Foreword
You're not supposed to be able to do what David Meerman Scott is about to tell you in this book. You're not supposed to be able to carry around a $250 video camera, record what employees are working on and what they think of the products they are building, and publish those videos on the Internet. But that's what I did at Microsoft, building an audience of more than 4 million unique visitors a month.
You're not supposed to be able to do what Stormhoek did. A winery in South Africa, it doubled sales in a year using the principles discussed here.
Something has changed in the past 10 years. Well, for one, we have Google now, but that's only a part of the puzzle.
What really has happened is that the word-of-mouth network has gotten more efficient—much, much more efficient.
Word of mouth has always been important to business. When I helped run a Silicon Valley camera store in the 1980s, about 80 percent of our sales came from it. “Where should I buy a camera this weekend?” you might have heard in a lunchroom back then. Today that conversation is happening online. But instead of only two people talking about your business, now thousands and sometimes millions are either participating or listening in.
What does this mean? Well, now there's a new medium to deal with. Your PR teams had better understand what drives this new medium (it's as influential as the New York Times or CNN now), and if you understand how to use it, you can drive buzz, new product feedback, sales, and more. ...
