Two for Tuesday: Marketing with Meaning and PR 2.0

Here is the third post in a series called, ‘Sharp Points – 2 for Tuesday’.

The idea behind ‘Sharp Points’ is to highlight two blogs from the Junta42 list of top content marketing blogs.  This week we’ll look at #5 and #6 on the list:

#5. PR 2.0 – Brian Solis blogs at ‘PR 2.0′.  I had a chance to say ‘hello’ to Brian back in May at a conference and wrote the following post about his concept of ‘Entering the Statusphere’.  Solis is at the forefront of how the shifting landscape of media is changing public relations.

Sharp Point to share –  Brian wrote a great ebook entitled, “Customer Service – The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media”.  Check it out here.  One point that especially stood out:

Customer service, product marketing and marcom must fuse into a living breathing commitment of inbound and outbound initiatives that not only answers questions when they come in, but also seek them out wherever they seek insight from peers and other experts.

#6. Marketing with Meaning – Bob Gilbreath of Bridge Worldwide blogs at ‘Marketing with Meaning’.  Bob just released his first book entitled The Next Evolution of Marketing.  I love the subtitle which is ‘Connect with your customers by marketing with meaning’.  Bob’s book is a paradigm shifter.  He talks about connecting with your customer as opposed to merely interrupting them.

Sharp point to share: How ‘marketing with meaning’ is different than traditional marketing? (from Chapter 2)

1. It’s marketing that people choose to engage with.

It involves creating something that people find is

worthy of their time and attention, rather than continuing

to look for ways to cleverly (or not so cleverly) interrupt

them.

2. It’s marketing that itself improves people’s lives.Many

a marketer goes to bed at night, proud to support products

and services that add value. Indeed, they may remove tough

stains, put a smile on faces, or enable priceless purchases,

but we too often utilize the old interruption approach to

present these products and services to our customers.

Instead, we must create advertising that actually adds

value—without necessarily forcing a sale.

Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra)  -  Bob offers a free chapter of his book.  Click here to check out Chapter 2 of The Next Evolution of Marketing. If you buy the book . . . he even throws in a handy iPhone app.  Very cool.