Free, Short Marketing Book

Seth Godin has released a brief, free ebook (actually 3 versions, one for non-profits) called Flipping the Funnel: Give Your Fans the Power to Speak Up. Seth is well known to the marketing world, is a contributing editor at FastCompany and author of several books, including Purple Cow.

In this 18 page booklet, Seth looks at Del.icio.us, blogging, Flickr and his own venture Squidoo (a platform for user-generated content) as easy, inexpensive ways to "give your fans the power to speak up." He says "What if you could figure out how to use the Internet to empower the people who like you, who respect you, who have a vested interest in your success? I call this group of people--your friends and prospects and customers who are willing to do this--your fan club. A new set of online tools makes this approach not just a possibility, but also an imperative for any organization hoping to grow. Give your fan club a megaphone and get out of the way."

I think this short work can be one of the primers of Library 2.0. It's got practical suggestions and addresses one of the criticisms I've read about the whole "L2" discussion--that it's so far much talk and little action.

At the very end, Godin asks an important question:

"Can you buy into the fact that you can empower your fans to speak up?

Once you are willing to make that commitment, the tactics are simple and straightforward. You can publicize the tools, build the affiliate links, create the RSS feeds, and start down the road to embracing your biggest supporters.

Of course, after you do that, you'll need to deliver ever-more-remarkable products and services--so your fans have something to talk about."

And what's good for the goose is good for the gander...I'll pass Godin's book around here at the "Big O" to make sure we think about eating our own cooking. Which one of my colleagues thinks would be a very fine name for a blog related to getting more OCLC stuff outside the walls.