David Meerman Scott

David Meerman Scott
David Meerman Scott photographed in Boston, MA by Bruce Rogovin on May 25, 2012
Born	(1961-03-25) March 25, 1961 (age 52)
Residence	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	Kenyon College
Occupation	Thought leader, strategist, speaker, author
Spouse(s)	Yukari Watanabe Scott
Website
Web Ink Now blog Official website

David Meerman Scott (born March 25, 1961) is an American online marketing strategist,^[1] and author of several books on marketing, most notably The New Rules of Marketing and PR with over 250,000 copies in print in more than 25 languages.^[2]

The book was inspired by an accidental discovery (made when he was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge) that creating useful content oneself and publishing it on-line at virtually no cost was consistently more effective than expensive profession public relations programs. Subsequent books draw from his experience as a real-time bond trader,^[3] and his observations about innovative marketing by organizations as diverse as IBM^[4]:195 and the rock band The Grateful Dead.^[5] Based in Boston, he is also a speaker at conferences and corporate events and he runs seminars about marketing around the world.

Early life [edit]

Scott plays a Chinese man in Teatro alla Scala's 1988 touring production of Turandot

Scott graduated from Kenyon College in 1983 with a BA in economics. After early jobs as a clerk on several Wall Street bond trading desks, he worked in the online news and information business from 1985 to 2002. He held executive positions in an electronic information division of Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world’s largest newspaper companies from 1989 to 1995. He was based in Tokyo from 1987 to 1993 and in Hong Kong from 1993 to 1995.^[6] While in Tokyo he had a sideline as a male model and actor, culminating in a performance in NHK Hall as an extra in the 1988 Teatro alla Scala touring production of Puccini’s Turandot directed by Franco Zeffirelli with James Levine conducting. Ironically his Caucasian looks got him the part playing the role as an Asian. Scott explains, 'The assistant director told me "This is La Scala! We do everything as Puccini had intended! We must employ hundreds of gaijin extras and make them up to look Asian. We cannot use real Asians!"'^[7]

He moved to the Boston area in 1995 and joined Desktop Data, which became NewsEdge Corporation. In his most recent corporate position he was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge until the business was sold to Thomson Corporation in 2002.^[6]

He says "I didn’t plan on becoming a marketing strategist... I came upon it accidentally..."^[6] At NewsEdge he and his team found that do-it-yourself programs based on creating useful content and publishing it on-line at virtually no cost consistently generated more interest from qualified buyers than expensive profession public relations programs. Scott's belief that this idea was not only valuable but also innovative was confirmed when The Thomson Corporation terminated his employment after acquiring NewsEdge. "My ideas were a little too radical for my new bosses. So I started my own business..." he says.^[6]

Since 2001, he has used Meerman, his middle name, to distinguish himself from other notable people called David Scott such as the David Scott who walked on the moon as the commander of Apollo 15 (and whom he has met).^[8]

Career [edit]

Thought [edit]

Scott's ideology "the new rules of marketing & PR" is that marketing and public relations is vastly different on the Web than in mainstream media.^[9] He says that the "old rules" of mainstream media (which he asserts do not work on the Web) are about "controlling a message" and the only ways to get the message into the public domain using mainstream media is to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write about you. He says that the rules of marketing and PR on the Web are completely different.^[10][11] Instead of buying or begging your way in, Scott says anybody can earn attention by "publishing their way in" using the tools of social media such as, blogs, podcasts, online news releases, online video,^[12] viral marketing, and online media.^[13]

Speaking engagements [edit]

Scott gives over fifty keynote speeches a year^[14] all over the world.

Books [edit]

Covers of World Wide Rave and The New Rules of Marketing and PR. The cover of the former is by Doug Eymer and was inspired by vintage rock concert posters.^[15]

Scott is the author of several books including Newsjacking: How to inject your ideas into a breaking news story and generate tons of media coverage, (2011, eMobi,^[16] ePub^[17]), The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, 3ed (2011),^[18] Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect With Your Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now (2010),^[3] and Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History (2010).^[5]

