I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.
Here we go again. Another major social technology company focused more on profit than on serving its users is changing how we communicate. As of now, Facebook Live videos will be deleted after 30 days. Previously, Facebook Live videos never disappeared.
Today is Patriots' Day, a Massachusetts state holiday that commemorates the start of the American Revolutionary War.
Trader Joes, a chain of grocery stores offering unique and interesting products often under its own brand, has legions of passionate fans. Many waited in line last week to secure a prized Trader Joe's branded miniature canvas tote bag offered in four pastel colors.
Congratulations soon-to-be graduates! If you live in North America, in about a month you will be out in the world.
A fabulous analysis in The Atlantic by Alex Reisner The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem shows how employees at Meta, all the way up to “MZ” (presumably Zuckerberg), chose to steal 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers to train its flagship AI mode...
Facebook’s artificial intelligence algorithm isn’t just an innocent piece of code—it’s a carefully tuned, profit-driven machine that thrives on polarization and division.
I was looking through some older blog posts today, and I discovered a post I wrote 15 years ago that I had forgotten about. Re-reading it today made me laugh, so I thought I’d post it again. +++++++++++++ So last night I made my way to Pakhuis Wilhelmina, a funky former ware...
When you think about positioning your business, where do you turn for comparison?
A year ago, I discovered the thriving Lindy Hop dance community in the Boston area where I live and I dove into the deep end, taking group and private lessons and going to social dances most weekends.
How much can you accomplish in a day? The answer, of course, depends on how you schedule your time.
I love when history merges with marketing! Last week I visited the 117-year-old Carnation Farms in Washington state. The organization celebrates its history as a way to market its modern businesses.
The LinkedIn algorithm prioritizes engagement. The more discussion on a post, the more the AI algorithm kicks in and shares content with more people inside and outside your own network.
The term “Free Speech” has been tossed around a great deal in the past few years. While I am one hundred percent all in for freedom of speech, the amplification of ideas on social networks like X and Facebook is quite different.
My father graduated from Harvard Business School in 1958. He really, really wanted me to go too. I took a swipe, applying to HBS in the late 1980s. Rejected! I failed to be allowed to enter via Harvard’s tightly locked front door.
In 2025, we have a choice of how we create. Will you pay attention to what matters, draw from passion and personality, adding dash of artistic flair to create something beautiful? Or will you dash off an AI prompt, push a button, and barf up something just okay?
In the past month, I’ve been a guest lecturer in marketing classes at a half dozen Universities that use my book The New Rules of Marketing and PR in class. I’ve also worked with several marketing teams at companies. While people ask the question in different ways, I’m frequ...
I’m considering a new car and have been poking around the various automaker websites in the past few weeks. It’s been frustrating!
My friend Peggy Sullivan delivered a fabulous talk at TEDx Walden Pond last month titled “Eliminating time poverty by doing less”. Her message is a simple yet powerful one - “Eat, work, sleep, repeat” - busyness is the silent addiction that keeps individuals and organization...
As social networks become more important for organizations of all kinds, often the key question is how to integrate them into an overall marketing strategy. Ani Sanyal, CEO of Kolkata Chai Co., uses Instagram and a website to grow the business he co-founded with his brother ...
In prime real estate at my local shopping mall, a Yamaha piano dealer is actively discouraging customers. On every piano is a sign reading: “Please Do Not Play Without Permission”.
OpenAI introduced the new ChatGPT Search, showing the future of how we will find information. This development is good news for content creators because now the sources of information that makes up a ChatGPT natural language prompt response are displayed.
I’m a fan of repurposing content - write once and publish in multiple places. You might be reading this on my blog or on my LinkedIn Newsletter or perhaps you clicked a link to get here from X. Creating once and publishing in several ways is quite easy.
When I was on my thru hike of the Long Trail in September, I hiked an average of 8 hours a day for 26 days. There was no possible way to carry enough calories, so when I had an opportunity to eat in a restaurant, I went. And I ate a lot!
At a town hall event four years ago, I had an opportunity to ask US presidential candidate Kamala Harris the question, "What are you a fan of?" The answer she gave from the stage, “I love music… I am especially fond of Bob Marley,” was surprising in its honesty.
For the first time since graduating from university, I took a month off. For my sabbatical during the month of September, I thru-hiked (and climbed) the entire 273-mile Long Trail in Vermont, the oldest long distance hiking trail in the US and widely considered the most diff...
When a customer begins the buying journey for a complex sale, they usually want to learn about their sales representative. This is true for both big-ticket consumer purchases as well as B2B products and services.
