David Meerman Scott and The New Rules

A friend recently recommended a book to me: The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. It's one heck of a readable read. There's an enthusiastic style here, with straightforward comments and insights on how the web has altered how businesses reach customers.

There's the old way and there's right now. Get on board with your blogs, podcasts, and other means of communicating. The book is rich with case studies and pointers on strategy for the new paradigm. Good stuff. In print. What a concept.

Get Your Keyword Feet Wet Now

What a difference keywords make in the songs we write, in our conversations and stories, and in our efforts to discover and be discovered on the web.

Here's a pretty easy way to get your keyword feet wet: go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com. This is a "lite" version of a subscription-based keyword suggestion tool (there are many of them), but in just seconds you can catch some insight on what people are searching for on the web. Results are sorted from most popular search on down ("nashville music" showed some healthy results). Focus on where you fit in. What do you do? How are you known? How do you want to be known? Have at it and see how many searches are done daily on what you do. Use these numbers as a springboard to clarifying your marketing message. If you have Internet Explorer 7 or FireFox, you can also click http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/plugin/freekeywords.xml to get the keyword search tool added right to your browser। Have Big Fun!