P.T. Barnum, founder of Barnum & Bailey’s Circus once said.“Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.” Weird, but true. My main area of professional expertise is in finding unique marketing strategies, brand development and media placement solutions. There’s a lot of components to that, as you know if you’ve ever taken a shot at it. But I can promise you (from experience) that if there is no publicity….no BUZZZZ!, then there is no success, no campaign, no R.O.I. And I lose a client.
So how do you create Publicity? Sounds elementary. Far from it. It becomes a greater challenge every day. Consumers are more educated, savvy and cynical than ever. Electronic media is in a state of flux. Newspaper print giants, who roamed the landscape freely during the Industrial (Jurassic) age, are dying off at an incredible rate. Small businesses (1-250 employees), know their tv and radio marketing is packing a heck of a lot less punch than it did when the only message dilution to worry about was Beta or VHS format.
But what’s really got everyone breathing hard is what to do with the upsurge in social networking outlets online. Holy Cow! According to a Nielsen study just completed Jan. 2009, Facebook has grown to 108.3 million strong audience, bumping MySpace out of first place with a sniveling 81 million unique audience. LinkedIn, which is a little more business-leaning has grown from almost 0 in 2007 to 15 million unique audience members in 2009.
And another little news flash…the assumption that it’s just kids with ipods and tramp stamps – WRONG! One third of Facebook fanatics are 35-49, and almost 25% are over 50 years old.
Like it or not, every business owner, every COO, CMO, CEO and CFO should stop shrugging their shoulders and changing the subject. That’s “THE PUBLIC” we’re talking about here. Nearly 220 million of them. And business needs people. They’ve got no choice when it comes to Pubicity – THEY’VE GOTTA HAVE IT. We must embrace the New Media, Social Networking and learn how to profit from it. Not because we think its cute, or the latest fad. We know those 220 million texters are 220 million potential buyers.
What are you doing to get in the flow? Tell me what your plan is…or tell me what concerns you the most about “getting out there.”