Applications to syndicate video and audio feeds to multiple social networking destinations have exploded in recent years. Apps such as Restream and StreamYard allow video creators to simultaneously go live to multiple streaming services, including YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn...
In the world of marketing, there is often a perceived divide between business-to-business (B2B) marketing and marketing to consumers. Many marketers believe that the strategies and tactics used in B2B marketing are vastly different from those used in consumer marketing.
It’s the new, new! The 9th edition of my international bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR is available today in print and ebook editions the USA and Canada and will soon be available in other countries! First published in 2007, in the same month as the iPhone 1 w...
Much of the buzz about ChatGPT and other LLM AI chatbots has been their use to query large sets of data found on the public web. Far more interesting to me, and where billions are being invested by venture capitalists right now, is how AI works with proprietary content.
For twenty years, Google was my go-to when I had a question. Google works great to surface relevant blue links that I can click to learn more. And in the past nearly two years, I’ve also been using ChatGPT to provide a descriptive answer to my queries. Perplexity.ai is a coo...
Collecting a ton of personal information from customers means application designers have an obligation to use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to make products easier to use. It's the human thing to do. Yet many companies don’t deploy AI and ML.
Seeing my favorite band at the most technologically advanced music venue in the world was an exhilarating, fascinating, exciting, and just a little frustrating experience. Bobby Weir and Mickey Hart are cementing their legacy by continuing to innovate while performing a Grat...
The new film Fly Me to the Moon starring Scarlett Johansson & Channing Tatum is a romantic comedy set in the 1969 race to the moon. Johansson plays a marketing strategist planning a fake moon landing video in a NASA warehouse.
Fascinating research via Hopelab and the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education examining how young people perceive and interact with generative AI technologies show very slow adoption of this transformational technology. I think our educational ...
Thursday June 27 brings the first US Presidential debate of the 2024 election season. I love watching it play out before, during, and after the 90 minutes the candidate spar live on stage. The media will be hyping, the campaigns will be spinning, and memesters will be doing ...
The marketing & PR world has changed significantly in the past two years because of the wide adoption of Generative AI tools like ChatGPT. I’ve been working for months on the newest version of The New Rules of Marketing and PR to include the tools and tactics for how to ...
When Jesse Cole was a baseball-loving kid growing up near Boston, he dreamed of playing at Fenway Park. On Saturday, his Savannah Bananas, the team he’s owned since 2016, played their debut at Fenway, delighting the largest crowd at the storied ballpark this year. This is a ...
The Marketing AI Institute’s fabulous AI for B2B Marketers Summit today delivered tons of strategies and tactics on how AI can revolutionize business-to-business marketing and drive company growth. At the virtual event, I moderated a barnburner of a panel The Reality of AI A...
Bill Walton, noted Deadhead and NBA basketball Hall-of-Famer, was the happiest and most upbeat person I’ve ever met. He had a kind word for everybody and absolutely loved his life and everybody who was a part of it.
Several hours ago, Samsung released a remarkable video response to the recent Apple CRUSH video. The text at the end “Creativity cannot be crushed” wonderfully trolls Apple. This is a great example of Newsjacking.
Last week, just a few hours after its release, I wrote about Apple’s soul crushing, creator destroying video CRUSH, an ad released to launch the new iPad Pro. The next day, Apple apologized for its misstep.
In a massive fail, Apple used a truly heartbreaking video to launch its new iPad Pro yesterday. I’m not the only one who is disappointed in a company that was founded to aid in creativity.
In our polarized world, we cannot agree on the truth. Who won the 2020 US Presidential election? Are vaccines safe and effective? What’s going on with university campus protests? When we add dumb AI robots like the models underlying ChatGPT spitting out “answers” things get ...
I am often asked to critique marketing plans and programs as well as tactics like websites, and social networking feeds. My typical responses—“What's the goal?” and “What problems do you solve for your buyers?”—often throw people off.
Charity auctions are a way for people to support a cause that speaks to them, gain status, and have some fun too. My friend Seth Godin and a team of ruckus-makers just introduced GOODBIDS - a new way to create charity auctions.
Yes, all the hype about a total eclipse of the sun is accurate. It’s been a bit more than 24 hours and I’m still processing my experience, but here are some thoughts.
Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT makes content creation super easy. However, garbage web content has quickly become a huge and growing problem. Let’s call it what it is: AI Pollution.
Marketers are ineffective when they use the classic "customer testimonial" format and pop that onto their blog or make it into a video. "Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product."
Here's a simple marketing strategy planning template to help you implement strategies and tactics for reaching buyers directly. I believe it's essential to shift out of the marketer's comfort zone of preaching about products and services and the template helps people to do j...
