The Media Revolution:

Marketing in a World Where

Messages Don’t Matter

Paul Gillin
Author, The New Influencers
April 1, 2008
The Only Constant is
Change
“The media world has changed more
in the last five years that it has in the
last 50 and it will change at that rate
again in the next five…The largest
force shaping 2008 will be the steady
flow of readers, viewers and users
away from traditional media to digital
options of all kinds.”
Wenda Harris Millard
President, Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Feb. 12, 2008
It’s Hard to Predict,
Especially About the Future

“Blogging’s wave has crested as

millions of online diarists realize that
nobody’s actually reading this stuff.”
Paul Gillin
December, 2003
AOL Hell
 AOL Hell
June 20 Vincent Ferrari

June 21

June 23

June 24

June 26

July 14

Today
 Meet the new influencers

Philipp Paige Heninger &

Lenssen Gretchen Vogelzang

Craig
Newmark
Steve Hall
 New Influencers are
Passionate – Both Pro and
Con
Active Traditional Influencers
Authoritative 3rd parties, community leaders, press, gov’t.

Haters Lovers

Desire to
Influence Critics Enthusiasts

Others Skeptic Mainstream

s
Passive

Dismisser Followers
s
Reject Favor

Brand Engagement
Source: Sean Moffitt, BuzzCanuck
Traditional
communications
New reality
 What is Web 2.0?
According to Wired magazine:
 Participation
 Openness
 Conversation
 Community
 Connectedness
 Types of Social Media
 Discussion forums
 Blogs
 Microblogs
 Podcasts
 Social networks Cost to
 Social bookmarking

sites
Social shopping sites
user = $0
 Online video
 Recommendation
engines
 Social search
 Wikis
 Seeds of change
 Web 2.0 is the greatest experiment in
group self-organization in history
 Sophisticated patterns of influence
emerging
 Personal publishing will completely
disrupt the mainstream media; many
won’t make it
 Everyone is now a potential content
producer; this will fundamentally
Customers in control
 Dell Hell
“Dell said that it found no
pattern of battery failure and
that the Pennsylvania
incident publicized by the
Inquirer Web site was caused
by a chip problem and not
batteries.”
June 24
NY Times
July 10
The New Consumer
Reports
“Customer angst sites are no
longer just shouting
‘YourCompanySucks’ into the
cyberdarkness, but acting as
gathering spots for sharing call-
center secrets and trouble-
shooting tips. And as the
audience for more blogs and
social-media sites such as Digg
reach critical mass, it's easier
than ever for consumers to
wallpaper the Web with their
customer-service nightmares.”
-BusinessWeek, March 3, 2008
 Whom Do Consumers
Trust?
Percent who trust each source

Other consumers 78%

Chat/discussion comments 63%

Blogs 61%

Brand sites 60%

TV/magazine 56%

Radio 54%
Sponsorships 49%
Search ads 34%
Banner ads 26% Source: Nielsen, Oct., 2007
Old Tactics No Longer
Work
June 14, 2007

“Please remove the posting located at the following link:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/insiders/22-...
It contains information that is confidential and proprietary to Dell.”

Dell's 23 Confessions
Now's not the time to mince words, so let me just say it... we
blew it…. instead of trying to control information that was
made public, we should have simply corrected anything that
was inaccurate. We didn't do that, and now we're paying for it.

June 16, 2007

Dell’s Transformation

"These conversations are

going to occur whether you
like it or not…You can learn
from that. You can improve
your reaction time. And you
can be a better company by
listening and being involved
in that conversation."
Michael Dell, 10/17/2007
 Critical Mass
 Active blogs on the Internet: 35 million
 MySpace/Facebook members: 190 million
 Number of videos on YouTube: 66 million
 Number of new Flickr photos/day: 1.5 million
 Growth in US newspaper circulation since 1990: -8
million
 Average age of a network evening news viewer:
60
 Percent of b-to-b marketers who are cutting print
ad budgets in 2008: 13.5
 Year Internet ad spending is forecast to overtake
Blogs – Global Podium
International Flavor

Source: Technorati, April, 2007

 Action Moving to B-to-B
Accenture Professional Services
Air Conditioning Contractors of America

