This document discusses media manipulation strategies. It describes a "trading up the chain" method where a story is placed on a small blog to gain traction, then moves to larger blogs and outlets until it reaches national media. A case study shows how controversial stories were spread this way to promote a book and movie. The document warns that misinformation can now spread without deliberate pushing, as the media ecosystem is primed to react to even minor sparks.
Platform failure! YouTube, Facebook & Co. go rogueBertram Gugel
YouTube und Facebook verselbständigen sich: Algorithmen und die damit einhergehenden Feedback-Loops bestimmen die Sichtbarkeit von Inhalten. Daraus ergeben sich sowohl für die Plattformen als auch für Creators und Publikum viele Probleme und Herausforderungen – dass es auch anders geht, zeigen Spotify und Netflix.
„Wir sind kein Medienkonzern. Wir sind eine Plattform“ ist der Standardsatz von YouTube, Facebook und Co. Doch selbst die stärksten Verfechter der Plattformen bekommen so langsam ihre Zweifel. Indem sie auf Engagement oder Verweildauer optimieren, beeinflussen sie nicht nur Nutzerinnen und Nutzer, sondern auch die Creators, die ihre Inhalte immer genauer an die Plattform-Vorgaben anpassen. Aus diesen Feedback-Loops entstehen Effekte, die selbst Facebook, YouTube und Co. nicht mehr überblicken. Die Plattformen haben sich verselbständigt und produzieren Inkonsequenzen, Skandale und Fehler am Fließband. Allerdings müssen Plattformen nicht zwangsläufig im Chaos enden, wie Spotify, Netflix und Amazon eindrucksvoll beweisen. Was läuft also schief auf YouTube, Facebook und Co.? Wie können Produzentinnen und Produzenten vermeiden, nur noch für Algorithmen zu produzieren? Welche Änderungen sorgen für ein besseres Umfeld für Nutzerinnen und Nutzer, Creators und Werbetreibende gleichermaßen?
Media Convention 2018, 03.05.2018, Berlin
Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Adverti...JDM Export
A primer on the future of PR, marketing and advertising — now revised and updated with new case studies.
Shared by: JDM Export (Website: https://www.jdmexport.com/)
How to make your shit pop on the internet, for non-profits, activists, and organizers.
Some stuff clearly copped from the good people at Upworthy.
Also, I'm sorry that Slideshare broke my typography and my GIFs. You'll have to see it in person one day.
Una lezione al Master in Giornalismo Iulm. Innovazione, social media, newsletter, ritorno della carta, boom di Snapchat: come stanno cambiando i periodici storici online e cosa fanno quelli appena nati, per trovare e mantenere un posto in un mondo dove non esiste più la periodicità, ma il flusso
Platform failure! YouTube, Facebook & Co. go rogueBertram Gugel
YouTube und Facebook verselbständigen sich: Algorithmen und die damit einhergehenden Feedback-Loops bestimmen die Sichtbarkeit von Inhalten. Daraus ergeben sich sowohl für die Plattformen als auch für Creators und Publikum viele Probleme und Herausforderungen – dass es auch anders geht, zeigen Spotify und Netflix.
„Wir sind kein Medienkonzern. Wir sind eine Plattform“ ist der Standardsatz von YouTube, Facebook und Co. Doch selbst die stärksten Verfechter der Plattformen bekommen so langsam ihre Zweifel. Indem sie auf Engagement oder Verweildauer optimieren, beeinflussen sie nicht nur Nutzerinnen und Nutzer, sondern auch die Creators, die ihre Inhalte immer genauer an die Plattform-Vorgaben anpassen. Aus diesen Feedback-Loops entstehen Effekte, die selbst Facebook, YouTube und Co. nicht mehr überblicken. Die Plattformen haben sich verselbständigt und produzieren Inkonsequenzen, Skandale und Fehler am Fließband. Allerdings müssen Plattformen nicht zwangsläufig im Chaos enden, wie Spotify, Netflix und Amazon eindrucksvoll beweisen. Was läuft also schief auf YouTube, Facebook und Co.? Wie können Produzentinnen und Produzenten vermeiden, nur noch für Algorithmen zu produzieren? Welche Änderungen sorgen für ein besseres Umfeld für Nutzerinnen und Nutzer, Creators und Werbetreibende gleichermaßen?