As a unit, the combined sales and marketing team is charged with leading buyers along the sequence of interactions that lead to business success. But marketers and salespeople have different roles. By making certain we understand the difference, we can close the gap between ...
Many companies automatically send a survey after every transaction. Don’t these companies realize that they’re annoying the customers they say they value?
As I wrote in my book Fanocracy and I say in every talk I deliver, passion is infectious. Your passion for whatever you love serves to draw people to you. Yet most people are reluctant to mix their personal and professional lives.
For the past few weeks, I have been using Perplexity.ai as my default search engine. It’s a cool hybrid between a chatbot such as ChatGPT and a traditional blue link search engine like Google. The way Perplexity displays answers to natural language queries, showing a text an...
I took this photo at 11:30 in the morning on February 2, the first day that the much-hyped Apple Vision Pro headset was available for sale in USA Apple stores. My local store in the tech company heavy Boston suburbs was expecting substantial crowds that didn’t materialize.
On Saturday, I delivered a talk at the Boston RV and Camping Expo. While there, I was once again struck by how the whole recreational vehicle world is built on the ideas that my daughter Reiko and I wrote about in our Wall Street Journal bestselling book Fanocracy.
“As a Kid I sometimes feel like my voice doesn’t matter. I want to show the world it does matter!,” says Hannah Kesselring, a ten-year-old Hew Hampshire political fan I met at a recent Nikki Haley for President town hall event.
My talk at the Tony Robbins Business Mastery event last week was my tenth anniversary as part of this amazing community. Since 2014, I’ve delivered something like 30 presentations at Business Mastery events in four countries, sharing ideas on how to build fans and grow busin...
Korean culture is hot around the world. K-pop stars like BTS, Blackpink, and Stray Kids are at the top of the charts and sell out arena shows around the world. Squid Game reached number one on Netflix in 94 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. The g...
If 2023 was the year that ChatGPT ushered in an Artificial Intelligence revolution for the masses, then this year we will see creators and copyright owners at odds. I see the situation as like the skirmish between the Napster music file sharing service and music labels from ...
If I was going to trial, I’d hire a lawyer to advise me. And if I faced a PR crisis, I would hire a public relations team expert in crisis communications to advise me.
Publishing a book is the ultimate way to build authority and credibility in the marketplace. Your book can generate passionate fans of your work, lead to more business at higher fees, make raising VC funding easier, put you on the fast track for promotion, or launch a public...
I love this quote from Kim Gordon, founding member of the band Sonic Youth: “People pay to see others believe in themselves”. Gordon, as one of the early women of rock and roll, is a role model for a generation of women.
Korean pop music is a global phenomenon with bands racking up billions of YouTube views and creating massive fandoms. Into the mix comes MAVE, a virtual K-pop girl group with their first EP “What’s My Name” dropping today (November 30 at 6:00 pm Korea time).
The world wants to know who you are! And we’d like to learn about you in your own words.
I was fascinated by a little robot working away at the British Airways lounge in Boston. What a great example of how Artificial Intelligence and Robotics can help workers.
I love the new offering from Doritos. In a fabulous example of deeply understanding a buyer persona, the snack food brand just released a software plug-in that gamers (and others) can use to silence the annoying “crunch” sound when they are gaming or talking.
I recently learned that three of my books - The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Fanocracy, and Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead are part of the Books3 database which was used to train generative Artificial Intelligence systems by Meta, Bloomberg, and others.
Apparently, the Baseball World Series begins tomorrow. I had to go to the Web to learn which teams are playing this year – it’s the Diamondbacks vs. the Rangers. But wait… Rangers? I thought they were New York’s Hockey team.
Marketers have many choices about how we interact with existing and potential customers. We can be selfish, doing things for short-term revenue hits that annoy our best customers. Or we can build fans by focusing on what’s best for long-term loyalty.
I admire people who live a unique life, bouncing around, doing the things that interest them, living by their wits rather than just doing what’s accepted. John Perry Barlow was a unique character indeed, and my friend Brian Halligan is making a movie about Barlow’s life.
A fundamental marketing strategy is “owning” a phrase or a word in the mind of your potential customers. Done well, this form of marketing can mean ongoing sales of your product or service for many years and makes it difficult for other companies to compete.
More than 11,000 fans gathered in Boston for the annual HubSpot INBOUND conference in early September with another 100,000 participating virtually. I love that my friends at HubSpot have created a true Fanocracy, a community of like-minded people who are eager to travel from...
With the popularity of social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok as well as the rapid rise of chatbots accessing Generative AI Models, the once humble blog has rising in importance (once again) as a marketing strategy.
With more and more content generated by AI, a new peril has people who study these things buzzing, so-called “model collapse”.
