That’s exactly what the newest “World Wide Rave” book by David Meerman Scott is. I’ve received it from him last week, and finished skimming through it today. David states:
It is virtually impossible to create a [word of mouth] Web marketing program that is guaranteed to become a World Wide Rave; it requires a huge amount of luck and timing. That’s an important point to remember as you work on your marketing ideas, because it’s unlike the old-rules, numbers-based marketing techniques you’re probably used to. (p 124)
However, when the “timing” is used wisely, the “luck” will almost undoubtedly follow. David uses iPhone’s success, and iPhone apps as an example of the timing used right. But let’s use Twitter as an example. New Twitter applications are springing up all around the place, and nearly every week there is a new one being launched (to display your follower count on your website, to manage multiple accounts, to rank your popularity and/or influence, to help you stay on top of who’s starting and who’s stopping to follow you, etc). The time is hot. Twitter is popular. Becoming the second Twitter is not necessary, and will unlikely bring you the same success. But you can certainly develop and launch a useful Twitter app, and make it become a success.
It’s all about “offering valuable information” — as a tool, product or content — says D.M. Scott, and I certainly concur. Valuable content, and timely tools can bring you the popularity among hundreds of thousands of online users (or maybe even millions). Be creative, use your imagination, look at things through the web user’s eyes, and the inspiration will follow.
One thing I especially appreciate about this new book of his is the fact that it is chock full of real time examples, and illustrations of the author’s points. I have jotted down several ideas I conceived while reading the book, and I can’t wait to start implementing them. Affiliate marketers will undoubtedly find this book of value, and I highly recommend it.
Thank you for another good, and practically applicable volume, David.
Hey Geno,
Great analysis here and thanks for writing about my new book World Wide Rave. You are certainly someone who gets this stuff – we’ve been talking about this a lot.
Our job is now to convince the skeptical business people out there who do not yet believe us.
David
David,
It is my pleasure.
Another thing that I particularly enjoyed was you “walking the talk” by running an amazing pre-launch campaign for this book with the World Wide Rave website. It reminded me of a similar campaign that one of the Russian newspapers did some time ago. The paper was “????????? ? ?????” (“Argumenty i Fakty” or “Arguments & Facts”), a very popular one in Russia. People were encouraged to send in pictures of them holding the newspaper in various settings, and they would publish the ones shot in the most unusual (or even humorous) ones. I still remember a picture of an astronaut in a spaceship with the paper in his hands, as well as pictures of people holding the newspaper on the North Pole, on a naval ship, in an outhouse, and while ice-fishing. 🙂