Maybe you’re asking yourself, “Self, who should I follow on Twitter?”  Maybe you’ve asked yourself that and have made your way here, to The CRAP Report.  If so, you can check out two posts below to see who I suggested you follow two months ago.  Maybe you’ve followed all of those folks and are looking for more.

I still think the Follow Friday blog post is a good idea.

Here’s my list of B2B all-stars that I think you’ll find yourself glad to follow:

• @mvolpe – Mike Volpe, HubSpot’s VP of Inbound Marketing.  Mike’s also the co-host of HubSpot TV, and the majority of Mike’s tweets are about, what else?  Inbound marketing.  You’ll also get some good SEO knowledge, great blogging tips, marketing data, and some lead gen stuff, too.  Check out Mike’s blog Marketing with Mike for blog articles.
• @keenan – Jim Keenan, VP of Sales Strategy at 2Wire.  Jim always offers great sales advice, and does so with a personal touch through his blog, A Sales Guy.  Jim tweets about sales issues, sales management issues, and sales processes.
• @paulcastain – Paul Castain is the VP of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics.  Paul’s whole M.O. is to make people better, whether it’s a better sales rock star or a better sales Jedi.  Regardless of what you want to become, Paul wants to help, and one way he does so is through his blog Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook.
• @MackCollier – Mack Collier is a social media consultant, trainer, and speaker.  His tweets are going to be full of these, except on Sunday nights, when he runs a blog chat through Twitter.  Mack knows about building a community and it’s evident if you read through a blog chat transcript.  Mack’s blog, The Viral Garden, is one to read for thoughts on any of the topics above.
• @HolgerSchulze – Holger Schulze is a technology marketing guy from Washington, D.C.  Holger tweets really relevant articles regarding B2B Sales and Marketing, and you should read his blog, Everything Technology Marketing. Holger’s articles are typically about trends and issues surrounding, yup – you guessed it, technology marketing.
• @justinlevy – Justin Levy is the Director of Business Development, Corporate Strategy, and Client Services at New Marketing Labs.  Justin is a prolific tweeter and his tweets are often a mix between the personal and business, but they’re always good.  Justin has a blog, Justin Levy, which explores social media and its impact in the business world.  Justin is also a partner at Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse.
• @iannarino – S. Anthony Iannarino is a B2B Sales coach, and his tweets reflect that.  The majority of his tweets are ways to improve B2B sales reps/teams.  His blog, The Sales Blog, is chock full of articles on becoming a better sales person.  Check it out.

Hopefully I’ve been able to share someone new with you.  If you want, feel free to leave some more recommendations in the comments below!

Photo Credit:  Rosaura Ochoa via Flickr

As a new feature here on The CRAP Report, I’m going to start posting interviews every so often.  I had the fantastic opportunity to interview marketing expert David Meerman Scott back in February, and although most interviews include short snippets of what the interviewee’s answers are, I thought it was really important that I present to you the full transcript of the interview.  I couldn’t find anything that I thought I should leave on the editing floor, so to speak.  It’s a bit long-ish, but trust me when I tell you, it’s worth the read. 

I was very honored that David was willing to spend an hour with me and answer some questions about his the second edition of his book, The New Rules of PR and Marketing, as well as some questions about marketing and blogging.  The guy is fantastic – he’s really cool and down to earth and says what he thinks.  I like that. 

So, without further adieu, here’s my interview with David Meerman Scott:

What was the impetus for writing “The New Rules of PR and Marketing?”

I’ve been doing a lot of the things in the book before I wrote the book.  Starting in 1997-98 I was VP of Marketing for a couple of different technology companies.  We had great websites built on content.  We were doing online newsletters and press releases to get into search engines.  Not to just to reach the media, but to get into the search engines.  No one was talking about that at that time.  People were talking about search engine marketing, but that sort of started in the late ‘90s.  The company that I was working for, Thompson, fired me in 2002, and I’m like, “Damn it!  This stuff works and I’m going to prove it.”  I started working with a couple of clients to implement the ideas, and they worked really well, so I started to write about it.  I did an eBook called The New Rules of PR that came out in 2006 and that did really well (it had 15,000 downloads in the first month), so I said, “there’s something going on here.”  Then I got a book deal and wrote the book.  In the beginning it was interesting – it came out in hardcover in 2007 (originally in June of 2007) and throughout 2007, there were a few people who gravitated to it really early and started talking it up.  There were some people who were really against the book.  I mean downright hostile.  I believe a lot it came from fear and ignorance – anyway, there was a lot of hostility. 