Yesterday evening, Donald Trump got ahead of the news cycle by releasing his own mug shot in real time. He shared it to his email subscriber list and reactivated his X (the social network formerly known as Twitter) account after two years to share there as well.
AI-powered search is radically changing the way people use information on the Web, fundamentally disrupting how brands get found and rendering many Search Engine Marketing strategies obsolete. A list of blue links doesn’t apply with chatbot queries, so to get found you need ...
The question facing any innovative company forging a brand-new path where regulation doesn’t yet exist is: Are we doing the right thing? Companies with huge artificial Intelligence development efforts including Google/Alphabet, OpenAI, Facebook/Meta, Apple, and Microsoft req...
As you create web content for marketing purposes, a great strategy is to think like your buyer personas and generate written content, videos, images, and audio especially for them. As you do so, keep in mind that a variety of people with a wide range of abilities use the Web...
In an America beset by polarization, culture war bickering, and politicians wired to “fight” rather than solve problems, this is a mid-summer love story about a program created with true bipartisan support.
Have you signed of for Threads, the new Zuck-hyped short-form text app? It’s the fastest social network to reach 100 million users, but that’s to be expected when Meta releases a “Twitter-killer” and promotes it on its uber-popular Instagram and Facebook services.
Sometimes, the best way to build fans is to deliver your product with thoughtful packaging and a few bonus items. This past weekend, I received a pre-ordered t-shirt from Tour Bus with packaging so remarkable that I’m compelled to share with you now.
The 2024 US Presidential election will be significantly influenced by artificial intelligence. We are likely to see both legitimate and deliberately faked content plus manipulation on social networks, especially Facebook.
For decades, marketers have been the experts. We marketing people use our experience and creativity to make decisions. This reality isn’t going away! In fact, I think the new world of AI makes our work even more important, because we must always recognize the limitations of ...
Are you constantly telling people that you’re like another brand but somehow superior? Positioning in this way doesn’t work well, and often leads to a race to the bottom. It’s much better to carve out your own positioning rather than draft off somebody else’s.
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Apple iPod, Apple iPhone, Apple Watch. And now Apple Vision Pro, “a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others.”
Seth Godin’s new book The Song of Significance releases today. It’s a manifesto about how organizations of any size can be more effective by asking “What do humans need? How can we create significance?” Seth sent me an advance copy which I read in one sitting. It’s an import...
Beautiful photos and videos on Instagram can certainly sell a product or service. Even something expensive. This happened to me one evening about six months ago when I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and stopped at a gorgeous video from @CastlesOfScotland, an account...
After their electrifying Rock Cellos performance of A-ha’s Take on Me at America’s Got Talent: All Stars “best of the best” competition which aired in early 2023, Dariel and Emil Liakhovetski earned a standing ovation from the studio audience. However, host Simon Cowell was ...
Marketers know that staying up to date with the latest marketing techniques is essential to stay ahead of the competition. Those who understand modern marketing are in demand in today’s fast-moving world. So how do you convince your bosses to implement new technologies like ...
Some people throw their hands in the air and say they don’t understand artificial intelligence. Others think they understand AI, but really don’t. Here’s the down and dirty way to think about any AI application: it’s just data plus math.
The Washington Post released a fascinating analysis of how AI chatbots gather content on the public Web. The report, Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart (subscription required) is a fascinating read.
Have you been following the introduction of Max, the rebrand of HBO Max? It’s crazy! Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery took a decades old brand, HBO, a pioneer in the world of delivering video content, and stripped away the brand equity.
I’m super excited that it is finally getting warm here in the Boston area so I can get outside to hike and surf. I love clearing my head while experience nature.
This morning, I signed an Open Letter, putting my name together with academics, researchers, and business people calling on all Artificial Intelligence labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.
The Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages beginning in 1920. Now, just over one hundred years later, there’s talk in Congressional hearings of prohibiting the use of TikTok in the US.
With all the hype about large language model AI services like ChatGPT, I’ve spoken with many marketers and executives who are diving into using the tools but not thinking through how they will help achieve company goals.
Recently, I discovered Stoned Immaculate, an online clothing store that immediately captured my interest with a super-cool, retro vibe. I guess that’s because I’m (partly at least) a Modern-Day Hippie, the buyer persona that Stoned Immaculate’s Creative director Elliot Hans ...
This week, HubSpot launched ChatSpot, a new AI tool that makes it easy for HubSpot customers to use natural language prompts to access their marketing, sales, and customer support data in the HubSpot CRM.
Artificial Intelligence engines that generate text such as ChatGPT use large language models, which I like to think of as simply math applied to data (in this case text). These tools calculate the most likely next word to create sentences. When everyone is going predictable ...