Writing about Newsjacking, Nick Morgan writing for Forbes notes that Scott and his publisher, Wiley, "point the way forward" by publishing this book only in electronic formats.^[19] He summarizes the idea of newsjacking as the timely creation of material for "the second paragraph" of a news story for journalists to incorporate. The first paragraph is for the basic facts: who-what-why-where-when. The second paragraph is about the implications of the story. Unlike hijacking, newsjacking is not a pejorative term. Kristi Hedges, also writing for Forbes, observes that Scott 'answers [the question] "Should I be on Twitter?" once and for all', citing its instantaneous nature and widespread use by journalists.^[20] Writing for Fast Company, Wendy Marx cautions those who might be tempted to take the idea too far, "Don't ... spam reporters ... That will only backfire".^[21]

In an interview on Marketing Update about The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Scott stated that besides the fast pace of change in marketing, another motivation for the new edition was that the book had been incorporated into the curriculum of many universities. As a result he plans to publish a new edition in August every other year.^[22][23]

Real-Time Marketing and PR draws on Scott's earlier career as an up-to-the-second Wall Street trader, this book highlights how the timely creation of heart felt content can be more important than long leadtime polished pieces. Examples include the Dave Carroll United Breaks Guitars phenomenon.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead was coauthored with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot. Scott Kirsner, reviewing the book in the Boston Globe,^[24] mentions that the authors say they were inspired in part by an article in the Atlantic by Joshua Green.^[25]

Other books include:

• The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 2ed (2010)^[4] won praise in The New York Times^[26] and Computerworld^[27] reviews.
• World Wide Rave (2009).^[28] To promote this book Scott created several videos including one evocative of the joyous Matt Harding Where is Matt? series^[29] and a series of three^[30][31][32] in the workplace mockumentary style of both Ricky Gervais's The Office and the Art of the Sale videos.^[33] Comedian Tim Washer plays in two of these series: as victim in the Art of the Sale, but switching roles to oppressor in Riding the Rave.
• Tuned In (2008)^[34]
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR (2008).^[35] The first edition of this book was featured in the BusinessWeek Best Seller List^[36] and is published in more than 20 languages.^[37] Related to the book, Scott developed a one-day seminar called New Rules of Marketing, which is taught to corporate groups around the world.
• Cashing In With Content (2005)^[38]
• Eyeball Wars: A Novel of Dot-com Intrigue (2001)^[39]

Scott (left) with co-author Brian Halligan on the Marketing Lessons... book tour. The background photomontage includes Jerry Garcia, founder of The Grateful Dead

Scott also wrote the foreword sections in The New Rules of Social Media, a series of books that he edits for John Wiley & Sons.^[40][41] The first six books in the series are:

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah^[42]
2. Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield^[43]
3. Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment by Jim Sterne^[44]
4. Beyond Viral: How to Promote and Sustain Your Brand with Online Video by Kevin Nalty^[45]
5. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman^[46]
6. Go Mobile: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business by Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner^[47]

Online publications and social media [edit]

Scott also generates content on-line:

• Several E-books^[48]
• A blog, Web Ink Now,^[49] which is ranked in AdAge Power 150 as one of the top marketing blogs^[50]
• Articles in Huffington Post^[51]
• Contributing editor at EContent Magazine^[52]

He is very active on selected social media sites: Facebook,^[53] Twitter,^[54] and Google Plus.^[55] For example, on July 6, 2011 Twitter hosted an online town hall at the White House^[56] where President Obama answered selected questions from members of Twitter. Scott's question^[57] was the second one of only twenty selected from over 119,000 tweets.^[58][59][60] Given the large number of social media sites and the investment of time to update each, he follows his own recommendation to focus on a few relevant sites, foregoing LinkedIn for some time in his case for example.^[61]

Corporate governance [edit]

Scott is a guest of Karen Rubin and Mike Volpe on hubspot.tv February 13, 2009 Photo: Kyle James (CC-BY-SA)

Scott serves on the board of advisors of HubSpot,^[62] Eloqua,^[63] VisibleGains,^[64] Newstex,^[65] Converseon, Nashaquisset,^[66] the Massachusetts Air and Space Museum,^[67] and Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz. He was formerly on the board of directors of Kadient^[68] (now merged with Sant) and NewsWatch (acquired by Yahoo! Japan).

Personal life [edit]

Scott is married to Yukari Watanabe Scott. They have one daughter.^[69][70] Scott's hobbies include collecting space artifacts,^[71] attending rock concerts,^[72] and surfing.^[73]

See also [edit]

• Inbound marketing

Notes [edit]

External links [edit]

• Official website
• Blog
• Real-Time Marketing & PR on-demand webinar