How to get noticedin the new media landscape.

It used to be easy.

1. Get a pile of money.2. Buy a ton of advertising.3. Get noticed.

Sadly, this is no longer the case.Facing thousands of commercial messages a day, people are tuning them out.

So unless you can a!ord Super Bowl-sized ad budgets, you may never break through.And even if you do, it doesn’t mean your message will be trusted — because trust in advertising keeps falling.

Happily, there’s hope.

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Trust TV ads: 29%*

Trust friends: 76%

As mass media has reached a saturation point, with too many advertisers pump-ing out too many messages with too little credibility...

Regular people have gained the ability to create and control their own media, and use it to connect with each other online.

The top 4 most trusted info sources:

*Source: Nielsen, Trends in Advertising Spend & E!ectiveness, 2011

Friends & familyNews

Social sitesAds

Friends & familyNews

Social sitesAds

The new media landscape is a lot like a village.

What matters most is word of mouth. Do something worth talking about: make

news. That spreads to friends, family, and then through the community. Ads can help. But what’s better

than pushing with ads is pulling with content — content that’s genuinely valuable.

And people don’t care so much if that content is slickly produced. They want authenticity and

personal connection.

So you should do whatyou’d do in a traditional

village: be useful and be trustworthy.

To summarize: Create useful content, and use it to build community.

The idea

It starts with a really good idea......which spreads through a network, like DNA.

So we call it i-DNA.

Good ideas are simple, emotional and relevant. They’re carried by stories.

story

stor

y

story

storystory

Website

Facebook

Twitter

RSS

Traditional

What might that look like?

You have a new children’s book. You’d like to let people know about it, so they can buy it.

In the past, you’d need the resources to advertise, promote to bookstores, and more — in other words, to push the message about your book out into a world of consumers.

Now, though, instead of pushing your message at people, you can bring people to the message.

Here are some ways to do just that...

i-DNA Methods1. Build a hub.

Create a search-engine-optimized* website that’s rich in interesting, emotionally compelling content of the kind that your customers might be interested in. This does not have to be only about your product, and probably shouldn’t be —!it’s not just ad copy moved to the web.

So instead of just talking about how great the book is, you could talk about things like:

The point of this content is that it is likely to match terms entered into search engines by people who are your target market. That means they are likely to "nd your site, and to be interested in what they "nd there.

2. Customize your landing pages.

It’s good if people are attracted to your site, but it’s better if they’re attracted to a customized landing page that feels like the logical next step in their search path.

So if they searched for “best holiday children’s books”, it would be good if they landed on a page with an article on that topic — and an easy-to-spot link to information about, and the opportunity to buy, your book.

3. Add e-commerce.

Since you’re attracting potential customers, your site should be equipped with secure (crucially important), easy-to-use (also crucial) e-commerce features.

*If you see unfamiliar terms, check our glossary at the end.

i-DNA Methods4. Blog.

The content on your website should be refreshed frequently, so that you keep building more and more interesting content that’s likely to attract customers.

In parallel with this, it’s often a good idea to write a blog that’s related to, but also independent of, the website. The blog might focus on a specialist topic of interest to potential customers. For example, an organic gardening supplier might write a blog on learning to be a better organic gardener.

Some of the blog’s readers will of course click through to the main website. But even with those who don’t, you’ll have succeeded in expanding your brand awareness and the likelihood of good word of mouth.

A blog also provides frequent opportunities for engagement with members of your community, via the comments section. This allows you to make new connections, and deepen existing ones.

5. Install web analytics.

Now that you’re likely to have tra!c to your website hub, you should install (or have installed) web analytics software, such as Google Analytics. This allows you to learn a lot about your visitors, and to see what they do on your site. That helps you adjust your content and site design so that you feature more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Analytics software allows you to set up speci"c goals you want to track —#and it’s a very good idea to do that. Goals might include “signing up for email news,” “registering for an event” or, of course, “making a purchase.”

i-DNA Methods6. Create a Facebook page & pro!le.

A Facebook pro!le is an account for a person. A Facebook page is for a business, organization or public !gure. You should probably have both. Con!gure social analytics, and integrate each new acount you add.

On your pro!le, you can post as you, about anything you’re interested in. That may be about your product, but not too often. The point of a pro!le is to build your personal community, based on trusting, personal relationships. No one likes someone who’s always talking business in personal conversations.

Your page is where you focus on your product. Here you can be much more promotional, but always remember that social media is not just a web-based form of traditional advertising. Don’t bury your FB fans in ad copy. Instead, always look for opportunities to o"er content that is genuinely valuable in itself.

This can, of course, include discount o"ers, which are popular among FB users. For example, you might o"er a special to each new person who Likes your page.

7. Create a Twitter account.

Facebook and Twitter have di"erent strengths, and they complement each other very well. One of the best of Twitter’s strengths is that it supports outreach to new connections way beyond the networks you might easily reach on Facebook.

For example, the simple hashtag is a powerful outreach tool. If you’re interested in connecting with fans of children’s literature, for example, you might use a hashtag such as #kidlit. Tweets containing that hashtag will be visible to anyone in the world following it, not just people who agree to be friends or fans on Facebook.

i-DNA Methods8. Use images & video.

