Marketing to the Social Web

I'm currently reading "Marketing to the Social Web" by Larry Weber...a brief, though comprehensive look at the new applications of marketing on today's internet . The book was written in 2007, which is important as anything over two or three years old feels dated (especially in the realm of social networking, which has only really taken off over the past 4 years or so).

It feels like the most coherent and professional thing I read so far, as relates to such a nascent field. He takes you through all the steps of developing a marketing campaign for the web, and utilizes a few case studies to emphasize the considerations that specific companies would face (as well as how he would choose to go about solving them).

It is these case studies in particular that give you a really great sense of how smart this guy is, and his ability to apply laser-focus to the issues big companies face when trying to take advantage of the immense capability of the internet in general (and social media in particular).

He references successes in advertising on the web, such as the Gillette campaign designed to counter the popularity of the scruffy, unshaven look on guys (see one of the viral videos they posted on the site, which is now, unfortunately, down) as well as failures such as fordboldmoves.com (which has also since been taken down.)

The Ford site, the company proclaimed that it was genuinely looking for customer input to take a bold new direction in the way they do things, and became, in practice, a series of ads with little user input (comments of even the slightest negative or constructive tone were deleted and ignored, and only positives left on the site...leading to its demise.)

Among the most patently obvious (though often ignored) pieces of advice for corporations is this:

As technology and markets evolve, you can't simply create a site and leave it unchanged. If you don't regularly improve the community's benefits on terms that make sense to the members, your site could fade away. Remember Friendster

I was a bit surprised at how tricky it is to find insightful books about marketing on social media (or, actually, anything at all)...but Weber's book has been full of insight. Check it out on Amazon here...or wait for the second edition, slated to come out next month. He also has a website related to the book. Do you have any suggestions on other insightful books to read? Leave me a comment!