I'm 2 years to Ryan Holiday's publication"Trust Me, I am working". Never much of a PR person, I learned quickly from his nonfictional account of being a"media manipulator" that advertising can be everything once you have assembled a great product. Since I must return the book by 12/20 into the San Diego Public Library, I figured this is a great time to write my notes down as a blog article.
Quotes from"Trust Me, I'm Lying"
"We play by their rules long enough and it becomes our match" --
"Social media is not a set of tools to allow humans to communicate with humans. It's a set of embedding mechanisms to permit technologies to use people to communicate with each other, 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 switching circuitry"
-Venkatesh Rao (Entrepreneur in residence at Xerox)
"It's 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 own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They are triggered by authors who are pushing readers to feel what the writers claim is righteously indignant rage but which is really just petty jealousy, cleverly promoted as feminism. All these firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy enterprise."
"Companies should anticipate a full scale, organized attack from critics. One that will concurrently overrun blog remarks, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of sites, leading to mainstream press appeal. Begin by creating a social networking crises plan and growing internal fire drills to expect what could happen."
-Jeremiah Owyang
"Our illusions are the house in which we live; they're our information, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of artwork, our really experience."
Exercise Advice from the Novel
Control your Wikipedia page (use any media mention from sites or traditional media)
Examine the best stories and you'll notice a pattern: the top stories all polarize poeple. If you make it endanger people's 3 Bs -- behavior, belief, or possessions -- you receive a huge virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers can post right away with no work. Feed them their very own lies"help them trick their subscribers"
Loaded headlines are very popular
Silence on blogs is your worst.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources) can work if you have the right contacts
Prominent headlines that screamed excitement concerning utlimately unimportant news
Luxury use of images (often of little significance )
Imposters, frauds, and faked interviews
Shade comics and a big, thick Sunday supplement
Ostentatious aid of the underdog causes
Utilization of anonymous sources
Prominent policy of high society and events
Concepts in the book
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -harm is already done, there is no anything. Iterative reporting is bullshit, people treat information headlines as"cultural truth", the damage is already done, even it it is a baseless accusation.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources)
The Psychology of Error -- Click here to find out more Errors and mistakes get rewarded, causes outrage = pageviews = cash
By way of instance, each image is a different load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are concentrated liberally on pageviews, but in the long term, user trust will be important. Meanwhile, irresponsible bloggers are making countless sensationalizing stories that are untrue.
Snark -- deadly weapon (humour in its dark form. Example = "Your Daily Douchebag: John Mayer Edition". Another online illustration: Hot Chicks using Douchebags
All that happens -> All that's known by media --All that is newsworthy ->All that is printed as news -> All that spreads. This is the systematic limiting of this information seen by the public
My Action List / Lessons from the Novel
Headlines matter
Websites hold a lot of power
The ideal contacts in the ideal sites in a certain 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 ) can take off quickly. Websites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the tide of copying content from others, organized in a digestible manner that consumers can quickly disperse. Millions of dollars are made this way while resources are never credited. There has to be a means to do both.
There's a demand for a reputable news source, or a business specific source that doesn't pander to"mass hysteria". Example: refinery29.com