Customer Reviews

World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories

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Let me just begin this review of David Meerman Scott's "World Wide Rave" by saying that I admire and respect the innovative concepts that David teaches.

If you are in marketing or communications or public relations or, especially, the leader of an organization, today's world has gotten to be too competitive, too fast-moving, and too smart for you to cling to many of the tired old tenets of traditional outreach. You must ignore the old rules of advertising and PR, David writes ... and I agree completely. Success comes from people wanting to share the more credible information and stories they hear about you with their friends and colleagues. Conventional wisdom, as it is applied to marketing and promotion, is broken and far less effective in today's online world.

"World Wide Rave" is, I believe, one of the most important books about marketing in the Internet Era that I have read. The author is a man with deep credentials and perspective, and who, himself, has created world wide rave for his new approaches and ideas to marketing, and for his books.

David explains that we must "lose control," that we must understand that creating visibility in today's online world means releasing control of old approaches, like promoting messages, and capturing sales leads. The old PR agency idea of counting press clips is antiquated and silly in today's world. We can measure success but no longer through outdated business school Return on Investment (ROI) calculators.

Nobody cares about your organization or your products, David writes. What people care about are themselves and ways to solve their own problems. In order to have people talk about you and your ideas, he writes, you must resist the old urge to sell or hype your products and services. Today's style is rather one of finding "triggers" that stimulate attention and harness the power of the digital revolution. Rave is finding ways to get people talking about you.

"World Wide Rave" is filled with practical examples and guidance on how anyone can create world wide buzz about their organization or products or themselves. And, the best part is that we are living in an age when we have the ability to create rave ... or, a splash of significant awareness ... at little or no cost.

As an author and journalist, myself, who has studied and consulted on evolving trends of image-making and getting attention for many years, I would rank David Meerman Scott's "World Wide Rave" as one of the distinctive, trend-setting works, in the same category as Blanchard's "The One Minute Manager," and Beckwith's "Selling the Invisible."

After reading the 194 pages, I sat back, and thought, Wow!"

Fantastic concepts, thoughts and ideas! This book helps show the direction all marketing professionals need to consider--Conversation Marketing. World Wide Rave illustrates some of the key objectives for companies looking to participate in the market conversation. At Idiom Strategies, a conversation marketing agency, we outline the five key objectives as:
1) Listen to current customers, prospects, industry experts and other influencers in the market space and internalize what you hear to improve your business.
2) Speak to the overall market conversation with quality, supportive and helpful content that people want to respond to, inquire about and pass on to others.
3) Care about what is being said about your products, your company, your competitors and your industry, but even more important, care about helping your customers and prospects fulfill their wants and needs.
4) Share your experiences--positive and negative--and your insights as you grow your company and evolve your product lines.
5) Build relationships with market conversation Influencers, Participants and Listeners based on the mutual interest of the consumer problems that need to be solved with product innovation.

For many marketers, the holy grail of digital advertising is the YouTube video that "goes viral" - generating thousands, if not millions, of views for little, if any, cost. The challenge, of course, is that finding just the right piece, or having your "community" build something on your behalf is never easy. Nor does it guarantee success.

But David Meerman Scott's recent book World Wide Rave, actually covers some of the things that you need to consider. It's full of practical examples and ideas for you to riff off - all with the aim that you create your own "world wide rave".

There are some great examples of how some daring folks have put their reputation on the line to test the social media waters. From Disney through to a local dentist, David shows that you don't need to be big to have an impact - or to generate serious sales/business outcomes using social media. He reinforces that while influence can be useful, world wide raves are about trust - about igniting the potential of your story in the words of someone else.

And the best thing is, is that the book comes with recommendations that get you started. It could be the best investment in marketing that you ever make.

I have been an avid reader of David Meerman Scott's blog for some time. I even have an Outlook task set so that I can remember to have my once a week look. As such, you won't be that surprised that I would be a fan of his latest book, World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories. For all of us who look to promote ourselves on the web better, and that should be everyone who isn't driving an ice cream truck - and some of these guys could use an idea or two - this book is an excellent starting place. Get your education here!

We all need something, some tool to bring our market to us. But more than that, we need to get them speaking about us in a positive manner and passionately spreading the word about our goods and services in a positive way. Your mind is this tool. Not in any esoteric way, but in a very practical and real way. David Meerman Scott shows us how everyone is looking for expertise and the best way to draw people to you is to share that expertise. Each and every one of us have something unique to offer and by offering this freely people (the market) want more and more and will be willing to pay.