Oral arguments begin in the U.S. Supreme Court today in Gonzalez v. Google, an important case about Artificial Intelligence amplifications of content on social networks. The lawsuit argues that social media companies should be legally liable for harmful content that their al...
I like to think of Artificial Intelligence as simply math applied to data. When the data is your own, such as your original writing, AI serves as a tool to modify what you’ve already done. However, using AI to modify other people's work means ethical and legal issues around ...
Nearly all the buzz about AI in the past several months has been around using AI tools like ChatGPT for text and Dall-E for images to access and organize data found on the public Web. Far more interesting to me, and where billions is being invested by VCs right now, is how A...
The most talked about marketing technology since the iPhone first launched in 2007 has been the experimentation with generative artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few months. Algorithms that anybody can use to quickly create images, text content, computer code, and e...
Doing what everybody else does won’t build fans. Being like the other guy but faster, cheaper, shinier won’t build fans.
Last week, I presented a nearly two hour session at Tony Robbins Business Mastery, a five-day event focused on entrepreneurs and business leaders who are passionate about serving clients at the highest level. Business Mastery is like no other event I’ve participated in and s...
A great way for organizations of all kinds to engage with interested people is to join and participate in a Facebook group. Facebook groups are a place to communicate about shared interests with like-minded people. Many groups are private, which fosters a sense of community.
The new year is here! What interesting new things are you planning on this year? In 2023 I have embarked on some exciting writing projects that are a departure from what I have written in the past. It’s too early to share details quite yet, but I’m writing some articles for ...
As we prepare to enter 2023, let’s look at Chris Blackwell, a man who has spent a lifetime following his passions. It’s not just that he’s been super successful in the music business, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. More than that, he’s livi...
Fifty years ago this week, the historic Apollo 17 mission sent humans to the moon for the last time (so far). It’s super cool that also this week, the Orion spacecraft of the Artemis I mission successfully returned to Earth after traveling to the Moon. Both missions, 50 year...
Budweiser was caught without the ball when host nation Qatar suddenly banned alcohol sales within World Cup stadiums. With millions of dollars’ worth of beer already onsite in the host nation, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced in a tweet that it would be donated to the winning ...
Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, there is a great deal of discussion about “free speech” on both social media and mainstream media. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, in relevant part, that: “Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech.”
Most business-to-business marketing is dreadfully boring. It's like B2B means "be too boring"!
Marketing is much more than generating attention. Every single interaction an organization has with an existing or potential customer is important. The way the telephone is answered (or routed into phone tree hell), the ease of making a payment (or not knowing what a bill is...
With Elon Musk’s recent purchase of Twitter, some advertisers have reportedly left the platform and a small percentage of people have been deleting their accounts. Many are flocking to Mastodon as an alternative.
The volunteer members of the Harry Howard Hook & Ladder Company in Port Chester, NY are fans of the Grateful Dead, and they share their fandom in their work as well as with members of the public. This Fanocracy means that members pull energy, new ideas, and deep connecti...
Expert advice from REI Coop helps to educate and inform buyers. The company has many hundreds of educational articles and videos about all things outdoors. This fabulous content leads people into the physical stores as well as drives online purchases.
Last week, my article about product simplicity (or, more commonly, product complexity) generated a bunch of reactions on my social feeds and email inbox. It turns out I’m not the only one frustrated with bloated software and gadgets with way too many buttons.
We have a Speed Queen washing machine and we love it because it is so darned simple! There are no stupid touch screens with a bunch of silly options. There’s no smartphone app. It’s just a reliable and easy to use washer.
When a customer begins the buying journey for a complex sale, he or she usually wants to learn about their sales representative. This is true of both big-ticket consumer purchases as well as B2B products and services.
“Never in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity,” say the authors of Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less.
Marketers understand that content drives action and many organizations now create original content—websites, blogs, video channels, social feeds, podcasts, and the like—as an essential way to reach buyers. However, most B2B companies focus their content effort only to attrac...
Last week, the annual HubSpot INBOUND marketing, sales, content management, and customer service conference was finally back to an in-person format! I was struck while attending the terrific conference in Boston how the most memorable aspects were when the presenters showed ...
At most conferences, the panel discussions are terribly boring. In fact, some panels are so dreadful that many attendees use the time to network in the hallways or check emails. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
The Savannah Bananas baseball team absolutely puts fans first. So much so that my friend, the Banana’s owner Jesse Cole, just announced that his team will leave the Coastal Plain League to exclusively play its own version of baseball called “Banana Ball”.