Media Convention 2018, 03.05.2018, Berlin
Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Adverti...JDM Export
A primer on the future of PR, marketing and advertising — now revised and updated with new case studies.
Shared by: JDM Export (Website: https://www.jdmexport.com/)
How to make your shit pop on the internet, for non-profits, activists, and organizers.
Some stuff clearly copped from the good people at Upworthy.
Also, I'm sorry that Slideshare broke my typography and my GIFs. You'll have to see it in person one day.
Una lezione al Master in Giornalismo Iulm. Innovazione, social media, newsletter, ritorno della carta, boom di Snapchat: come stanno cambiando i periodici storici online e cosa fanno quelli appena nati, per trovare e mantenere un posto in un mondo dove non esiste più la periodicità, ma il flusso
Our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide provides the What, Why and How to succeed this year, with a look at the Three Core Pillars of Social Media – Data, Creative & Amplification.
7 Archtypes for Social Media EngagementBryan Merica
Where do you start with a social media strategy? The answer to this question might appear obvious: you’d probably say that you begin by creating your profile on Facebook, on Google+, on Twitter, and other channels; but the truth is that before you even enter the first line of your bio or upload the first profile photo, you have to spend some time contemplating your identity.
You shouldn’t even go near the profile-building pages of those social media channels until you’ve developed a vision of who you are and found your online “voice”. We’ve developed a great tool to help our clients do this: Seven Archetypes for Social Media Engagement.
These seven brand personalities make use of different strengths to engage audiences, and as you read through you’ll probably begin to feel some familiarity with one or more of them.
Todd's Interactive Marketing Course: Summer 2016Todd Van Hoosear
The marketing world is changing rapidly, and many businesses are rethinking how they organize and execute the marketing function. This course explores the evolution of interactive marketing communications – specifically about the increasingly integrated marketing and corporate communications roles. We’ll touch on advertising, PR, corporate communications, SEO, social media, interactive and digital content and many other topics.
Social Media Monitoring—A presentation for @MidwestBrian Huonker
Why Social Media Monitoring?
The answer is simple: People trust the opinions of others more than brand advertisements, official websites or PR releases. In fact, people trust the opinion of others, especially their peers, more than almost anything. This means that online opinions on your brands and products really matter. Quite a lot, to be frank. So, let us list a number of reasons for you to keep a close eye on the online chatterbox:
- Measuring Marketing effectiveness
- Manage crisis pro-actively
- Do effective online public relations
- Benchmark your competition
- Identify new market opportunities
- Get market insights in the most cost effective manner
Learn more about the @Midwest Social Media Conference by visiting atMidwest.com.
Social Media Marketing: 50+ Predictions for 2016Carlos Gil
Social media predictions for 2016 featuring insight from marketers and professionals.
50+ marketers were polled and asked the following questions:
What's your social media prediction for 2016?
What will be the most important social media channel in 2016 and why?
Thank you to everyone who participated including: Aaron Kilby, Aaron Lee, Adam Lewites, Adel de Meyer, Ahna Hendrix, Albert Qian, Anabella Acoca, Anthony DeNardis, Ben Phillips, Bernie Borges, Chris Barrows, Chris Mikulin, Chris Strub, Christian Karasiewicz, Christin Kardos, Daniel Newman, Dennis Yu, Dino Dogan, Dom Garrett, Ekaterina Walter, Ian Cleary, Jason Miller, Jason Falls, Jed Record, Jess Bahr, Jessika Phillips, Joel Comm, Kasey Skala, Keri Jaehnig, Lisa Loeffler, Lucy Rendler-Kaplan, Marc Guberti, Marji J. Sherman, Mark Schaefer, Marsha Collier, Martin Jones, Martin Shervington, Meghan M. Biro, Melonie Dodaro, Michael Stelzner, Mitch Jackson, Esq., Neal Schaffer, Nick Cicero, Owen Hemsath, Rachel Miller, Ryan Paugh, Ryan Pena, Saba Sedighi, Samantha Klein, Sarah Evans , Tayo Rockson, Ted Coiné, Vincent Orleck, Viveka von Rosen, and Nick Haase.
