The New Influencers

"A great man does not have only his own mind, but also those of all his friends." ~ Nietzsche

I've begun reading yet another book on the new social media, on blogs and blogging, this one by Paul Gillin called The New Influencers. Gillin begins his introduction with a confession. In a column in 2003 he forecast the death of blogging, stating that it had crested now and was on its way out. Sort of reminds you of the Decca records exec who rejected the Beatles because guitars were on their way out. Or the writer of this blog who in May 1994 declared the World Wide Web would never catch on because it was "too slow." (Netscape didn't exist then, and bandwidth was an issue.)

Today there are nearly a quarter million new MySpace users a day in this cybercity with a population near the size of Mexico, the world's eleventh largest country.

Gillen's book is a marketing book. Or rather, Gillen is trying to help marketers understand the new media.

One thing for sure, the blogosphere has influence. It helped unmask Dan Rather and brought down Trent Lott. But in manifold smaller ways it is creating new communities, and eroding the power of those power brokers who funneled news and information through the networks. It's also creating new rules for businesses who have marketing messages they want to share.

In the old model, and we're all too familiar with this, a message was created and during breaks in the action of what viewers are watching these one-way communications are shoved into your sockets and blasted into your ears. We've all noticed how the volume rises when many commercials hit the screen. Ouch.

In the new model, Gillen says, marketing must become interactive. Consumers want to dialogue about your product, not be "informed" or preached to or told what to do. In the new media, consumers must be respected. Interaction is the highest form of respect. It says, "I am willing to listen to you. What you have to say is important to me because you are important."

Interactivity is not the only benefit of the blogosphere. Depth of content is available here. I remember an incident about twenty-five years ago when I listened to a speech by a newscaster in which she essentially said that if television is your only source of information, you essentially have a very shallow understanding of what is going on. "After you take away time for sports, weather and commercials, we only have eleven minutes to deal with everything that is going on in the world." In short, if you want to be informed you need to read the magazines.

Well, that is how magazines became influential in the first place, they could and did cover stories in greater depth. But now, with the blogosphere, many magazines are finding themselves challenged as info junkies can skim a virtual universe of resources for news that is more personal, more diverse in its interpretations and more relevant. Our local newspaper, the Duluth News Tribune, has been forced into layoffs and is now even cutting journalists as readership drops and the old model of news distribution is challenged by the rising costs of paper and fuel.

At the beginning I cited a Nietzsche quote that is especially relevant in the media. As new communities form, we develop new relationships that help us become more multifaceted in our understanding, and thereby more influential. The more we are enriched by others, the more we can in turn enrich others.

I agree with Andre Gide who wrote, "Those who fear influences and shy away from them are tacitly confessing the poverty of their souls." We do not know where this will all lead, but I believe it will influence us all.