Spin Sucks summary

Old-school ad-men thought they could sell everything with spin or sex. But in the current media environment, building a connection based on trust is the key to good PR.

Of course, people still love drama, sex and the absurd. But these elements don’t help your company. They might attract some initial interest, but if your product isn’t actually useful to people, it will swiftly be rejected.

Search engines offer a powerful way to deliver your content to an audience, so it would be wise to play by the rules of search platforms.

But people don’t always agree about what that means. “White hat” search engine experts think that creating stand-out content is the key to achieving a good ranking in search results.

Everyone’s a critic. And what’s more, no one can escape criticism. But if you can deal with criticism gracefully and learn to distinguish between trolls and valid customer complaints, you’ll be able to establish a larger and more loyal fan base.

First you have to figure out whether the criticism is fair. Does this person have a valid bone to pick or are they just complaining for the sake of complaining? To answer that question, you have to figure out whether there are problems with your product and service. And if you find some, fix them.

Whenever you encounter multiple critical comments, you need to be strategic about how you answer them. You must evaluate the relative influence of each critic and prioritize your responses accordingly.

That doesn’t mean you can neglect people you deem unimportant. It just makes business sense to respond more quickly to highly influential people.

People used to trust the media, but times have changed: today, media manipulation is easier than ever.

In fact, Ryan Holiday demonstrated this sad fact in his book, Trust Me, I’m Lying. Holiday indiscriminately responded to every query posted on the internet service “Help a Reporter Out” (HARO), which connects journalists with sources. He even hired an assistant to help him handle as many requests as possible. After a few weeks, he had far more requests than he could manage.

Good content is valuable, but it’s also time-consuming and resource-intensive. That’s why dishonest people steal content instead of creating their own.

If someone steals from you, don’t passively accept the theft – take action. Simply letting the thieves know you’re on to them might do the trick.

For decades, companies relied on traditional marketing to simply reach an audience. The web makes this easier, but it’s a double-edged sword.

The benefits are clear: customers can help build your brand by talking about it on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Though the internet has given rise to scores of new marketing technologies, they all tend to fit within two major themes: good customer experience and real-time marketing.

Starting with the former, no business can survive without its customers. That’s why you should focus on improving their experience, rather than making money.