I am two years late to Ryan Holiday's book"Trust Me, I am working". Never much of a PR person, I learned quickly out of his nonfictional account of being a"media manipulator" that advertising can be everything after you have built a fantastic product. Since I must return the publication by 12/20 into the San Diego Public Library, I figured this is a good time to write down my notes as a blog article.
Quotes in"Trust Me, I'm Lying"
Orson Scott Card
"Social networking is not a set of tools to allow individuals to communicate with humans. It's a pair of embedding mechanisms to allow technology to use humans to communicate with each other, in an orgy of self-organizing... The Matrix had it wrong. You're not the batter power in a global, human-enslaving AI, you are somewhat more precious. You are part of the shifting circuitry"
"it is a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap in the market force of what I have come to think of as"outrage planet" -- the frequently occurring firestorms awakened on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted blogs like Jezebel as well, to a lesser level, Slate's very own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They're triggered by authors who are pushing readers to sense what the authors claim is righteously indignant rage but which is actually just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business."
-Emily Gould out of Slate.com
"Companies should expect a full-scale, organized attack from critics. One that will simultaneously overrun blog comments, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of sites, resulting in mainstream press appeal. Begin by creating a social networking crises plan and developing inner fire drills to expect what could happen."
"Our illusions are the home in which we live; they're our information, our personalities, our adventure, our types of art, our very experience."
Exercise Advice from the Book
Control your Wikipedia page (use any media mention from blogs or conventional media)
Study the top stories and you'll notice a pattern: the best stories all polarize poeple. If you create it threaten people's 3 Bs -- behaviour, belief, or belongings -- you get a huge virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers could post right away with no work. Feed them their own lies"assist them trick their readers"
Loaded headlines are very popular
Silence on blogs is your worst.
Faking escapes with email editor (from different sources) can operate if You've Got the right connections
Media historian W.J. Cfambell once recognized the identifying mark of yellow journalism as follows:
Prominent headlines that cried excitement concerning utlimately unimportant news
Luxury use of pictures (often of little relevance)
Imposters, frauds, and faked interviews
Shade comics plus a big, thick Sunday nutritional supplement
Ostentatious aid of the underdog causes
Use of anonymous sources
Prominent policy of high society and occasions
Concepts from the publication
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -damage is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, folks treat news headlines as"cultural truth", the damage is already done, even it it is a baseless accusation.
Faking leaks with email editor (from various sources)
By way of instance, each picture is not the same load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are focused liberally on pageviews, but in the long term, user trust will be important. Meanwhile, irresponsible bloggers are making millions from sensationalizing stories that are untrue.
Snark -- mortal weapon (humor in its own dark form. Example = "Your Daily Douchebag: John Mayer Edition". Another online illustration: Hot Chicks with Douchebags
All that happens -> All that is understood by media --All that is newsworthy ->All that is printed as news -> All that spreads. This e podryw com really is the systematic restricting of the data seen by the General Public
My Action List / Lessons from the Novel
Headlines matter
Websites hold a Good Deal of power
The ideal contacts at the right sites in a specific industry hold lots of sway. Example: Apple announcements
Building a brand new site with high viral traction (however with the ideal user metrics in mind) can take off quickly. Websites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the tide of copying content from others, organized in a digestible manner that users can quickly spread. Millions of dollars are created this way while sources are never credited. There must be a way to do both.
There is a need for a respectable news source, or an industry specific source that doesn't pander to"mass hysteria". Case in point: refinery29.com