Getting the New Media Landscape

Although I try to keep my blogs separate, I'm going to point to an entry I did in WriterBiz, which is about the freelance writing business and intended for freelance writers. For those who don't want to make the jump, it refers to a post on Reflections of a Newsosaur. In short, sometimes web sites that you'd swear must be obscure can generate more interest and attention, and direct more readers, than even sites of the largest traditional media outlets - we're talking BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and so on.

This matters to business because it's about communication - with customers, employees, stockholders, business partners, and so on. Many companies make the enormous mistake of thinking that a mention in major media, or placing an ad there, is going to do wondrous things for their businesses. That may happen, but it doesn't have to. Talk to people in PR, for exmaple, and if they will be candid, they'll acknowledge that prominent treatment in even a publication like the Wall Street Journal might do exactly nothing in terms of driving sales or interest. I've heard the same from some book authors who found that mentions on specialized blogs coudl sometimes get them many, many more sales than traditional media.

The world is changing, and if you want to be successful in communicating, you have to start understanding how the new media work. Send the assumptions out the window and start exploring things without a guide whispering in your ear, "This one is important ... that one isn't." Chances are that the tour master has never been off the main streets and has no idea what the real dynamics are. Forget about the ego trip of appearing in Important Places, and figure out what will actually work.