New Media: Same As The Old Media

Odd things happen when revolutionary ideas come out. The advent of “new media” or “social media” has led some people to conclude that the rules of “old media” don’t apply. This is true in some cases — for instance, the company no longer has control of the message. But when attracting audiences and getting value to customers, many of the old media rules still apply.

Mack Collier, host and emcee of the excellent blog “The Viral Garden,” has a post about “The ‘Authority Matters’ Argument” on Twitter. He says it better than I do, but the gist of it is that it’s not how many Twitter followers one gets a post out to, it’s how compelling the post is.

Mack’s post (and specifically, the “Authority” argument that he’s critiquing) reminds me of one of my first tradeshow experiences. I was working for a computer security company, and we had a tradeshow booth that was, in my opinion, awesome: we had a James Bond-type theme, and we hired a sexy actor/actress combo to do a skit with a computer security twist. We had some sort of spy gadget type giveaway — and we got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of leads.

But when our salespeople followed up with those leads, no one wanted to talk about our products or get a demo. They had all simply wanted to look at the sexy people — which is why they stayed for the skit and got their badges scanned — or get a free spy gadget. The tens of thousands of dollars we had spent on the actors and the spy gadgets had attracted an audience — but not an audience that would buy our stuff.

We had forgotten one of the rules of marketing: target specific audiences and make it clear that you provide value.

Mack’s point is that the size of one’s Twitter network does not necessarily equal influence, just like the number of leads at a tradeshow does not necessarily equal revenue. It seems to me that some people have ignored the value proposition in the Twitter world. But it’s still true. Targeting audiences with specific value that you can deliver: it works better at tradeshows, and it works better on Twitter.