The other thing that was interesting to me was early on, most universities weren’t paying attention to the book at all.  There were a couple of professors, though, who really early picked up on it.  Steve Quiggly at Boston University is one; Karen Russel at University of Georgia is another.  A couple of rogue professors started to use the book, and then I started getting emails from these students who, like in 2008 and 2009, who said, “I can’t believe I went through four years of education and I never learned any of this stuff.”  There were actually people in tears!  But now, we’re in 2010, I did the second edition which I wrote throughout 2009 (it came out in January of 2010).  Now it’s, I mean, there’s very few people who have hostility towards it.  There are very few universities who don’t consider the book.  There’s about a hundred that I know of who use the book.  The book is out in 24 languages.  I got word from my publisher a couple of weeks ago that it was the number one marketing book in the UK last year, which is interesting because I’m not a British author.  The fact that it’s resonating around the world is interesting because it tells me that these ideas are resonating around the world, which I wasn’t sure if that was the case at the beginning.

What made you want to share the “new rules” with people, as opposed to keeping them to yourself?

I believe marketing is about giving.  I believe that marketing is like love.  People say, like The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, “How can I get people to love me?”  The way you get people to love you, whether you’re young and looking for love, or you’re married or have a significant other or whatever, is to love.  I think the same thing is true about marketing.  That’s why I’m such a huge believer of giving away content.  Publishing eBooks for free, publishing white papers for free, doing videos for free.  Doing what you’re doing now.  You’re not going to charge anyone for this blog post.  The theory is, and I believe there’s a lot of truth around it is – you spend the time driving up here, meeting with me, writing up what you hear into a blog post– that’s four hours work.  Why would you do that?  The reason is that if you give that away, something will come of that.  You don’t know what it is, you don’t know when, but something will come back.  I’ve always felt that way but have only recently been able to articulate it.  To me, it was a lot better to get these ideas out there and share them, and then expect that good things will come back.  They have, as I’m now an in-demand speaker and I travel all over the world.  Just in 2010, and it’s only February, I’ve gone to Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Mumbai.

So, you’re on the Board of Advisors at HubSpot.  You’re talking about giving stuff away for free, and they’re more, “you’ve got to fill out the form” to get content.  How do you feel about that?

I think they’re two different philosophies.  One philosophy is that you want to try to generate leads, sales leads, and I think that’s a fine way to do business, particularly if you have a sales force.  HubSpot has a sales force.  There’s a lot of people who follow up on those leads and educate people.  I’m a believer in the opposite approach, which is “give it all away for free,” and have some kind of secondary offer.  In my case it’s “buy the book.”  I think it’s partly the business model of the company.  Maybe it’s a B2B vs. B2C kind of thing, although I don’t really think there is.  There is some of that.  I think they’re just different philosophies.  No one philosophy is right or one’s wrong.  There’re just sort of different ways to do it.  I actually advocate more of a hybrid model for a lot of companies.  The hybrid model, which is exactly what HubSpot does, is “give a boatload of stuff away for free.  A lot of stuff for free, but where appropriate, ask for an email address, ask for a registration.”  HubSpot’s got a blog, they’ve got HubSpot TV.  They’ve got a lot of stuff that they give away totally for free with no registration, but there is other stuff that does require registration.  That’s a pretty good example of a hybrid approach where you’ve got a little bit of both.

