I know that this post by Steve Rubel was posted last year, but in mining my RSS feeds from Google Reader today, I came across this post on the movement towards Moneyball Marketing as marketers look to online and had to talk about it because of how much I enjoyed Moneyball.

In Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, Lewis showed how baseball manager Billy Beane built a successful team by changing the critical stats. Rather than choosing players based on the big time stats that the Yankees liked, the A’s started getting players with good on-base percentages and slugging percentages–players that weren’t as highly sought after in the drafts and had less star mentality.

As Rubel projects, the same could be true for marketing in the online realm. Marketers looking to reduce costs could go more niche and find smaller sites that produced better results. These sites wouldn’t have as much of a “star mentality” and don’t charge as much for advertising.

I had never thought about Moneyball applying to marketing until I read this post, but now it seems like a great way to describe the more efficient way of marketing on the Web. Rubel also lists some ways to start applying the Moneyball method:

Here are three ways you can apply Moneyball Marketer in your organization today:

1) Become a Super Cruncher – Look beyond the common methods for evaluating media and identify more meaningful, perhaps esoteric statistics. For example, make a buy based on a site’s ability to drive consumers to complete high value tasks.

2) Skip Reach, Go Niche – As hard as it is, try forgoing some of the larger sites in favor of emerging niche ones that deliver a higher percentage of your target. Work with them to create measurable, outside-the-box programs. For example, consider Takkle – an emerging social network focusing on high school sports.

3) Think Relationships, Not Impressions – The most successful companies in business today recognize that relationships rule. Consider launching programs that allow you to hone your relationships with narrow segments of your audience. Go beyond impressions.

There’s a reason that I want to train myself on social media and integrate a role as a community manager into my normal public relations duties. As more and more marketers profess the equal ground that social networks create between marketers and consumers, marketers have to redefine themselves.

Jeremiah Owyang questioned on a recent post how marketers could stay relevant.

Question: Many consumers loathe marketers, now consumers can bypass marketers with social media tools, the power has shifted to the participants, how do marketers stay relevant?

Answer: Marketers must participate, or let consumers participate on their behalf, it’s a new world.

The best way to participate is to become what is today defined as a community manager. Just like Larry Hryb became the face of Microsoft’s Xbox as Major Nelson and Frank O’Connor became a “Content Monkey” for Bungie, community managers have taken on the role of passing information to the community and letting the community do what they will.

This model works best with brands where a large fan base already exists on the Web. It’s not as strict and defined a communication as traditional public relations, but it is one that more consumers and fans appreciate.

Community managers produce original content and writing for the community rather than issuing press releases directly to the press. They overcome a greater challenge in establishing a relationship of trust with the consumers since they are affiliated directly with the company they represent, but those marketers that pass on a consistently honest message to the consumer reap the reward of developing a brand community out of their marketing efforts.

By bypassing the media, niche brands can also see rewards. Even though they may be too small for industry journalists to take note, they can develop a cult following through their own blogging and community development.

This passive marketing of the future puts the community managers on equal ground with consumers and allows them to interact and participate in a meaningful way. It will be the most effective marketing communication method of the future, so it would benefit every PR practitioner to integrate community management into normal PR functions in order to stay relevant.

TalentZoo.com featured a great set of 18 PR Tips for Startups from Brian Solis in a recent email. His tips feature a few pet peeves of mine about some people’s concept of public relations. Often, folks can doubt the power of PR.

2. Don’t undervalue PR.

PR, when done right, is extremely valuable to company branding, which has immeasurable benefits in the long haul. Customers have choices and if you’re not consistently vying for their attention, it’s pretty easy to fall off their radar screen when they evaluate options. Too many companies nickel and dime PR to the point of absurdity. Don’t get me wrong. Expensive PR doesn’t equal success. But short changing PR is usually a first step in the wrong direction.

As a general rule, PR should always be consistent because it does take time and maintained effort to establish relationships with the journalists that cover your business and find coverage opportunities. Solis does a great job expanding upon these two principles through all 18 tips–even enforcing how important it is for executives to meet regularly with their PR department and involve them early in decisions that can affect their messaging.

Marketing-savvy corporate executives are working with PR, Advertising, and Marcom teams to explore options and strategies on how to participate in relevant online conversations. This represents a shift in outbound marketing as it creates a direct channel between companies and customers, and ultimately people.

He even recommends my dream job within a company:

Hire a community manager. In the new world of social media, new PR can be complemented through the efforts of someone who can actively represent the company in all things social so that they can provide proactive information and support to people looking for guidance in the communities they frequent. Don’t market to them, have conversations.

Now, who’s interested?

I’ll take your Seth Godin, and I’ll raise you one.

I suggest a tip I got a long while back from Scott Ginsberg, “The Nametag Guy,” about tracking your presence on the Web:

Set up a Google Alert for your name.

Really, go do it now.

By setting up a Google Alert for your name, you can easily keep track of when you are being discussed on the Internet and how extensive your Web presence becomes. Your alerts are handy for connecting you with people that discuss you on the Web. Hopefully, it’s all positive info, and you can enjoy increased alerts as you expand your interaction through the Google world, blogging and social networks.

Without my Google Alerts, I would never know how many different locations I can find to buy books written by the Jewish author of same name. That’s an added bonus.

Of course, for you college crazies, a Google Alert can also help you combat negative press out there. Didn’t know those Flickr pictures you tagged of yourself showed up on Google when someone searched for your name? Well, now you do, and you can go take care of untagging and removing the things better kept private when you apply for a job.

It’s a good idea to set up a Google Alert just so you are aware of what your potential employers will find when they type in your name and punch the dreaded “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. You don’t want it to be your Xanga from 1994 where you ranted on how much you hated your homeroom teacher, do you?