I am 2 years to Ryan Holiday's publication"Trust Me, I am working". Never much of a PR person, I learned immediately from his nonfictional account of being a"media manipulator" that marketing can be everything after you have assembled a fantastic product. Since I have to return the publication by 12/20 into the San Diego Public Library, I figured that this is a good time to write my notes down as a blog post.
Quotes from"Trust Me, I'm working"
"Social networking isn't a set of resources to permit humans to communicate with humans. It is a set of embedding mechanisms to permit technology to use people to communicate with one another, in an orgy of self-organizing... The Matrix had it wrong. You are not the batter power in a worldwide, human-enslaving AI, you're slightly more precious. You are part of the switching circuitry"
-Venkatesh Rao (Entrepreneur in residence at Xerox)
"it is a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap into the market force of what I've come to consider as"outrage planet" -- the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted websites like Jezebel and also, to a lesser level, Slate's very own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They're ignited by authors that are compelling readers to sense what the writers assert is righteously indignant rage but which is actually only petty jealousy, cleverly promoted as feminism. All these firestorms are fantastic for page-view-pimping bloggy enterprise."
-Emily Gould from Slate.com
"Businesses should anticipate a full scale, organized attack from critics. One which will concurrently overrun blog remarks, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of blogs, leading to mainstream media appeal. Start by developing a social media disasters plan and developing internal fire drills to expect what would happen."
-Jeremiah Owyang
"Our illusions are the home where we live; they're our news, our personalities, our adventure, our types of art, our very experience."
Exercise Advice in the Book
Control your Wikipedia page (use any media mention from blogs or conventional media)
Examine the top stories and you'll notice a pattern: the top stories all polarize poeple. If you make it endanger people's 3 Bs -- behaviour, belief, or belongings -- you get a massive virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers could post right away without any work. Feed them their own lies"help them trick their readers"
Silence on sites is the worst.
Faking leaks with email editor (from various sources) can work if you have the right contacts
Prominent headlines that screamed excitement about utlimately unimportant news
Lavish use of images (often of little significance )
Shade comics and a big, thick Sunday nutritional supplement
Ostentatious support of this underdog causes
Utilization of anonymous sources
Prominent policy of high society and occasions
Concepts from the publication
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -harm is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, people treat information headlines as"cultural truth", the damage is already done, even it it is a baseless accusation.
Faking leaks with email editor (from different sources)
The Psychology of Error -- Errors and errors get rewarded, causes outrage = pageviews = money
By way of instance, each picture is a different load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long-term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are concentrated liberally on pageviews, but in the long term, consumer trust will be important. Meanwhile, reckless bloggers are making countless sensationalizing untrue stories.
Snark -- deadly weapon (humor in its own dark form. Another online example: Hot Chicks with Douchebags
All that occurs -> All that's understood by media --> All that is newsworthy ->All jak zagadac do obrazonej dziewczyny that is published as information -> All that spreads. This really is the systematic limiting of this information seen by the public
My Action List / Courses in the Book
Blogs hold a Good Deal of power
The ideal contacts in the ideal blogs in a specific sector hold tons of influence. Example: Apple statements
Building a brand new site with high viral traction (but with the ideal user metrics in mind) may take off quickly. Sites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the wave of copying content from other people, organized in a digestible way that consumers can quickly disperse. Millions of dollars are made this way while resources are not credited. There has to be a way to do both.
There is a need for a reputable news source, or a business specific source that doesn't pander to"mass hysteria". Example: refinery29.com