date it gave some great pointers about social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, etc.. It was really easy to read and understand what Scott wanted us to get from the book. One of the things I really liked was the examples that were used in the book. Even though they weren’t all recent they were some of the greatest examples that you can take a lot away from. I would definitely recommend this book for the next class. Even if the book gets outdated you will still be able to learn a great deal from it. I found this book most useful out of the two books that we read from. I found myself copying some of the pages out of the book because it had useful information I did not want to forget.

Is social media worth your time?

I would like to start out by saying that this article made some really good points about old fashion PR. I was so drawn into this article that it makes me want to think of the way I should do PR when I get a job. We are all so use to PR 2.0 and how everyone is attached to social media. Then again, people have done PR with out social media for years and have done fine, if not better. I think that there are positives and negatives to both types of PR. Lately, it is harder for our age group to understand that PR is possible to be completed the old fashion way because we are so used to social media. I do not know how I feel about the article saying that social media is a complete waste of time. I can see where he is coming from but I think what we need is to find a happy medium. There is a way we can do both old fashion PR and use some social media. That way, we are not relying only on social media to do all the work. I’m not going to lie; I am really impressed that some of the most accomplishing PR was done with out all the major social media.

 

On page 30 of Solis and Breckenridge it says, “with web 2.0, the ability for everyday people to publish content and build authority exploded.” We have also seen many companies do some awesome things because of social media and this is why we need social media for our PR. On page 3, of Solis and Breckenridge it says, “Social Media also forces PR to see things differently.” I think that book makes a really good point that having social media helps us reach those people that we may have not been able to reach before. In our article it talks about using email and telephone use to get a hold of someone but that’s not possible. I think social media opens that door so that you can have all the access in the world. Also, we know that things are changing and being ahead of the game is key. This is why we need to be able to know how to use social media for our PR but not to the extent to where we are not wasting time. I know that we can’t, “Spend time meeting reporters, crafting your message and getting placements in major media or your local publication, or you can type the keyboard for hundreds of hours hoping someone “Likes” your brilliant post on Facebook or follows your wickedly awesome tweets on Twitter.”

 

I found a really interesting article that also talks about social media being a waste of time and money. The name of the article is Social Media: why it’s a big fat waste of time and money. Just the beginning of the article it makes a really good point saying, “The problem is that social media rarely has any strategy or business purpose behind it. (Hint: getting as many Facebook likes as humanly possible is not a social media strategy!).” I do not think that many of us realize that this really happens. I can see that some people may get carried away and use social media because other companies use social media and that could potentially be bad. My thoughts are that this article and the article that we were given tell us that we don’t need social media. It may have a hidden meaning saying that people do not know how to use social media wisely.

 

It is really hard for me to pick one kind of PR instead of the other. This is why I keep going back and forth in my answer because I see positives in both. I can see how it would be beneficial to use old fashion PR and I also see how social media helps PR people. This is why I have mentioned earlier we need to compromise and be able to do both.