CTAA - Defining 2016: Social Media & Digital Trends in Multifamily Erica Campbell Byrum
With the ever-changing climate of social media, it’s hard to know what’s “in” and what will help grow your business. Social media, digital marketing and new technology holds tremendous opportunities for companies looking to drive new business, retain customers, create engagement and increase revenue. So many changes have come through social media in the past few years, and no doubt that more are on their way in 2016. Interested in where it is all going? What should be in store for you for the next year? Join Erica Campbell Byrum, Director of Social Media for For Rent Media Solutions as she shares insight into social media trends to help you develop a social program that is proactive versus reactive.
Inbound marketing differs from social media marketing and content marketing in really important ways. Learn more about how to use it to sustainably grow your business.
Includes BONUS content from our Marketing Facts vs Fantasies eBook...
A comprehensive guide to using twitter in a business environment. Topics include:
*Getting started
*Building a follower base
*How to gain visibility
*Business uses of Twitter
*The future of Twitter in the enterprise
This presentation features plenty of examples and best practices from successful members of the Twitter community.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN BRIEF, V.01 03.31.152015 Digital Book World. 2015
Contributors: Peter McCarthy, Beth Bacon, Editors of Digital Book World
Editor: Rich Bellis
If you are a brand without
Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr & Weekly video content on Youtube.
Sorry! You are behind the times, it’s not 2013, it’s 2016 soon
This PowerPoint presentation looks at social media and network statistics and predicts the trends relevant for users, consumers, and marketers in 2015.
Succession “Losers”: What Happens to Executives Passed Over for the CEO Job?
By David F. Larcker, Stephen A. Miles, and Brian Tayan
Stanford Closer Look Series
Overview:
Shareholders pay considerable attention to the choice of executive selected as the new CEO whenever a change in leadership takes place. However, without an inside look at the leading candidates to assume the CEO role, it is difficult for shareholders to tell whether the board has made the correct choice. In this Closer Look, we examine CEO succession events among the largest 100 companies over a ten-year period to determine what happens to the executives who were not selected (i.e., the “succession losers”) and how they perform relative to those who were selected (the “succession winners”).
We ask:
• Are the executives selected for the CEO role really better than those passed over?
• What are the implications for understanding the labor market for executive talent?
• Are differences in performance due to operating conditions or quality of available talent?
• Are boards better at identifying CEO talent than other research generally suggests?
The impact of innovation on travel and tourism industries (World Travel Marke...Brian Solis
From the impact of Pokemon Go on Silicon Valley to artificial intelligence, futurist Brian Solis talks to Mathew Parsons of World Travel Market about the future of travel, tourism and hospitality.
Our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide provides the What, Why and How to succeed this year, with a look at the Three Core Pillars of Social Media – Data, Creative & Amplification.
7 Archtypes for Social Media EngagementBryan Merica
Where do you start with a social media strategy? The answer to this question might appear obvious: you’d probably say that you begin by creating your profile on Facebook, on Google+, on Twitter, and other channels; but the truth is that before you even enter the first line of your bio or upload the first profile photo, you have to spend some time contemplating your identity.
You shouldn’t even go near the profile-building pages of those social media channels until you’ve developed a vision of who you are and found your online “voice”. We’ve developed a great tool to help our clients do this: Seven Archetypes for Social Media Engagement.
These seven brand personalities make use of different strengths to engage audiences, and as you read through you’ll probably begin to feel some familiarity with one or more of them.
Todd's Interactive Marketing Course: Summer 2016Todd Van Hoosear
The marketing world is changing rapidly, and many businesses are rethinking how they organize and execute the marketing function. This course explores the evolution of interactive marketing communications – specifically about the increasingly integrated marketing and corporate communications roles. We’ll touch on advertising, PR, corporate communications, SEO, social media, interactive and digital content and many other topics.
