PerforMedia Marketing

KRISTIN’S COLUMN: Marketing Your Personal Platform

February 29th, 2008

Question from Mike in CA – I really wish Americans would just step back and see how they are allowing themselves to be influenced by the candidates and the electoral media circus. Young Republicans have especially suffered. How can we speak up for ourselves so that we get leaders who represent our interests over those of private interest and executive groups?

A! –The challenge in “standing up for ourselves,” is that it’s nearly impossible to “be heard” over the Babble. How do we make people stop and take notice? The internet has granted us all unlimited voice, but will anyone “hear us” above other equally-liberated voices?

My choice is frequent social networking (Facebook) and blogging (try Google-owned Blogspot). Friends and family are likely the first to listen. However, for the next step, you can join aggregated blog-spheres that serve up the best independently-written articles to readers as determined relevant by a keyword search and judged informative by a public/private moderation panel. I recommend Technorati, Zimbio, and (for the MySpace crowd) IceRocket for starters.

Historically, ordinary citizens have written to politicians directly, attended rallies, and (due to this same problem) depended on local leaders to voice their most dynamic concerns to state and national leaders. Our traditional means of information gathering (television, radio, books, magazine, newspapers) have proliferated themselves into a state of diminutive relevance. A decade ago, media executives held exclusive channels to mass communications; since then the internet and desktop publishing has opened communication channels to everyone. But, there is little order.

Over the past five years, information has become so readily available in unorganized free formats that organized media vehicles are desperate for attention and revenue. This year, internet-informed voters are impacting the election, and conventional media is blind-sided. The Hollywood writers may be back, but social-media networks such as YouTube and Facebook are flooded by independents who frequently lack judgment, tact, and accountability.

Entry Filed under: A Catch-all Blog