I am 2 years to Ryan Holiday's book"Trust Me, I'm Lying". Never much of a PR person, I learned quickly out of his nonfictional account of being a"media manipulator" that advertising can be everything after you've assembled a fantastic product. Since I have to return the book by 12/20 into the San Diego Public LibraryI figured that this is a great time to write my notes down as a blog post.
Quotes from"Trust Me, I am working"
Orson Scott Card
"Social media is not a set of tools to permit individuals to communicate with people. It is a set of embedding mechanisms to permit technology to use humans to communicate with each other, in an orgy of self-organizing... The Matrix had it wrong. You are not the batter power in a worldwide, human-enslaving AI, you are slightly more precious. You Are a Part of the switching circuitry"
"It's a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap in the industry force of what I have come to think of as"outrage world" -- the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted blogs like Jezebel and also, to a lesser level, Slate's own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They're ignited by writers that are pushing readers to sense what the authors assert is righteously indignant anger but that Additional info is really just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy enterprise."
-Emily Gould out of Slate.com
"Companies should expect a full scale, organized attack from critics. One that will concurrently overrun blog comments, Facebook fan pages, and an onslaught of sites, leading to mainstream media allure. Begin by developing a social media crises plan and growing inner fire drills to anticipate what could happen."
"Our selves are the home in which we live; they're our information, our personalities, our experience, our types of art, our really experience."
-Daniel Boorstin
Exercise Advice from the Book
Control your Wikipedia page (use any press mention from sites or conventional media)
Study the best stories and you'll see a pattern: the top stories all polarize poeple. If you create it threaten people's 3 Bs -- behaviour, belief, or possessions -- you receive a massive virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers can post immediately with no work. Feed them their very own lies"help them trick their subscribers"
Silence on blogs is your worst.
Faking escapes with email editor (from different sources) can operate if you have the right contacts
Media historian W.J. Cfambell once identified the distinguishing markers of yellow journalism as follows:
Prominent headlines that screamed excitement concerning utlimately unimportant news
Lavish use of images (often of little significance )
Color comics plus a big, thick Sunday supplement
Ostentatious aid of this underdog causes
Utilization of anonymous sources
Prominent coverage of high society and occasions
Concepts in the publication
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -damage is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, people treat news headlines as"cultural truth", the damage is already done, even it's a baseless accusation.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources)
For instance, each image is not the same load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are focused liberally on pageviews, but in the long term, consumer trust will be important. Meanwhile, reckless bloggers are making millions from sensationalizing stories that are untrue.
Snark -- mortal weapon (humour in its dark form. Another online example: Hot Chicks with Douchebags
All that occurs -> All that is known by media --> All that is newsworthy ->All that is printed as news -> All that spreads. This is the systematic restricting of this information seen by the public
My Action List / Courses in the Book
Blogs hold a Good Deal of power
The right contacts at the right blogs in a specific industry hold tons of influence. Example: Apple statements
Building a brand new site with high viral traction (however with the ideal user metrics in your mind ) may take off fast. Sites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the tide of copying content from other people, organized in a digestible manner that users can quickly disperse. Millions of dollars are made this way while sources are not credited. There has to be a means to do both.
There's a demand for a reputable news source, or an industry specific source that does not pander to"mass hysteria". Example: refinery29.com