Social Media Monitoring—A presentation for @MidwestBrian Huonker
Why Social Media Monitoring?
The answer is simple: People trust the opinions of others more than brand advertisements, official websites or PR releases. In fact, people trust the opinion of others, especially their peers, more than almost anything. This means that online opinions on your brands and products really matter. Quite a lot, to be frank. So, let us list a number of reasons for you to keep a close eye on the online chatterbox:
- Measuring Marketing effectiveness
- Manage crisis pro-actively
- Do effective online public relations
- Benchmark your competition
- Identify new market opportunities
- Get market insights in the most cost effective manner
Learn more about the @Midwest Social Media Conference by visiting atMidwest.com.
Social Media Marketing: 50+ Predictions for 2016Carlos Gil
Social media predictions for 2016 featuring insight from marketers and professionals.
50+ marketers were polled and asked the following questions:
What's your social media prediction for 2016?
What will be the most important social media channel in 2016 and why?
Thank you to everyone who participated including: Aaron Kilby, Aaron Lee, Adam Lewites, Adel de Meyer, Ahna Hendrix, Albert Qian, Anabella Acoca, Anthony DeNardis, Ben Phillips, Bernie Borges, Chris Barrows, Chris Mikulin, Chris Strub, Christian Karasiewicz, Christin Kardos, Daniel Newman, Dennis Yu, Dino Dogan, Dom Garrett, Ekaterina Walter, Ian Cleary, Jason Miller, Jason Falls, Jed Record, Jess Bahr, Jessika Phillips, Joel Comm, Kasey Skala, Keri Jaehnig, Lisa Loeffler, Lucy Rendler-Kaplan, Marc Guberti, Marji J. Sherman, Mark Schaefer, Marsha Collier, Martin Jones, Martin Shervington, Meghan M. Biro, Melonie Dodaro, Michael Stelzner, Mitch Jackson, Esq., Neal Schaffer, Nick Cicero, Owen Hemsath, Rachel Miller, Ryan Paugh, Ryan Pena, Saba Sedighi, Samantha Klein, Sarah Evans , Tayo Rockson, Ted Coiné, Vincent Orleck, Viveka von Rosen, and Nick Haase.
CTAA - Defining 2016: Social Media & Digital Trends in Multifamily Erica Campbell Byrum
With the ever-changing climate of social media, it’s hard to know what’s “in” and what will help grow your business. Social media, digital marketing and new technology holds tremendous opportunities for companies looking to drive new business, retain customers, create engagement and increase revenue. So many changes have come through social media in the past few years, and no doubt that more are on their way in 2016. Interested in where it is all going? What should be in store for you for the next year? Join Erica Campbell Byrum, Director of Social Media for For Rent Media Solutions as she shares insight into social media trends to help you develop a social program that is proactive versus reactive.
Inbound marketing differs from social media marketing and content marketing in really important ways. Learn more about how to use it to sustainably grow your business.
Includes BONUS content from our Marketing Facts vs Fantasies eBook...
A comprehensive guide to using twitter in a business environment. Topics include:
*Getting started
*Building a follower base
*How to gain visibility
*Business uses of Twitter
*The future of Twitter in the enterprise
This presentation features plenty of examples and best practices from successful members of the Twitter community.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN BRIEF, V.01 03.31.152015 Digital Book World. 2015
Contributors: Peter McCarthy, Beth Bacon, Editors of Digital Book World
Editor: Rich Bellis
If you are a brand without
Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr & Weekly video content on Youtube.
Sorry! You are behind the times, it’s not 2013, it’s 2016 soon
This PowerPoint presentation looks at social media and network statistics and predicts the trends relevant for users, consumers, and marketers in 2015.
Succession “Losers”: What Happens to Executives Passed Over for the CEO Job?
By David F. Larcker, Stephen A. Miles, and Brian Tayan
Stanford Closer Look Series
Overview:
Shareholders pay considerable attention to the choice of executive selected as the new CEO whenever a change in leadership takes place. However, without an inside look at the leading candidates to assume the CEO role, it is difficult for shareholders to tell whether the board has made the correct choice. In this Closer Look, we examine CEO succession events among the largest 100 companies over a ten-year period to determine what happens to the executives who were not selected (i.e., the “succession losers”) and how they perform relative to those who were selected (the “succession winners”).
