For­mer music mar­keter Scott Strat­ten is firm­ly in the social camp that advo­cates gen­uine, inter­est­ing, care­ful­ly planned con­tent over mass­es of spam fired ran­dom­ly in the hope some of it will stick.

Those in media jobs should take note.

Scott’s cur­rent­ly the Pres­i­dent of UnMar­ket­ing  – an expert in viral, social and authen­tic mar­ket­ing, that he charm­ing­ly refers to as ‘UnMar­ket­ing’; which, sim­ply put, is all about posi­tion­ing your brand and busi­ness as the expert cus­tomers will turn to when they need the ser­vices you offer.

He’s very def­i­nite­ly not a fan of the unplanned ‘suck it and see’ school of  mar­ket­ing and feels that engag­ing and inter­act­ing with your audi­ences, and being gen­uine with them, is the key to mak­ing sure they opt for you over your com­peti­tors. His most recent book, The Book of Busi­ness Awe­some / The Book of Busi­ness UnAwe­some is actu­al­ly two tomes in one and it aims to show busi­ness­es how to become awe­some, by look­ing at train-wreck exam­ples of the thor­ough­ly unawesome.

What’s His Big Idea?

After grad­u­at­ing from Sheri­dan Col­lege, where he returned and held a pro­fes­sor­ship and taught HR and employ­ment law, Strat­ten worked for sev­er­al big Cana­di­an names, includ­ing Good­will Indus­tries and Polyair as well as Sheri­dan. He set up his ‘una­gency’ UnMar­ket­ing in ear­ly 2002 and ran it for near­ly 10 years before spe­cial­iz­ing in speak­ing at events for com­pa­nies includ­ing Pep­si­Co, Adobe, Red Cross, Saks Fifth Avenue and Cirque du Soleil to help guide them through the mine­field that is viral and social media.

He explains why he decid­ed to write the book and show busi­ness­es the way in black and white.

“I want­ed orig­i­nal­ly to just write about all the awe­some in busi­ness and how to find those nuggets in your com­pa­ny,” he said.  “But I and audi­ences that I speak to love the train-wreck sto­ries and some­times we can learn more from the bad than the good. Plus some of the most awe­some sto­ries in the book start­ed off as unawe­some events. When it hits the fan, it’s not time to hide behind the fan. It’s time to be awesome.”

His con­fi­dence and com­mer­cial brass neck is admirable. His the­o­ry involves employ­ing great peo­ple and invest­ing in and empow­er­ing them.

Strat­ten con­tin­ues: “It real­ly starts off with hir­ing the right peo­ple. That’s actu­al­ly one of your most impor­tant marketing/sales tasks: find­ing the right people.

“Awe­some isn’t trained or taught. One of the worst things to do is hire great front-line employ­ees and poor man­age­ment. For employ­ers who want to make that awe­some step, you have to make sure employ­ees real­ize that they mat­ter. That your brand isn’t a logo or a brochure, it’s them.”

You Just Can’t Plan Awesome

It seems that any busi­ness look­ing to become awe­some, the HR office is the place to start. As Scott suc­cinct­ly puts it “you don’t plan awe­some, you hire it and empow­er it.”

So, if you’re look­ing to improve your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing efforts it pays to have the right peo­ple in place and make sure they’re hap­py in their work. If they don’t feel val­ued, some of your most impor­tant advo­cates will quick­ly see to it that your busi­ness becomes unawesome.

It’s not just about clever gim­micks and impres­sive tech; it’s about some­thing more fun­da­men­tal. It’s about peo­ple who love what they do and pass that enthu­si­asm on to cus­tomers. Strat­ten wants to help make your busi­ness infec­tious. Infec­tious­ly awesome.