Getting to the second edition of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” what’s new this time around?  Facebook and Twitter have their own sections…

I had stuff on social media before, but the tools have changed.  When I wrote the first edition, in 2006, Second Life was really big.  It was very popular then, growing like crazy – it was like what’s happening with Twitter now.  It was this huge growth spurt, and I wrote about it.  I wrote what was appropriate.  A lot of content on it.  It’s still around and there are people still into it, but it didn’t become as huge as most people thought.  They way that people were talking about it, we’d be doing it right now.  But, also in 2006, Facebook was only for students.  You needed a .edu email address and Twitter didn’t even exist.  I got sick of getting emails from people saying, “Hey, have you heard of Twitter?”  Those were some major things that went into the revision – making sure that the tools were accurately reported.  The concepts are the same.  If you were to read the first edition hardcover, then the paperback edition of the first edition, and then the second edition, the concepts don’t change.  The ideas don’t change one bit.  It’s really the tools that have been upgraded for the new tools that are available, and twenty new stories.  I got rid of some the older stories that weren’t appropriate and added some new and interesting ones.

Doc Brown shows up at your house in a time travelling DeLorean and wants to take you to 2013.  What do you think will have changed in marketing over the next three years?

I don’t think these ideas are going to change.  There’s not going to be “The New New Rules” or anything like that.  It’s still going to be fundamental idea that marketing is about publishing content and marketing is about giving gifts.  I believe that.  I don’t think that’s going to change one bit.  I think the biggest change we’re going to see is that a lot more people are going to be focused on mobile devices.  You know, in some countries around the world, like many Asian countries, Japan for example – it’s all about mobile.  Not as many people are active on computers; it’s on mobile devices.  There’s a lot of reasons for that, partly cultural, partly because they’re on trains a lot and there’s not free time.  For some countries it’s expensive to have a computer wired to the Internet versus having a mobile phone with different variable costs.  If your family only makes $8,000 dollars a year, or even $800 a year, you’re talking about some hard decisions to buy a wired computer.  I think worldwide, mobile marketing is going to become more sophisticated. 

I’m really fascinated with the whole geo-locater stuff.  GPS based things; foursquare is a good example of that but there’s others.  My iPhone?  When I turn this sucker on, it knows where I am.  That adds an entirely new dimension to reaching people through marketing.  Just twenty minutes ago while you were grabbing the coffee, I checked in with foursquare; I checked in that I was here and was going to be talking with you.  After I hit send, it said that my friend Derek said that the restaurant across the street, and I eat there all the time as my office is close by, is really great and you should try the bacon turkey sandwich.  I’m like, “Wow!”  That is interesting stuff!  I would say if we’re transported into 2013, I would venture to guess that there’s going to a lot of interesting things going on with mobile.

Why are buyer personas so important, and how long should they take to put together?

The easy answer is that people don’t really care about products and services.  [Holding up his cup of tea] This is a nice cup of tea.  It’s tasty, but that’s not why I’m here.  I’m here because it’s a great place to meet.  When you suggested we meet, I said, “let’s do Starbucks.”  It’s close, it’s easy for you because you can park here and for me because I can walk.  It’s reasonable comfy, you can get a chair, although it’s a little bit crowded today.  What’s the product?  Is it the tea?  If I were a marketing person for Starbucks, I wouldn’t even talk about the drink.  It would be about places to hang out, about free wireless.  A lot of different things I would want to talk about.  The problem is, and it’s a good problem, because if you know about the problem you can solve it, is to do that effectively, to market effectively, you have to understand the motivation of people who are potentially going to do business with you.  In the case of Starbucks, you have to know the motivation of the different buyer personas or the different people who come here. 