We ask:
• Are the executives selected for the CEO role really better than those passed over?
• What are the implications for understanding the labor market for executive talent?
• Are differences in performance due to operating conditions or quality of available talent?
• Are boards better at identifying CEO talent than other research generally suggests?
The impact of innovation on travel and tourism industries (World Travel Marke...Brian Solis
From the impact of Pokemon Go on Silicon Valley to artificial intelligence, futurist Brian Solis talks to Mathew Parsons of World Travel Market about the future of travel, tourism and hospitality.
We’re all trying to find that idea or spark that will turn a good project into a great project. Creativity plays a huge role in the outcome of our work. Harnessing the power of collaboration and open source, we can make great strides towards excellence. Not just for designers, this talk can be applicable to many different roles – even development. In this talk, Seasoned Creative Director Sara Cannon is going to share some secrets about creative methodology, collaboration, and the strong role that open source can play in our work.
The Six Highest Performing B2B Blog Post FormatsBarry Feldman
If your B2B blogging goals include earning social media shares and backlinks to boost your search rankings, this infographic lists the size best approaches.
Each technological age has been marked by a shift in how the industrial platform enables companies to rethink their business processes and create wealth. In the talk I argue that we are limiting our view of what this next industrial/digital age can offer because of how we read, measure and through that perceive the world (how we cherry pick data). Companies are locked in metrics and quantitative measures, data that can fit into a spreadsheet. And by that they see the digital transformation merely as an efficiency tool to the fossil fuel age. But we need to stretch further…
Building Trust Within Communities Through StorytellingBrian Huonker
Traditional communication channels are becoming ineffective in capturing and engaging the attention of today’s perpetually connected community residents. This, in turn, is making it increasingly difficult to communicate with them, to keep the community informed on upcoming elections, filing deadlines, fee increases, as well as changes in policies and ordinances. Additionally, today’s “fake news” generation does not trust information from traditional channels, only 6% of millennials consider traditional communications even to be credible. Today's municipalities must adapt their communication strategies in an effort to be heard in the face of the consumers’ rapidly changing media consumption landscape. To get out ahead of traditional media channels with the facts. And most importantly, become the trusted source of information within their communities.
In this session, you will learn
How to identify a topic to write about from the questions your community is asking but not talking to you about.
Strategies for transforming those topics into informational and persuasive “storified” content.
How to utilize those stories in blogs, infographics, social media posts, and videos that connect with the community and ensures they are informed
How to deliver those stories through a content marketing strategy that builds mindful scheduling habits.
Discover tracking methods to understand which stories, types of content are being read by your communities and use that information to develop future stories.
Through strategic, engaging content, you can stay connected with your community to keep them informed on your ever-changing community. Build a trusted relationship with them to ensure your messages are received and understood. And become an unmistakable and essential community partner in their eyes.
This is a presentation I am making to the Brazil Newspaper Congress in Sao Paulo on August 18,. 2008. It is a call to newspapers to include the community (in the persons of bloggers, vloggers and podcasters) in the newspapers' websites and printed pages.
Beyond The Ink Smudge To Digital Relevancy : Social Media For Newspapers, the...Diva Marketing (Blog)
Always in motion is the future”– Yoda
As both digital and legacy (local) news competition continues its battle for audience and advertisers every resource and strategy must be held accountable in order to move the business forward. Social media is no longer a “feel good” tactic. It must produce results. What those results might be and how social media can be used to achieve them is what this session focused on.
This presentation, for Inland 2014 Inland Press Mobile and Social Solutions Conference, deconstructs social media in terms of newspaper brand, journalists and advertisers. There are resource worksheets included to help guide you through the process of reconstructing or contstructing your social media plan. Best of luck!
