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UnMarketing book review and Scott Stratten video interview: Comet TV

Scott Stratten’s new book, UnMarketing, offers concise, conversational and strategic advice to marketers looking to really connect with and engage their customers.

At Comet, we often receive advance copies* of marketing/pr/social media books sent to us by publishers and author agents – the assumption being that they’d like us to read them, review them, blog about them, have them on our radio show, tweet about them and ultimately help them in their quest to sell more books. Makes sense. And we happily receive them.

We rarely have the time to review everything we receive. However once in a while a really great one catches our eye and deserves commentary. UnMarketing is one of those. Plus, by all accounts Scott is a really smart and nice guy and we like seeing people like that succeed. So we took notice.

At the time of receipt of the book, I had not previously met Scott in person, but we had exchanged a few tweets in the past. Conveniently, that fact serves to prove one of his book’s premises exactly: Scott and I had already established some semblance of a relationship. That relationship – albeit extremely cursory – was the reason for his book’s ability to cut through the clutter (in my mind) of all the other books sent to us, written by authors unknown to me. UnMarketing is conceived on the premise that relationship-building, rather than marketing, is the key to business growth and success.

Now, about the book. UnMarketing is a straight-forward, concisely written hardcover that is packed from cover to cover with great advice for people looking to achieve new marketing results through new and enlightened thinking. Scott’s style is sharp, funny and lacks the fluffy stuff that makes so many of the books in the new media category such a chore to read. It reads in a way that makes you want to be his buddy – or at the very least avail of his services in a professional context.

While he’s unapologetic in his positioning of himself as an expert in the subject, it doesn’t come off as self-promotional or self-serving. His voice is personal, approachable and real because his language is UnAcademic (see what I did there?), yet strategic and knowledgeable.

It’s a quick read. I was able to pick it up and pretty much finish it in less time than it took to fly from Milwaukee to Las Vegas for BlogWorld 2010 (where he was the opening keynote speaker). I’m a pretty speedy reader, but you get the point. And the time spent reading it was well-invested.

Each chapter is short, sweet and to the point – which I love and appreciate. All chapters are less than 10 pages, with most in the 3 to 4 page range. So in essence, 56 chapters feels a lot more like a collection of 56 short conversations/consultations over coffee with Scott.

I was fortunate enough to have a chance to catch up with him for a video interview at BlogWorld to ask him a few questions about his goals for the book and his experiences touring North America to promote it. Have a look.

For what it’s worth, my favorite chapter is chapter 16: The Seven Deadly Social Media Sins. Great advice on what NOT to do when trying to engage with your audience in social media. He’s spot-on with his identification of some of the worst behaviors for a person or a brand to demonstrate online.

Have you read it yet? What was your favorite chapter? Key take-aways? Anything you think he left out?

*Full disclosure: This book was sent to us gratis. Which means we did not pay for it.

Tags: BlogWorld 2010, Comet book review, Comet TV, relationship marketing, Scott Stratten, social media marketing, UnMarketing