National Assoc. of Manufacturers

Emerson Process Control

Extended Stay Hotels

Thomas Nelson Publishers

Owens Corning
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Podcasts: Audio
Personality
 Podcasts Reach Buyers
U.S. podcast audience (millions)

6.5 •Twice as many

2007
18.5 Active audience* podcast listeners
2008 10.0
28.0 Total audience
have advanced
14.0
degrees as non-
2009
38.0 listeners
2010 17.5 •Podcast listeners
47.0
users are twice as
21.5
2011
56.0 likely to have
2012 25.0 incomes over
65.0
$100,000
0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0

Souce: eMarketer, Jan., 2008

*Listens weekly or more

Online Video: Customer TV
A B-to-B Example
 Social
network
mania
 The Friending of America
Profile Friends

Groups
 Why People Love Them
 Efficiency
Active social network
 Connectedness users typically
 Advice maintain 3X to 5X as
many casual
 Answers relationships as they
did before the online
 Referrals
tools were available
 Discovery
Self-
Appointed
Celebrities
 New Media Economics
Traditional Social
 Rooted in mass markets  Rooted in small markets
 Delivery network is  Delivery is cheap and
differentiator outsourced
 High reader/viewer  Limitless choice;
retention rates; lack of retention driven by
customer choice content
 Fat margins, high fixed  Fat margins, low fixed
cost cost
 High barrier to entry  No barrier to entry
 Let’s Get Small
 Engaged customer
 Technology enabled
 Well-informed
 Opinionated
 Focused
 Passionate
 Intentions ≠ Reality…Yet
Average Allocation of Online Marketing Budget by US Marketing
Professionals, by Strategy, Q3 2007 (% of total)

Source: Coremetrics, “2nd Annual ‘Face of the New Marketer,’” provided to eMarketer, October 30, 2007
Join the conversation

But that doesn’t mean

you should just start a blog…
Use the Tools
IBM’s internal podcasting
library has more than
100,000 unique members and
12,000 files. It has had no
internal promotion.
“This isn’t about knowledge-
sharing; it’s about
community-building,” says
George Faulkner, who leads
the initiative.

“Many organizations will build a shared

repository of information about the
organization. By 2010, wikis will be the
natural vehicle for such ‘internal
wikipedias.”
-David Ferris, Ferris Research

Source: CIO Insight, 8/27/07

 Tap in

Action: Listen to the

conversation
Tools: Google, Technorati, Bloglines, Facebook

Objective: Find out what’s being

said; learn the language and the
culture

Result: Understand
Hearing aids

Use these tools to mine online conversations

and identify prospective customers and
communities that are receptive to your
message
 Engage

Action: Talk to the influencers

Tools: Comments, groups, blogs, “friends”

Objective: Identify brand

advocates; contain and educate
critics

Result: Influence the conversation

Ready-made markets
Engaging Influencers
•Read, comment, understand
•Reach out with something of
value
•Play to ego, self-importance
•Treat online influencers as you
would reporters
•Engage before you pitch
 Engagement Tactics
•Invite them into the club
•Offer links or small promotions
•Use discounts, giveaways, contests,
free trials
•Never edit or censor what they say
•Consider affiliate programs
GM Fastlane blog
 Wide-ranging
commentary on cars,
the company,
government regulation
and the media
 A way to bypass
mainstream media,
whom GM believed
was hostile
 Has outperformed PR
campaigns in some
important respects
Cultural Norms of Social
Media
 “Transparency”
 Conversation
 Individual
 Courteous
 Sharing
 Attribution
 Suspicion of marketers
 Recruit

Action: Turn enthusiasts into

promoters
Tools: Widgets, branded merchandise, access, retreats

Objective: Build low-cost virtual sales force

of informed customers

Result: Brand visibility; sales leads

Tap customer innnovation
Tap customer innnovation
 Keys to Success
 Have a strategy
 Go where your constituents are
 Choose a unique area of expertise
 Contribute often
 Acknowledge others; tag and link to
them
 Build friends networks
 Be courteous, helpful and supportive
 Thank you!

Paul Gillin
508-202-9807
paul@gillin.com
www.gillin.com

Now available
from Quill Driver Books (And coming in fall, 2008:
Read more and order at Secrets of Social Media
www.NewInfluencers.com Marketing…)