Always in motion is the future”– Yoda
As both digital and legacy (local) news competition continues its battle for audience and advertisers every resource and strategy must be held accountable in order to move the business forward. Social media is no longer a “feel good” tactic. It must produce results.
What those results might be and how social media can be used to achieve them is what this session focused on.
This presentation, for Inland 2014 Inland Press Mobile and Social Solutions Conference, deconstructs social media in terms of newspaper brand, journalists and advertisers.
There are resource worksheets included to help guide you through the process of reconstructing or contstructing your social media plan. Best of luck!
Proximity Prague Digital Team is holding meeting every friday. This is one from presentation shown on usual friday's - we look at trends, show cases, interesting samples, studies, numbers. Last friday i took Hype Cycle for technology from Gartner, separated it into few views and added samples of some emerging technologies. Presentation ends with insight into interesting article from ZDNet - showing social media fails.
Digital PR: Media Relations in a Web 2.0 WorldSally Falkow
Digital PR requires new skills and a new format for presenting corporate news. Jourrnalists are under pressure and need more help and support from PR but they need it in a digital format. Social media and search are used extensively by journalists and bloggers. PR people need to do the same.
At Harvard we spend a lot of time watching how the media landscape is shifting and thinking about what that means for our clients. Here are our six biggest media trends to watch in 2018.
The internet has profoundly affected how we collect and consume information; there is no debate about that. How can media companies adapt, survive and thrive in the digital age by returning to the fundamentals of the narrative?
5. IF YOU WERE BEING KIND, YOU WOULD SAY MY JOB IS IN MARKETING
AND PR
Well, I'd say that's a polite veneer to the harsh
truth: I am a media manipulator.
Reaching the national news isn't hard. In fact, the system is
so easy to manipulate, you might be convinced that it's
child's play.
Take it from me. It is.
Now, I’m pulling back the curtain.
I’m going to explain exactly how the media works.
W H A T YOU C H OOSE TOD
7. TRADINGUPTHECHAIN
is a strategy that I developed that manipulates the
media through recursion. I can turn nothing into
something by placing a story with a small blog
that has very low standards, which then becomes
the source for a story by a larger blog, and that, in
turn, for a story by larger media outlets. I create,
to use the words of one media scholar, a “self-
reinforcing news wave.”
9. BUT,IWANTTOEXPLAIN
exactly how I manipulated the
media for a good cause,
without any of the negatives
associated with my infamous
clients.
10. A FRIEND OF MINE
recently used some of my advice on trading up the
chain for a charity he runs. This friend needed to raise
money to cover the costs of a community art project,
and chose to do it through Kickstarter, the
crowdsourced fund- raising platform.
With no advertising budget, no publicist, and no
experience, his little video did nearly a half million
views, and funded his project for the next 2 years. It
went from nothing to something.
11. FOLLOWING MY INSTRUCTIONS, hemadeaYouTube
video for the Kickstarter page showing off
his charity’s work.
The video contained certain elements aimed
at helping the video spread. Next, he wrote a
short article for a small local blog in Brooklyn and
embedded the video. As expected, the Huffington Post bit,
and ultimately featured the story as local news in both
NYC and LA.
12. FOLLOWING MYADVICE, hesentanemailfroma
fake address with these links to a reporter at
CBS in LA, who then did a television piece on
it.
When the CBS News piece came out and the
video was up, he was ready to post it all on
Reddit. It made the front page
almost
immediately.
13. This score on Reddit put the story on the radar
of what I call the major “cool stuff” blogs—
sites like BoingBoing, Laughing
Squid, FFFOUND!, and others—since they
get post ideas from Reddit.
From this final burst of coverage,
money began pouring in, as did
volunteers, recognition, and
15. SO WAIT…
He turned one amateur video into a news story
that was written about independently by
dozens of outlets in dozens of markets and did
millions of media impressions. It even
registered nationally.
