If it's in the review it must be true

Melbourne Herald Sun, August 31, 2012

It’s Thursday evening and you’re discussing catching a movie on the weekend. Grab the paper, check out the entertainment ads - and those all-important little review grabs: “A drama you can’t miss”, “Funniest comedy of the year”, “Our finest actress”.

Every film seems to be a winner. Then you see where the reviews were written. Names like Silver Slides and Lumination. Can’t quite remember those review sites...
Well, we’ve all had enough disappointments by now to know that reviews have to be taken with caution, and never to rely on just one.

In fact on the Internet, good reviews are up for sale, cheap.
Take hotel accommodation. Accusations have flown around, about invented reviews in the “hotel advice” web sites, and where discounts and incentives have been offered to customers who give glowing reports.
Almost from the start, Amazon’s book reviewing system has been accused of “friends of friends of authors” stacking the feedback responses. Restaurants, theatre, wines - wherever there is room for reviews, a bit of fiddling goes on.
Researcher Bing Liu of the University of Illinois, Chicago, has studied the reality of those opinions and believes that at least a third of them are fake. But the same research also showed that it is almost impossible to pick the difference.
Since the boom of the ereader and ebook, the whole phenomenon of self-publishing has exploded.
Say that great novel in the back of your head is now written. You don’t have to camp on the doorstep of Penguin for six months to just get it read, any more. Now just turn it into ebook format, on your computer, and self-publish the book in days or even hours.
An estimate puts the number of books self-published last year, on line or physically, at 300,000. Now how on earth do you get noticed by those people who like to read?
Enter Tod Rutherford, yet another Internet entrepreneur. Working in a company for self-published authors, he saw how hard it was for them to get noticed, let alone reviewed. So in 2010 he decided to do it for them.

He set up a web site, GettingBookReviews.com, that offered to review your book for $99 - a glowing report, of course. But one was not enough, so he then offered clients 20 reviews for $499. And for those who needed their egos supercharged, $999 would to buy you 50 paeans of praise, though not necessarily the Booker Prize.
The service became a rapid hit. Before long he was making $7000 a week. The work of course was too much for one person but he quickly found a team willing to fast-produce at $15 a review. The one stipulation, of course, was that each had to be a glowing five-star rave.
As one reviewer later reflected, to make ends meet she had to churn the reviews out at a fast pace that allowed her very little time to actually read the book. She just took the time to glance at enough pages to get an inkling of what its contents might be, and then start praising the plot, concept or advice it offered.
She now thinks she might at some stage go back and actually read one or two that looked interesting.
Eventually GettingBookReviews was noticed by Amazon, Google and other big-timers who managed to shut Rutherford down. Now, though, he has self-published his own self-help book - The Publishing Guru on Writing.
It has only just been released so I can’t report on any reviews, but I’m pretty confident that before long they will come - and they will glow.

ray@ebeatty.com

Marketing the Grain of Wheat

Melbourne Herald Sun, August 25, 2012

Birthplace of marketing-
my grain's better than theirs


Marketing is the most ancient profession. When the first farmer took his basket of grain to the village and declared that his was better and cheaper than the other farmers’, markets and marketing were born.

The story told is still the same today, just many layers of complication have been laid over the top. The medium can too-often obscure the message.

Right now the media are going through major changes: the internet and smart phones are challenging the press and the air media, the lines of communication and the channels to market are blurring. That farmer with his grains of wheat risks getting lost in the confusion. This is you, the business person, I’m talking about.

Social media is the buzz today. New marketing companies are popping up, existing advertising agencies have all attached a “social media department” of one sort or another, and a lot of clients are being persuaded to pour more of their budgets into the field.

Which is all fine, you have to stay current. But in all the excitement it’s easy to lose sight of the objective.

Marketing guru Al Ries describes it as the difference between tactics and strategy. Clever web sites, viral commercials, smart phone based competitions, swipe codes on magazines and posters are all tactics in the battle for the consumer’s attention.

But after a couple of successes comes the danger of the tail wagging the dog. Too much energy, money and talent get concentrated on tactics like web apps and generating a few hundred thousand hits on your latest contest, while the main strategy gets neglected.

This is why we see so many campaigns that are poorly put together in their quality and thinking. Dull, unimaginative tv commercials, tombstone newspaper ads (they’re the kind that state the product and very little else. You are assumed to know the product’s qualities and price so they don’t tell you.) Ads that spend more space telling you how to activate their web page than in selling the product.

Certainly listen to the bright young things and their clever ideas, pick and choose. But in front of you, keep focussed on the strategy. What is the objective and where is your customer to be found?

Let me give you the example of a master of strategy. I am awestruck at the cool head that followed this through.

As you know, Facebook has been the most successful of the social media. Their recent Initial Public Offering was huge, raising $38 a share - potentially $75 billion. What it will eventually be worth, will be shaken out by history.

But Peter Thiel, billionaire founder of Pay Pal, saw its potential eight years ago and invested. He patiently waited until the offering was completed and sold a chunk of his shares early, at a strong price. A few days ago he sold most of his remaining shares.

The share price has dropped considerably so he only made $19 a share this time around, but I don’t think he minded. Coming in as a favoured “early investor” he had acquired some 10 per cent.

How much did he pay for this? $500,000. How much have his recent sales netted him? Over one billion dollars. And that’s how the rich get richer.

I doubt you have a billion-dollar idea in your grasp. But you did initially foresee the potential and rewards of what you’re doing now. That’s your grain of wheat. Keep it clear in your mind. Then in the midst of all the excitement and hoopla that invade your business days, you’ll have your strategy to keep you on course.

ray@ebeatty.com