I come here, to this particular Starbucks, fairly frequently.  [Pointing to some students] There’s a great example of a buyer persona – it’s high school students.  They come after school.  The high school is right around the corner.  The come in here and grab a tea or a coffee, often with their friends.  There’s one buyer persona.  You’ve got people who’re in-between jobs, who want to get out of the home, have a chance to come and maybe meet somebody, grab some free wireless; they’re in job search mode.  You’ve got people like me, who need a place – I was here yesterday.  I’m probably here twice a week when I’m in town.  I’ll do two or three meetings a week in this Starbucks.  It’s a great place to have business meetings – there’s another buyer persona.  I just rattled off three buyer personas, and there’s probably a dozen in here.  Retired people – they don’t have as much going on every day and they come in here and grab a coffee and read the paper.  If you want to reach those people, talking about coffee isn’t going to do it.  You have to figure out what are the best ways to reach those people.  Maybe it’s creating coupons for one dollar coffees for high school students every Thursday afternoon and distributing them at the high school.  The only way you’re going to figure that out is if you do what I call “buyer persona research.”  How long does that take?  Ha.  The challenge with buyer persona research is that you literally have to interview buyers.  That’s the rub.  You can’t make it up.  You can’t just say, “let’s reach high school students!”  They’re going to say, “Why in the world would you do it on Thursdays?  We’ve all got band practice on Thursdays?  Saturday mornings are the best, that’s when we don’t have anything to do, that’s when we’d come here.”  You can’t make that stuff up.  You need to actually have those interviews, and it takes time.  I think you need to have around 20 interviews to start to get to convergence when you’re talking to people.  An hour per interview and it takes time.  You’ve got to find the people, recruit them, and try to get them to speak with you.  It takes some time.

How do you come up with new topics to blog about?

Everywhere I go I come up with something.  Just thinking of a topic right now, “Buyer Personas at Starbucks.”  That is something people can relate to.  Everyone can relate to Starbucks, no matter where in the world you are.  I don’t know if I’ll do that, but I have a file on my computer where I put ideas.  The funny thing is I almost never get to go back and do a post about those ideas because I’ll think of something I like better and I’ll crank that out instead.  I probably have 50 blog posts queued up as ideas that I think I might write about someday.  And that’s really only when I’m like, “Oh shoot!  I haven’t done a post in five days.  I should crank something out but I don’t know what.”  Then I’ll open that file.  Most of the time it’s thinking of something you’re interested in or that you like, and relating it back to marketing.  I basically just dictated a blog post on buyer personas, because that’s how I would have done it about high school students.  In my case, after a while, generating ideas is really easy.  I can come up with tons of ideas, it’s finding the time to write them that becomes the harder part.

Do you think blogging equals “thought leadership?”

No, I don’t believe that.  I don’t think that because there are a lot of crappy blogs out there.  I think a blog becomes thought leadership when the blogger is truly reaching people not for their own ego but to give valuable stuff away.  That’s a difficult transition for a lot of people to make.  People who are trained as marketers and PR people just have this desire to hype their products.  They end up creating a blog that’s all about, or three quarters or two thirds about their stupid products and nobody cares.  If I were working at Starbucks and wanted to create a blog, there’s a whole bunch of topics you can write about that have nothing to do with coffee.  As soon as you start writing about coffee, it’s like, it’s not interesting anymore.  It might be to some coffee aficionado types, but that’s just one buyer persona for Starbucks.  It only becomes thought leadership when people are eager to read it and they’re sharing it with their friends, when you start to get comments, because that’s when you know you’re relating to someone.  That’s when you know you’re creating something that people value.  And that’s when it turns, in my opinion, into thought leadership.  Also, by the way, there are other forms of thought leadership – photographs, charts, graphs, video, audio; all kinds of different ways that an organization or individual can express thought leadership other than by text.

What are some of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make and how can they remedy them?

One is copying other bloggers.  One is, and it’s the biggest one and we’ve already talked about it, is prattling on about your damn product that nobody cares about.  I think obsessing over, “I’ve got to blog right now!” or “Oh my God it’s been three days; I’ve got to do something!”  I think if it’s not going to be enjoyable it’s hard to keep it up.  There’s not right or wrong quantity.  Seth Godin and Chris Brogan blog every single day.  I can’t do that.  I’m – a good week is three posts, an okay week is two posts.  Sometimes I’ll do four.  If I go five days and haven’t blogged, I feel like I should but I don’t beat myself up if I don’t.  I don’t think that there’s a hard and fast rule.  I know there’s plenty of bloggers who do it once a month, and that’s okay.  I interviewed the CIO of the United Kingdom a couple of weeks ago, and he’s got a blog.  I’m like, “well that’s cool!”  It IS cool, but he only blogs once a month.  Is that wrong?  Of course not, it’s cool, he’s blogging.  Consistency is pretty important.  If you’re blogging once a week, you should try to average once a week.  Don’t go three months without blogging.  Every day is hard.  The two people that I follow, as I said, that do it every day are Seth Godin and Chris Brogan.  They always have consistently good blog posts.