As I’ve connected with hundreds of people from around the world about transitioning to modern marketing, many tell me they struggle with getting started. I created a free (no registration required) Web Marketing Strategy Planning Template to serve as a guide for how to imple...
When organizations set out to provide a product or service, they typically make the crucial mistake of believing that they are only there to provide that product or service—as if they’re merely there to fulfill a transaction.
This is the subject line of a recent email I received: Your CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® account has been credited. Yes, an 11-word subject line contained 5 trademark symbols.
Late last year, Seth Godin invited me to join him as part of the first wave of volunteers to work on what was then a dream: creating The Carbon Almanac. I was eager to help, but I was thinking how daunting the task of writing an important book would be.
Last week, tickets for the first dates of Bruce Springsteen’s 2023 tour went on sale via Ticketmaster. Features built into the ticketing platform including “Verified Fan” and AI-powered dynamic algorithmic pricing of “Platinum Tickets” did what they are supposed to do, respo...
Search Engine Optimization is a fundamental aspect of web marketing. As you think about ways of getting found in search engines, you should also keep in mind that there are many other search engines in English besides Google. The second most popular search engine is YouTube ...
I'm part of the leadership group of hundreds of volunteers from 90 countries that have come together with ringleader Seth Godin to produce The Carbon Almanac. It is a powerful tool to help us create change, right here and right now.
I’ve been obsessively thinking about happiness over the past few months. How is it that in a time of much abundance, so many people are unhappy? Why do people constantly want more? Is there a “secret” to happiness?
Twitter Blue is the premium Twitter service aimed at power users and priced at $2.99 per month in the USA. I signed up and started playing around and like some of the features.
Twenty years ago this month, I packed up the personal belongings from my desk into a box and left the corporate world. It was both scary and exciting! I’ve learned a ton over the past two decades based on my own experience as well as talking with many others who have done th...
David Gelles new book The Man Who Broke Capitalism is an account of how Jack Welch gutted the heartland and crushed the soul of corporate America - and how to undo his legacy. I learned a ton from this book, and it made me think a lot about the different ways that businesses...
Getting your organization visible on Twitter is an important way not only to reach your buyers but also to reach the mainstream media that cover your industry, because reporters and editors use Twitter for story ideas.
The “metaverse” is a catch-all term that technology companies and the media are using to generate hype about the future. Remember how the word “cyberspace” was used several decades ago to describe the early Web, mainly by people who didn’t understand the early Web? That’s th...
Successful sales and marketing no longer follow the playbooks that worked even just a few years ago. The rules have changed, yet most organizations and the sales and marketing professionals they employ haven't made the transition.
In 1972, Silver Oak Cellars was founded in the emerging Napa Valley wine district of California to craft age-worthy 100 percent cabernet sauvignon at a time when people thought France made the best wines. Since then, the company’s focus on its fans is as important as the qua...
The most exciting aspect of my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR is I have the honor of showcasing some of the best examples of building successful marketing programs. There are more than 50 profiles throughout the book, many of them featuring the marketers’ own words...
I’m super excited! Fifteen years after the first edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR released, the most comprehensive update yet is now available. The 8th edition is out today in print and ebook editions the USA and Canada and will soon be available in other count...
Update October 28, 2022: The deal closed yesterday and Musk owns Twitter. This blog post is even ore important now.
During the pandemic, fun experiences like an evening out or a visit to someplace new were either risky or impossible. Corporate events including conferences and client meetings were canceled. Now in-person experiences have come roaring back and organizations of all kinds are...
I love this example of newsjacking from Krispy Kreme®. Playing off the surge in gasoline prices in the USA, the iconic glazed doughnut purveyor has priced a dozen doughnuts the same as the average price of a gallon of gas on Wednesdays for the next several weeks.
I’m super excited to announce the new 8th edition of my international bestseller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video, and Newsjacking to Reach Buyers Directly. The book will release in early May and I cou...
The way people buy changed many years ago. All of us — you, me, and all our existing and potential customers — turn to the web to solve problems.
Last week, we received a letter from our home heating oil supplier, Cubby Oil & Energy. The letter was heartfelt, honest, and provided valuable information.
The hype-o-meter around the term Web3 has accelerated in recent months. I’ve heard from people who wonder what the new way of organizing data and content might mean for them. Here is a high-level overview of where we’ve been for the past 30+ years and where we might be headi...
I’ve been talking about how content drives action and serves as the backbone of marketing for more than 20 years now. During that time, I've seen hundreds of people and organizations implement these strategies and they work.
Naming is difficult! Finding that perfect company or rock band name; something to call your product or service; or a wonderful book title can take months. And if you choose to work with a naming agency, it can cost a ton of money.
