10 Rules for Businesses to Now Follow

In the book that we read for class, The Cluetrain Manifesto, 95 theses are listed in regards to social media and digital marketing. Ten that stood out to me, and can be converted into actual rules for companies to follow are:

1. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simple not possible in the era of mass media.
2. Markets are conversations
3. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.
4. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention
5. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting
6. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors
7. You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our e-mail? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.
8. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal
9. Don’t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it’s not the only thing on your mind.
10. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

After reading these theses, they can be converted into rules for businesses to follow when it comes to social and digital marketing. These rules are:

1. Businesses must make sure that conversations that are happening between people around the world are appropriate.
2. Businesses need to recognize that markets are now full of two-way communication.
3. If a company fails to engage with and listen to its customers, it will not succeed.
4. Companies have to be willing to listen to their customers if they want them to return.
5. Businesses need to realize that the world is connected and communicates, and it will not wait for companies that catch up too late.
6. Companies need to understand that customers want to be talked to as humans, not demographics.
7. If a company is not willing to listen to a customer, a customer is not willing to give them business.
8. Customers need to be attended to and shown that they are cared about.
9. Companies must recognize that there are other very important things that need to be attended to than just making money.
10. Businesses need to understand that customers are too smart for traditional advertising.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cluetrain-Manifesto-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0465024092