David Meerman Scott provided many examples in the book of creating World Wide Rave but the one great example that really touched a nerve with me in the book had not so much to do with marketing online but rather a whole marketing philosophy. And it came from what most people would consider an unorthodox place. The "free giveaway" mentality is the Greatful Dead. First of all, the author and I split when it comes to his love of all things Dead - I have never really been that much of a fan but I have loads of friends who are among the faithful. David tells how the Dead have one of the greatest marketing systems going by simply allowing their fans to make bootleg copies of their numerous shows as well as taking pictures and video taping the experience. The author even listened to the concert he just attended on his drive back home. The Grateful Dead even incorporate this totally into their marketing plan! One can buy personalized photo albums of the experiences. By allowing the fans to make the bootleg copies they, the fans, share the copies and preserve their fond memories of the experience. And they share the experience with other fans and even those who had never been introduced to the band in the past.

The author is very passionate about his subject and throughout the book he urges the reader (yes, you!) to get started on creating your own World Wide Rave. One bit of advice that he did add that I thought was very interesting but extremely astute was that the reader should get on Twitter and keep everyone updated on what they are doing in real time. So if you want to know even more about creating your own World Wide Rave, get on Twitter and start following @dmscott. And while you are at it, tell him that @garydale sent ya!

I am an accolade. Downloaded your book for free on my kindle. Had a real "born again" experience and just bought one from Amazon.com so that my business partner and I are on the same page for our 2009 2Q business strategy. That "give it away" thing really works!

This book changed the way I do business. Do not be late to the party. This is a must read for business owners. I wrote about this in my motivational blog. [...]

David Meerman Scott's book was inspiring and full of incredible advice on getting attention on the web - without begging or buying your way in!!
I would recommend this book to every small business owner and every marketing professional.

I purchased this copy to have the physical book after it was provided to me by the college I attend as part of the curriculum for my markerting studies.

This is the second of David Meerman Scott's books that I have read. The first was the New Rules of PR & Marketing, which I consider to be the Bible for Web 2.0 strategies. World Wide Rave is a quick read, partially because it is only 185 pages, but also because of David's writing style and the interesting content. World Wide Rave is full of real-world case studies of how companies are using social media to spread their ideas and influence potential buyers.

The book is appropriate for both newcomers to web 2.0 and for those with multiple years of experience. I am fairly experienced with social media, but I still gained significant insights from some of the best practices offered in World Wide Rave. For example, there are 18 different recommendations on how to create e-books (such as using landscape versus portrait orientation). And 10 different recommendations on how to produce viral YouTube videos (such as limiting the length to between 30 seconds and 2 minutes). There are also about 20 or so guiding principles for corporate marketing organizations to follow such as: 1) Nobody wants to hear about your products; 2) Think like a venture capitalist; 3) Create a Controversial Title for Content; 4) Make Content Free with No Strings Attached.

World Wide Rave is one of those books that is well ahead of its time. David Meerman Scott discusses the concept of a World Wide Rave which can be triggered, given the right conditions, to position your business or ideas for success. The book identifies what exactly a World Wide Rave is, tips for possibly creating one, and many examples of those who have succeeded in doing so. World Wide Rave redefines traditional marketing, is well written, and is a quick and easy read which provides a large amount of value in a small package.

The ideas in this book are excellent, however if you've been involved in internet marketing, you may be familiar with basics. Since creating world wide rave is about spreading ideas and not about sales, it has some common points with marketing, but then since the purpose is different, the methods for getting those outcomes are different also.

If you have any experience in effective internet marketing and sales, you already know the basics - the customer doesn't care about your products or services, he only wants to know "what's in it for me". People will only interested in what your products and services if you let them know how you can help them to solve their problems - to help people solve their problems, you have to have a good idea about who is your typical customer.

People like to do business with those they trust and you can develop trust by sharing some of your products and services for free - one of the ideal ways to do it over the internet is by using social media and offering free ebook(s). The main idea shared in World Wide Rave book is that you will attract way more customers by sharing with people valuable ideas through social media than by using paid advertising and/or any kind of marketing gimmicks. A world wide rave is when people talk about your product because they want to, because you are sharing valuable information, rather than because they have been coerced into it.

Creating world wide rave is in contrast with typical internet marketing in it that here you are sharing information totally free without even collecting emails from your visitors, whereas in typical internet marketing collecting emails so that you can keep in touch with people that visit your website and where you are essentially collecting leads is crucial. Youtube was an example of sharing music free, but since uploading copyrighted music is now banned, the author doesn't seem pleased. The author does suggesting using youtube, myspace, and other social media to spread ideas about your products and services, without selling anything. And again, keep in mind that world wide rave is about spreading ideas, not about selling.

The author talks about creating world wide rave as if it were suppose to altogether replace any attempt to sell, to people who are into internet marketing, advertising or sales, that may come across as outrageous - ultimately what works for you, you can only discover from your own experience. Personally I think there is a time and space for different methods and techniques.