I'm two years late to Ryan Holiday's book"Trust Me, I am working". Never much of a PR person, I learned immediately from his nonfictional accounts of becoming a"media manipulator" that marketing can be everything after you've assembled a great product. Since I must return the book by 12/20 to the San Diego Public Library, I figured this is a good time to write down my notes as a blog post.
Quotes in"Trust Me, I am working"
"We play with their rules long enough and it becomes our match" --
Orson Scott Card
"Social networking isn't a set of resources to permit individuals to communicate with humans. It's a pair of embedding mechanisms to permit technologies to use people to communicate with one another, in an orgy of self-organizing... The Matrix had it wrong. You're not the batter power in a global, human-enslaving AI, you're somewhat more valuable. You Are a Part of the shifting circuitry"
-Venkatesh Rao (Entrepreneur in residence at Xerox)
"it is a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap in the market force of what I have begun to think of as"outrage world" -- the regularly occurring firestorms awakened on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted websites like Jezebel and also, to a lesser degree, Slate's very own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They are triggered by writers that are compelling readers to sense what the writers claim is righteously indignant rage but which is really only petty jealousy, cleverly promoted as feminism. These firestorms are fantastic for page-view-pimping bloggy business."
"Companies should anticipate a full scale, organized attack from critics. One which will simultaneously overrun blog remarks, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of blogs, resulting in mainstream media allure. Start by developing a social networking disasters plan and developing internal fire drills to expect what could happen."
-Jeremiah Owyang
"Our selves are the house in which we live; they're our information, our heroes, our experience, our forms of artwork, our very experience."
-Daniel Boorstin
Exercise Advice from the Book
Control your Wikipedia page (use any media mention from blogs or traditional media)
Examine the best stories and you will notice a pattern: the best stories all polarize poeple. If you create it endanger people's 3 Bs -- behaviour, belief, or possessions -- you get a huge virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers can post immediately without any work. Feed them their own lies"assist them trick their readers"
Silence on blogs is the worst.
Faking escapes with email editor (from different sources) can operate if you have the Ideal connections
Prominent headlines that screamed excitement about utlimately unimportant news
Lavish use of pictures (often of little relevance)
Imposters, frauds, and faked interviews
Shade comics plus a big, thick Sunday nutritional supplement
Ostentatious support of this underdog causes
Utilization of anonymous sources
Prominent coverage of high society and events
Concepts from the publication
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -harm is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, folks treat information headlines as"cultural fact", the damage is already done, even it it is a baseless accusation.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources)
The Psychology of Error -- Errors and mistakes get rewarded, causes outrage = pageviews = cash
By way of example, each image is not the same load screen = more pageviews (short term vs. long term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are focused blindly on pageviews, but in the longterm, user trust will be significant. Meanwhile, reckless bloggers are making millions from sensationalizing stories that are untrue.
Snark -- mortal weapon (humor in its dark form. Another online example: Hot Chicks using Douchebags
All that occurs -> All that's understood by media --> All that is newsworthy ->All that is published as news -> All that spreads. This really is the systematic restricting of this information seen by the public Click here for info
My Action List / Lessons from the Novel
Websites hold a Good Deal of power
The ideal contacts in the right sites in a certain industry hold tons of sway. Example: Apple statements
Building a brand new site with high viral grip (however with the ideal user metrics in your mind ) may take off quickly. Websites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the wave of copying content from others, organized in a digestible way that users can quickly spread. Millions of dollars are created this way while resources are never credited. There has to be a means to do both.
There's a demand for a respectable news source, or a business specific source that does not pander to"mass hysteria". Example: refinery29.com