He had created and then manipulated this
attention entirely by himself. This raises a
critical question…
18. HERE’S HOW IT ALL
WORKS
BLOGS HAVE ENORMOUS INFLUENCE over other
blogs, making it possible to turn a post on a site
with only a little traffic into posts on much bigger
sites, if the latter happens to read the former. Blogs
compete to get stories first, newspapers compete
to “confirm” it, and then pundits compete for
airtime to opine on it. The smaller sites legitimize
the newsworthiness of the story for the sites with
bigger audiences. Consecutively and concurrently,
this pattern inherently distorts and exaggerates
20. There are thousands of bloggers scouring the web looking for
things to write about. They must write several times each day.
They search Twitter, Facebook, comments sections, press
releases, rival blogs, and other sources to develop their
material.
Above them are hundreds of mid-level online and offline
journalists on websites and blogs and in magazines and
newspapers who use those bloggers below them as sources and
filters.
“They also have to write constantly—
21. and engage in the same search for
buzz, only a
little more developed.”
22. ABOVE THEM are the major national
websites, publications, and
television stations. They in
turn browse the scourers below
them for their material,
grabbing their leads and
turning them into truly
national conversations.
THENEWYORKTIMES,THETODAYSHOW,CNN.
24. IT’S BLOGGERS INFORMING BLOGGERS
INFORMINGBLOGGERSALLTHEWAYDOWN.
IN A MEDIA MONITORING study done by Cision and
George Washington University, 89 percent of
journalists reported using blogs for their research for
stories. Roughly half reported using Twitter to find
and research stories, and more than two thirds use
other social networks, such as Facebook or LinkedIn,
in the same way.
The more immediate the nature of their publishing
mediums (blogs, then newspapers, then
magazines), the more heavily a journalist will
depend on sketchy online
sources, like social media, for research.
32. Here we begin to see a mix of online and offline sources.
The blogs of newspapers and local television stations are
some of the best targets. For starters, they share the same
URL and often get aggregated in Google News. Places
like the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and CBS all
have sister sites like SmartMoney.com, Mainstreet.com,
BNET.com, and others that feature the companies’ logos
but have their own editorial standards not always as
rigorous as their old media counterparts’.
THEY’LL BE YOUR CRITICAL
TURNING POINTS IN BUILDING
34. THE LEGACY MEDIA
The reality is that the bloggers at Forbes.com or the Chicago Tribune do
not operate on the same editorial guidelines as their print counterparts.
However, their final output can be made to carry
the same weight.
These sights won’t write about just anything, though, so you need to
create chatter or a strong story angle to
hook this kind of sucker. Their illusion of
legitimacy comes at the cost of being slightly more selective
when it comes to what they cover.
BUTITISWORTHTHEPRICE,GRANTINGBIGGERWEBSITES
37. Having registered multiple stories from
multiple sources firmly onto the radar
of both local and midlevel outlets, you
can now leverage this coverage to
access the highest level of media: the
national press.
Getting to this level
usually involves less direct
pushing and
a lot more massaging.
38. The sites that have already taken your bait are
now on your side. They desperately want their articles to get as
much traffic as possible, and being linked to or
mentioned on national sites is how
they do that.
39. THE NATIONAL PRESS
These sites will take care of submitting
your articles to news aggregator sites
like Digg, because making the front
page will drive tens of thousands of
visitors to their article. Mass media
reporters monitor aggregators for
story ideas, and often cover what is
trending there, like they did with the
charity story after it made the front
page of Reddit.
40. IN TODAY’S WORLD EVEN THESE GUYS HAVE TO THINK LIKE
BLOGGERS—THEY NEED AS MANY PAGEVIEWS AS POSSIBLE
41. HERE’S HOW YOU DO IT
Taketheoutletwhereyou’dultimatelyliketoreceive
coverageandobserveitforpatterns.
You’ll notice that they tend to get their story ideas
from the same second-level sites, and by tailoring the story
to those smaller sites (or site), it sets
you up to be noticed by the larger one.
The blogs on Gawker and Mediabistro, for
instance, are read very heavily by the New
York City media set.
You can craft the story for those sites that automatically set
42. yourself up to appeal to the other reporters reading it –
without ever speaking to them directly.
43. AN EXAMPLE:
Katie Couric claims she gets
many story ideas from her
Twitter followers, which means
that getting a few tweets out of
the seven hundred or so people
she follows is all it takes to get
a shot at the nightly national
news.
