Companies are rethinking how they get their message to the masses. Instead of journalists and PR agencies, they are looking more and more to key influencers to, via social media, help build buzz.
Got Influence? Twitter, Facebook and the New Buzz Machine
How does the next hot (or cool) tech company or product become one? Until
recently, the path often looked like this: Startup hires PR agency. Agency
pitches influential journalists. Journalist (hopefully) writes article. Buzz
builds, and technology (hopefully) takes off. Pester and repeat as necessary.
Lately, however, some companies are starting to rethink this approach.
They’re bypassing (at least to start) traditional media and even PR
gatekeepers. Instead, they’re directly targeting key influencers—successful
entrepreneurs, VCs, financial analysts, user groups, microbloggers and online
forums, among others—who rely heavily on e-mail and social media like Twitter
and Facebook to transmit “unfiltered” enthusiasm to masses of trusting followers
and friends.
Source: Nick Hayes, Influencer 50
Cool Kids Get Things Buzzing
This kind of “social influence marketing” could have a big impact not just
on media, PR and ad agencies, and their customers, but on technology buyers and
watchers as well. Some are good, some not so good. More on that in a bit.
A recent New York Times article,"Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley," shows why this
“whisper in the ear” approach to buzz-building is gaining traction in startup
circles.
When Wordnik (a new web site) went live last month … Digg’s founder, Kevin
Rose, later tweeted to his then 759,310 followers that Wordnik was “truly
amazing.” By 6:30 p.m. on the
day Wordnik went live … 1.43 million people had seen tweets about it. CNET
and a handful of blogs also wrote about the site. None of the coverage was in
print, and most wasn’t by professional journalists.
The publicity sent 40,000 people to Wordnik’s Web site to perform 170,000
searches the following week and caught the attention of reporters at USA Today
and The Wall Street Journal who hoped to write articles. A couple of media
companies have contacted Wordnik to talk about potential partnerships and
mentioned that they read the tweets of Mr. Adelson or Mr. Rose.
Anything that gets such quick results cheaply is bound to gain traction.