A dozen years ago I weighed 60 pounds more than I do now. At that time, I didn’t have the energy required to do my work and my doctor was beginning to worry about some of my numbers, discussing the possibility of putting me on medications. It was a massive wakeup call and I ...
People are naturally attracted to those who are passionate about the things they love, and this passion builds fandom. Yet too few people share their personal passions in their business life.
The biggest mistake I see with sales and marketing (and I see it all the time) is when companies focus too much on their own products and services.
At the turn of the new year, I started following news about the rollout of free at home COVID tests. To be honest I was pessimistic. Boy was I wrong! I think it’s great that the website launched early, works flawlessly, and my test kits arrived much earlier than promised. Ho...
It’s increasingly clear based on my years of studying fandom that people are attracted to that which is personal to them. An athletic activity, sports team, company, service, rock band, author, or idea that encourages people to be part of a tribe of like-minded people serves...
My friend, HubSpot co-founder and Executive Chairperson Brian Halligan, who is my co-author on our book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead loves the expression: “These are the Good Old Days!”
Stories are universal. No culture has survived without them. Stories are widely recognized as an essential part of human cognitive development.
As we move from 2021 into 2022, many people are contemplating a life change or a major business project. Perhaps you are considering a career transition such as going freelance or starting your own company. Maybe you’re weighing a personal decision such as moving from the ci...
The way most marketers operate is by making stuff up. They sit in nice comfortable offices and imagine what interests buyers and then create “copy” and “campaigns” typically with the help of equally clueless agencies. But a focus on buyer personas helps eliminate this behavi...
When you can buy most anything you want online, the retailers who serve us seem interchangeable. But they don’t have to be. Recently I placed my first order with Sweetwater, a music instrument and pro audio retailer, and was amazed by how well they treated me.
There are fans. There are super fans. And then there are the most ardent and extreme fans who live their life looking for opportunities to engage with what they love. Yes, I admit I am one of them. I love the Grateful Dead.
To paraphrase the Wikipedia entry, email spam is sending email that is both unsolicited by the recipient and sent in substantively identical form to many recipients. Unfortunately, way too many Public Relations people are spammers.
What does a small country do to generate attention at a huge global event like the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) being held now in Glasgow, Scotland? Government and NGO leaders in Panama knew they couldn’t compete the millions of dollars that large an...
With the detailed revelations emerging about how the Facebook AI algorithm works, we all need to decide how much we want to rely on Facebook in our marketing.
I’ve noticed that more organizations are using scarcity as a marketing strategy. Some examples: Apple announces the new iPhone 13 models to much hoopla, but you must wait to get one; clothing companies announce limited edition product drops and invite customers to join a wai...
Back in the day, only people in the sales department worked with potential customers. Most big companies still do it this way. However, with the popularity of instant engagement via social networking, we’re all in sales now.
I’ve been super critical of annoying customer surveys; you know the type – when a company wants you to fill out a ten-minute survey about a five-minute call with somebody in customer support. I recently had an excellent experience with Apple, and the survey they sent me afte...
Yesterday Facebook suffered a massive outage across platforms including the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp applications. Into the void came a bunch of people and organizations newsjacking the story.
While some organizations are tentatively considering a move back to in-person events or considering hybrid events in 2022, most are doubling down on virtual events. No matter what your plans looks like, planning an event requires bringing engaging speakers who can entertain ...
I’ve noticed that salespeople are abusing LinkedIn more and more. They connect and then immediately go into selling mode. Social selling on LinkedIn does not simply mean transferring inane interruption selling techniques onto social media!
Yesterday, Apple announced the new Apple Watch Series 7 which will be available later this Fall. Of course, this tiny computer is way more than a “watch” that tells time. Reading all the buzz about the launch got me thinking about marketing the various categories of timepiec...
Applying creativity helps builds a unique and sustainable business, one whose products and services people will be eager to buy. Being creative is also a great way to reimagine the world in a way that you can create content about, deliver talks on, or build a consulting prac...
Have you noticed that communications from organizations that should know better often comes with an opening “Dear Colleague”?
I’m fascinated by the fine line between what I call a Fanocracy and a cult. A Fanocracy is when people are attracted to a tribe of like-minded people, be it a team they support, a sport they enjoy playing, a rock band or author they love, or a company that treats them right.
When I speak with people about life-changing projects like starting a business, getting fit and healthy, embarking on a creative project, or learning a new skill, I often hear something like: “I would love to do that, I just don’t have the time.”
Your salespeople should assume that they are the last place a buyer goes, not the first. They must assume that very little of their knowledge is proprietary.