It’sasimpleillusion:Createtheperceptionthatthememe
alreadyexistsandallthereporterisdoingispopularizingit.
47. My campaign for I
Hope They Serve Beer
in Hell began by
vandalizing the
billboards. The graffiti
was designed to bait
two specific sites,
CurbedLA and
Mediabistro’s
FishbowlLA. When I
sent them photos of my
work under the fake
49. CURBEDLABEGANTHEIRPOSTBYUSINGMYEMAILVERBATIM:
Thanks for the plug!
In creating outrage for the movie, I had a lot of luck getting
local websites to cover or spread the news about protests
of the screenings we had organized through
anonymous tips. We would send them a few offensive quotes
and say something like “This misogynist is coming to our
school and we’re so fucking pissed. Could you help spread the
world” Or I’d email a neighborhood site to say that “a
51. SEX, COLLEGE PROTESTORS, HOLLYWOOD.
It was the kind of story news producers loved. After
reading about the growing controversy on the small
blogs I conned, they would often send camera crews
to the screenings. The video of the story would get
posted on the station’s website, and then get covered
again in the other, larger blogs in that city, like those
hosted by a newspaper or companies like the
Huffington Post. I was able to get the story to
register, however briefly, by using a small site with
53. At this point, I now have something to work
with. Three or four links are the makings of a
trend piece, or even a controversy— that’s all
major outlets and national websites need to
see to get
excited.
The key to getting from the second to the third
level is the soft sell.
Gawker and Mediabistro are very media-
centric, so we tailored stories to them to queue
ourselves up for outrage from their audiences
54. — which happen to include reporters at places
like the Washington Post.
55. When I want to be direct, I would send fake emails
with a collection of all links gathered so far and
say, “How have you not done a story
about this yet?” Reporters rarely get
substantial tips or alerts from their readers, so to
get two or even three legitimate tips
about an issue is a strong signal.
So I sent it to them. At this point
something
amazing happened.
56. “If only they knew we were promoting
the offensive Tucker Max brand for us
just as we planned…”
The coverage my stunts received began helping the 20,000
dollar-a-month publicist the
movie had hired.
REJECTIONS FROM LATE-NIGHT
TELEVISION, NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS, AND
MORNING RADIO
TURNED INTO CALL-BACKS.
Tucker did Carson Daly’s NBC late-night show for the first
time. By the end of this charade, hundreds or reputable
57. reporters, producers, and bloggers had been swept up into
participating. Thousands more had eagerly gobbled up news
about it on multiple blogs. Each time they did, views of the
movie trailer spiked, book sales increased, and Tucker became
more famous and more controversial.
58. JUST LIKE A BUNCH OF ANIMALS
The media gallops in a herd. It takes just one
steer to start a stampede. The first level is your
lead steer. The rest is just pointing everyone’s
attention to the direction it went in.
Remember: Every person (with the exception of a
few at the top layer) in this ecosystem is under
immense pressure to produce content
under the tightest of deadlines. Yes, you have
something to sell. But more than ever they
desperately, desperately need to buy. The flimsiest
60. It freaked me out when I began to see this sort of thing
happen without the deliberate prodding of a promoter
like myself. I saw media conflagrations set off by
internal sparks. In this networked, interdependent
world of blogging, misinformation can spread even
when no one is consciously pushing or manipulating
it. The system is so primed, tuned, and ready that
often it doesn’t need people like me.
The monster can feed itself.
63. RYANHOLIDAYisamedia
strategist for notorious clients
such as Tucker Max and Dov
Charney. After dropping out of
college at nineteen to
apprentice under Robert
Greene, author of The 48 Laws
of Power, he went on to advise
many bestselling authors and
multiplatinum musicians. He is
currently the director of
marketing at American Apparel,
where his work is
internationally known. His
campaigns have been used as
case studies by Twitter,
YouTube, and Google and
64. written about in AdAge, the
New York Times, Gawker and
Fast Company. He currently
lives in New Orleans and writes
at RyanHoliday.net.