A recent Times article pretty much was a copy and paste job from a blog post from Facebook. Who needs to send out press releases when you know a blog post will get the attention of the world? Steve Jobs did it last week too.
If you’re going to be doing business, you’re going to have to have an online element. No matter who you are, no matter what your product. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a newspaper-type organisation or do podcasts or videos but your current and future clients expect interactions that are more than a dull brochure-like website or a phone call or a replied-to email. With the current masses expecting more interactivity and a more personal relationship with who they buy from, it’s time to gear up.
You’re going to have to do Online Marketing and you’re going to have to do Online PR but perhaps you’re doing this and unaware that what you’re doing has a name. You’ll have to create content in various formats, be it blog posts, video tutorials, Flickr uploads and you’ll have to engage with people not just in the short term but over the course of your business life. This is how you’re a media company. When customers want to ask you something they should be able to find you where they are, not just where you are. As important, if not moreso though is that their peers that they ask should know your company and products and do the work of marketing on your behalf because they have some kind of relationship with you already.
Yes it means more work or maybe it just means you have to be cleverer with your existing resources. The payoff though is that you’ll have broader reach over space and time. Do you need to do it? I think yes but then you don’t need to be in the Golden Pages or have a phone either and you might still keep going.
Again, being a media company now doesn’t mean being a content producer, you can get others to do that but you do need to know that you are in the media, you are the media, you are working with the media.
*You’re my wife now Dave comes from The League Of Gentlemen