I am two years to Ryan Holiday's book"Trust Me, I am working". Never much of a PR person, I learned quickly from his nonfictional accounts of becoming a"media manipulator" that advertising can be everything after you've built a great 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 down my notes as a blog post.
Quotes from"Trust Me, I am working"
"We play by their own rules long enough and it becomes our match" --
Orson Scott Card
"Social networking is not a set of resources to allow humans to communicate with people. It is a pair of embedding mechanisms to allow 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 worldwide, human-enslaving AI, you are somewhat more valuable. You are part of the switching circuitry"
-Venkatesh Rao (Entrepreneur in residence at Xerox)
"it is a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap in the industry force of what I have begun to consider as"outrage world" -- the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted websites like Jezebel as well, to a lesser degree, Slate's very own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They are triggered by writers who are compelling readers to feel what the authors claim is righteously indignant rage but which is actually only petty jealousy, cleverly promoted as feminism. These firestorms are fantastic for page-view-pimping bloggy business."
-Emily Gould out of Slate.com
"Businesses should expect a full-scale, organized attack from critics. One that will concurrently overrun blog remarks, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of blogs, leading to mainstream media allure. Start by creating a social networking disasters plan and developing internal fire drills to anticipate what could happen."
-Jeremiah Owyang
"Our selves are the house in which we live; they are our information, our personalities, our adventure, our types of art, our very experience."
-Daniel Boorstin
Exercise Advice from the Novel
Control your Wikipedia page (use any press mention from sites or conventional media)
Examine the top stories and you will see a pattern: the top stories all polarize poeple. If you make it endanger people's 3 Bs -- behavior, belief, or possessions -- you receive a massive virus-like dispersion
Write stuff bloggers can post immediately with no work. Feed them their very own lies"help them trick their readers"
Loaded headlines are very popular
Silence on blogs is your worst.
Faking leaks with email editor (from different sources) can operate if You've Got the right connections
Prominent headlines that screamed excitement concerning utlimately unimportant news
Luxury use of pictures (often of little relevance)
Shade comics plus a big, thick Sunday nutritional supplement
Ostentatious aid of this underdog causes
Utilization of anonymous sources
Prominent policy of high society and occasions
Concepts from the publication
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -damage is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, people treat information headlines as"cultural co napisać do dziewczyny żeby ją zainteresować truth", the damage is already done, even it's a baseless accusation.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources)
The Psychology of Error -- Errors and mistakes get rewarded, causes outrage = pageviews = cash
For instance, each image is not the same load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long-term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are concentrated liberally on pageviews, but in the long term, consumer trust will be important. Meanwhile, irresponsible bloggers are making countless sensationalizing stories that are untrue.
Snark -- mortal weapon (humour in its own dark form. Example = "Your Daily Douchebag: John Mayer Edition". Another online example: Hot Chicks with Douchebags
All that occurs -> All that's known by media --> All that's newsworthy ->All that is printed as information -> All that spreads. This really is the systematic restricting of the information seen by the General Public
My Action List / Lessons from the Book
Websites hold a lot of power
The right contacts at the right blogs in a specific industry hold tons of influence. Example: Apple statements
Building a new website with high viral grip (but with the ideal user metrics in your mind ) may take off fast. Websites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the tide of copying content from other people, organized in a digestible way that consumers can quickly disperse. Millions of dollars are made this way while resources are not credited. There has to be a way to do both.
There is a need for a respectable news source, or an industry specific source that does not pander to"mass hysteria". Example: refinery29.com