Images have much more impact than text, and moving images are more powerful still. People are interested in images, they respond to them, and they remember them. So it almost always makes sense to use photos, illustrations and video.

Your website, blog, Facebook accounts and Twitter account will all support the sharing of images and video. It will probably also make sense for you to create accounts on dedicated photo and video sharing sites, such as Flickr and YouTube.

As with any content, though, it won’t work to just dump stu! online if it doesn’t have value for your community —"just because it matters to you doesn’t mean it will matter to them. Look for qualities such as:

9. Tag everything.

Remember that one of the keys to the i-DNA strategy is being found. To date, search engines and social sites can only do a good job of understanding text. So make sure you’re always giving them useful text to #nd.

That means that when you talk about a person, organization or place on social media, tag them. Often they’ll be alerted that you tagged them, making them more likely to share your content —"because they’re in it.

When you post any image or video to the web, tag it descriptively. That will greatly improve its search value. And always use descriptive “alt” tags with images placed on a web page.

i-DNA Methods10. Cross-link everything.

Evrything you control online and o!ine should feature links to other things you control: your website to your social accounts, and vice versa; a photo to a landing page; a printed "yer or business card to web and social sites, etc.

11. Give stu# away.

The free sample has always been a staple of marketing, for a good reason. People are reluctant to pay for a new product, in case they regret the choice. By letting them try it for free, you both remove their risk and succeed in having them engage directly with the product —$one of the most e#ective forms of promotion there is.

Online, free samples are even more important, and more valuable, because they can potentially draw interest from all over the world, not just people who happen to be at the right place at the right time.

It can even makes sense to give away not just a sample, but the whole thing, for example by “blogging your book.” You can allow blog visitors to read it chapter by chapter for free, and then o#er to sell a nicely packaged version when it’s done. Or you might give away the downloadable PDF and charge for the printed version.

Free samples are also good outreach tools. Every time you have a free o#er, it’s a good reason to communicate with people, and thereby build your community.

Some worry that all this giving just encourages piracy of content. Online music entrepreneur Derek Sivers put it well: “Obscurity is your real enemy,” not piracy.

i-DNA Methods11. Stage events.

Events are a form of media, just like TV, radio or the web. They are related to one of the oldest form of media of all: theater. That’s why we say “stage events.”

A good event will not just attract a crowd, it will yield news coverage, photos, video, new members of your email list, new visitors to your web and social sites, and a continuing online conversation. Not to mention sales you may make at the event as well as online.

Once again, the main point should not be promotion, but value. If you’re selling a book, don’t design an event at which you plan to just tell people they should buy your book. Design an event that they’ll want to come to for its own sake. Such as:

*It’s !ne if your “competitors” bene!t too. Burger King bene!ts by being across the street from McDonald’s.

12. Build & manage your email list.

Outside your own capabilities, your community is the most valuable asset you have. Your email list is one of the most valuable tools you have for growing and engaging with that community.

You probably won’t be able to do a good job of email marketing by simply bcc’ing a lot of people from your regular email program. Use email list management software such as MailChimp, Constant Contact or Vertical Response. Among other bene!ts, that will improve your delivery rate (mass emails are often rejected as spam), allow you to do attractive designs, keep track of your subscribers accurately, and allow you to see detailed analytics on how people are responding.

i-DNA Methods13. Do a PR campaign.

Every step you take is likely to be newsworthy to someone. And unlike in the old days, you don’t have to rely on persuading mass media to report your news.

So share your news all along the way, even when you think no one is listening. It’s true that people are very unlikely to seek out any particular press release you create. But many people are likely to !nd it, as a result of web searches for topics mentioned in it.

Send your releases to your own email list and to journalists who would be interested (and only those ones). Compile an editorial calendar for the year ahead, so you can plan to reach relevant media outlets with topical news, far enough in advance for them to use it. Search for interview opportunities.

Meanwhile, post your releases online through a release distribution service, such as PRWeb, as well as on your own site(s). Share any coverage you get. With everything, remember to include links.

14. Go ahead, advertise.

Advertising may not work as well as it once did, but it still works, especially when it’s designed to be — you guessed it — valuable in itself. You may have noticed that a lot of TV ads these days are as entertaining as the shows they interrupt.

Furthermore, research shows that traditional advertising can work to improve the e!ectiveness of online content.

And search advertising, such as Google AdWords, is so economical that it can be part of almost any marketing mix. It o!ers the great bene"t of being very highly targetable and trackable.

15. Get expert help.Everything we’ve described here could be done by a very energetic do-it-yourselfer. And some of it should be done by just about anyone operating in the new media landscape.

There are lots of great sources of information to help you learn just about everything you need to know.

That said, most people can’t make the time to master all the material we’ve touched on here.

We did.

http://bootsroad.comcontact@bootsroad.comTel 1 831 612-9200

211 W Franklin StMonterey, CA 93940, USA

We know strategy, design, writing, video, photography, audio, social media, web development, software development and more. And we keep learning — and inventing — new techniques every day.

We’ve used them for major non-pro!ts, socially responsible corporations, government agencies and national, state and local political campaigns.

So if you’d like some expert help, we’d be happy to talk about all that we can do to help you succeed.