The big digital players including Google, Microsoft, and Apple have been forming semi-closed ecosystems around their content and applications for more than a decade.
We’re well into the second year of the global COVID pandemic and it’s been months since I published Standout Virtual Events: How to create an experience that your audience will love which I wrote with my buddy Michelle Manafy. Having delivered presentations at some 50 virtua...
TextExpander is a software plugin that I use every day when I write. The app takes strings of text that I use often and generates them using shortcuts, so I don’t have to type them each time. These “snippets” in TextExpander lingo save me time and allows me to focus on the i...
The new book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, released yesterday, is a fascinating account of what led Facebook to be so destructive, including the power of the stock market and the single-minded personalities at the top - The Zuckster and Sheryl.
I’m super excited about the release of the short documentary film re:connection. I’m featured in the 15-minute film along with neuroscientists, marketers, content creators (including an 80-year-old TikTok star), and futurists. In it, we explore how video helps us connect and...
What’s the deal with so many companies sending surveys after you interact with them? In the past few days, I’ve been hit up for “my opinion” from Audi, Fidelity, Hilton, American Airlines, and UPS.
At a press conference ahead of Portugal's UEFA Euro 2020 game with Hungary a week ago, football (soccer) star Cristiano Ronaldo removed Coke bottles from in front of him, telling people to drink agua instead.
In the past 18 months, virtual selling has exploded as in-person sales became difficult because of the pandemic. Tools like Zoom and Teams are great, however most salespeople aren’t using them correctly, limiting the effectiveness of their sales messages. Specifically, sales...
If you are working in a so-called business-to-business marketing and sales environment, it’s essential that you always remember that you are not marketing or selling to IBM or a hospital or a restaurant chain. You are always marketing and selling to people.
The new publishing model on the web is not about hype and spin and messages. It is about delivering content when and where it is needed and, in the process, branding you or your organization as a leader. Sometimes I call this Brand Journalism.
There are many ways to reach an audience. Most people focus on paying money to reach somebody else's audience via advertising on such platforms as TV and radio, search engines, trade show exhibit floors, and so on. Another way is to build your own audience by creating conten...
The language of war is used in business and the media so frequently that people don’t even question the appropriateness. Let's work together to eliminate these old tropes from the way we communicate.
My friend Colin Warwick emailed recently to share his excitement about a wine: “This wine bottle has a peel off token that invites you to become a fan. Peel it off. Stick it in your wallet. Buy it next time you revisit the store.”
Lawyers will always tell you to formally trademark, patent, or copyright your idea. After all, you want to protect your intellectual property, right? Well, there is another way. If you want your ideas to spread far and wide, it’s best to let people freely share your work.
In our fast-paced digital world, we are constantly bombarded with offers, opportunities, and opinions. The cluttered nature of the digital age means that we have a mere fleeting moment to leave an impression.
Less than five minutes into a demo by CEO Kate Chernis Bradley of the Lately artificial intelligence platform for creating social media posts, I knew I wanted to use it in my work. And by the end of our short Zoom call, I knew I also wanted to invest in the company and serve...
Audio social media is booming. New podcasts are started every day and established show hosts tell me their listener numbers are rising. At the same time, the Clubhouse app is one of the fastest growing social networks ever. Perhaps it’s the pandemic and people with time to e...
The biggest mistake I see with marketing (and I see it all the time) is when companies focus their communications way too much on their own products and services. It’s much better to start from an understanding of your buyers and their problems. Long-time readers of this blo...
I'm frequently asked for advice about writing a business book. Some people want to understand if writing a book might be right for them. Others are beginning the process and would like to know how to get published. Here, in one place, are some practical ideas based on my exp...
In the past ten years, K-pop has become a phenomenon with fans not just in Korea but all over the world. Groups like BTS and BLACKPINK captivate audiences, inspiring a feverish adoration that outpaces what the Beliebers, the Beyhive, and Beatlemaniacs ever did.
The vast majority of people apply for an internship, a job, or startup funding as if it’s a college application. They knock on the front door just like everyone else and ask to be let in. A better way is to create content and publish online to market yourself to potential em...
An original Banksy titled Morons was purchased for about $100,000, destroyed (burned on a livestream) and turned into a non-fungible token (NFT) which sold on Sunday for 228.69 ETH (approximately $380,000 at the time of the transaction). What a remarkable offline to online t...
As I think back on my life and career, the best aspects have come from taking risks while those times I’ve “played it safe” haven't typically ended well. The most dramatic example for me was my “safe” corporate job that resulted in unemployment vs. the “risky” approach of ve...
Marketing and Sales Strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to emerging companies, and bestselling author of 10 books including "The New Rules of Marketing & PR".
