Scarcity is an interesting and powerful concept. Check out this post from Seth Godin’s blog regarding scarcity.

I do think that there is line you should draw on exactly how scarce your product is.  The Apple Iphone is a bit scarce, but at the same time they are selling them by the thousands in virtually every Apple and AT&T store.  If a product is in demand than you can make it somewhat scarce to increase demand even further, not to mention the powerful effect of word of mouth (provided you are marketing it well).  However if a product is not popular or well received then scarcity may not be the best thing for you.

What do you think, is scarcity good or bad?

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You need to treat everyone as if they were a VIP, because they are. Everyone is now the media and everyone has the power to make or break you. When you go to a restaurant you are just as important as the food critic. When you go watch a movie, you are just as important as the film critic, and when you fly via an airline, you are just as important as the flight critic. Why? Because you have access to the world via the internet. You can write your own opinions and experiences and share them with the everyone. If you are not treated fairly by Toshiba or have a bad experience with their customer support, you can tell everyone about it. Once people begin to empathize with your experience and once they begin sharing in their frustrations, you can bet that they are going to listen to you. Remember what happened with Jeff Jarvis and Dell Hell? One man began blogging about his horrible experiences with Dell and soon the blog spread like wild fire across the net, everyone was complaining about similar issues. This was perhaps one of the most important things that has happened to Dell because they listened and they changed. Now Dell is praised for their continued efforts in listening to it’s customers.

Companies and individuals need to start realizing that in order to succeed in this new world, everyone needs to be a treated like a VIP. You need to build relationships and connections with everyone, not just the so called “important” people. Everyone with access to a computer and an internet connection has the power to talk about you, the only question is are they going to say something positive or something negative? You have the power to control the outcome and it starts with making sure that you treat everyone as an important person.

How are you treating your employees or your customers?

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Marketing is no longer a position that you fill at a company.  Marketing is not a television commercial or a radio advertisement.  Marketing is not a piece of collateral you send off to reporters, bloggers, or journalists.  Marketing is everything you do and every interaction you are involved in.

Every time you have a business meeting with employees, investors, etc. that is marketing.  Every time you talk to someone at a bar about your company or service, that is marketing.  Every presentation you give and every online and offline conversation you participate in is marketing.  I used to work at a marketing agency a while ago that presented monthly reports to clients.  At the end of the report the last page would say “thank you.”  What kind of marketing is that?  Why not let the company know about any news, announcements, updates, or new products/service that you have?

This is crucial to remember, especially for a startup.  Everyone at a startup company is marketing, everyone!  Startups build their brand and their image based upon the initial interactions that take place between users (press, etc.) and the employees (although they are usually the founders).  Most people identify with a company because of the founders/creators.  You are the marketing and PR department!

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I find it fascinating that marketing folks still spam pitch me (and other bloggers). I mean we’re talking about people with fancy titles like “VP of Marketing” or “Director of Marketing” who go online, copy and paste their pitch and then hit send. Now, how exactly did you get to be in charge of your marketing department when you still don’t understand that spam does not equal marketing. I’m usually quiet about this sort of thing because there are plenty of other bloggers out there who ream pr and marketing professionals for spamming them, but it seems to me, that the only way to teach these guys is to call them out. So here it goes…

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Recently on linkedin, I asked folks, “How Much Say Should a Company Have in Regulating Internal Social Media Usage?” I received many responses and I have shared some of them below. But think about that question for a moment. How should a company regulate internal social media usage? If a company finds out that someone is spending a lot of time on twitter, is it wise to reprimand the person, OR, to make him the social media ambassador for the company? Should a company just block all sites like wordpress, youtube, twitter, etc? or would this just make matters worse? The questions can go on and on and on. Here are a few of the responses…

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