I saw your webinar on corporate comedy with Tim Washer.  How far do you think is too far when it comes to corporate comedy?

I think it depends on the company.  It’s partly dependant on corporate culture.  I think the line varies significantly based on your corporate culture and depending on who you’re trying to reach, whatever kinds of marketing you do.  If you’re JP Morgan Chase Bank, the line for what kind of comedy you can conceivably do in a YouTube video is going to be pretty darn different than if you’re Quicksilver surfing gear.  I think you should offend one percent of prospects.  I’m okay with that.  I’ve done videos that have offended people, but those have been my most popular videos.  I don’t mean offensive as in racial slurs, I mean someone who just says, “Wow, that’s a little out there.”  I think that’s okay.  I don’t know about one percent, I just threw that out there. 

One thing I’ve always found really interesting with book reviews, as a sort of related topic, is they tend to sell really well when they have a whole bunch of four or five star reviews on Amazon, and some one star reviews.  Those books do better than the ones that have threes, fours, and fives consistently with no ones.  I’ve found that with my own work.  There’s two or three percent, or whatever, of my reviews on Amazon where the reviewer says, “This author is full of crap.  His ideas are wrong and it’s just stupid.  I don’t agree with it.”  I think that’s good.  It’s good because if I offend a few people, and they think my ideas are stupid, I think that’s actually a really good thing.  The same is with comedy.  Howard Stern offends a hell of a lot of people, but he’s also incredibly funny.  Not every corporate cultural can pull off offending people.  And that means so much corporate marketing is so dry, and so boring, and so ineffective.  I don’t know what you do about that.

Do you see a need for Outbound Marketing?

Oh yeah.  I think it’s a combination.  I think for most organizations it’s a combination of some form of paid advertising, media relations (working with editors and reporters), and some form of direct sales.  HubSpot is doing direct sales.  They don’t necessarily make cold calls, but they do have sales people on the phones themselves, although Brian and Dharmesh may argue that those guys are just closing deals, and that might be true.  But I think a combination for most organizations is the way to go.  I don’t believe that the world is going to 100% on the web and every form of outbound’s going to disappear.  People will still advertise and for some that will still be effective.

Who plays you in the movie based on your life?

My first book was a novel called Eyeball Wars.  It wasn’t autobiographical but there was a character in that I related to, and I always thought he should be played by Leonardo DiCaprio.  I know that’s not the answer to the question you’re asking, but that’s the first thing that came to my mind.

Okay, Chris here.  I just want to thank David Meerman Scott again, for his time and willingness to sit down with me.  Thanks a lot David!

So, I received a call the other day from someone who I really respect.  In fact, her call caught me out of the blue.  She is someone in our industry who I really look up to and I value her opinion.  Imagine my chagrin when she told me why she was calling:  “I can’t read your stuff anymore.  It’s too long!”  I’d heard that before from folks, but my wife and Mom don’t really count, do they?  I mean, they do count, but I don’t write for them.

So, what I’ve decided to do, in vein of good ol’ Regis Philbin, is call in a lifeline – I’d like to poll the audience.  This time, though, I want you to give me your final answer.  If you vote in the poll, I’d love it if you leave a comment, too.  Hell, if you don’t vote, you can still leave a comment.  Regardless, let me know what you think:  Are the entries in The CRAP Report too long?

I love that skit from Jimmy Fallon on SNL with all the lame “Morning Zoo” characters that typically fill up your AM commutes.  Anyways, as you can see from the picture to the left, and maybe from an absence of new entries, I’ve been away for a bit in the hospital and am now back.  After a terrific, five day IV-antibiotic fueled bender in the lovely City of Champions, I’m feeling better and The CRAP Report will resume normal blog schedule tomorrow.  Later!