Marketing podcast with Ryan Holiday (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes or subscribe via other RSS device (Google Listen)
Today, even the smallest business or individual professional has the ability to generate media coverage in the largest, most sought after channels available. The key is to understand and exploit some unwritten rules that have evolved over the last few years.
Unwritten Rule #1 – Large blog networks needs lots of news every day in order to generate the page views that pay their bills. Organizations motivated by pageviews over editorial quality are easy to manipulate.
Unwritten Rule #2 – Most traditional media outlets no longer have the staff to find the hottest news and rely on large blog networks and social media to identify trends and news
Unwritten Rule #3 – If you want large media outlets to cover your story or idea focus on pulling them into your story by getting coverage in the large blog networks they follow.
Pitching the New York Times, Techcrunch or CNNMoney with your story may be a stretch, but having them call you because of the trending story you got a blog they follow to run isn’t a stretch at all these days and it’s happening more than you might think.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you have this awesome product that you want to get placed in Wal-Mart. You can go down to Arkansas and try to get the buyer to listen to your compelling story or you can get dozens of would be consumers to go ask dozens of Wal-Mart manages why they don’t carry your awesome product.
This is referred to pulling sales rather than pushing them and it works in the new world of PR just as well.
For this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visit with Ryan Holiday author of Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator.
Holiday outlines the exact steps he’s used repeatedly to manipulate the media in the fashion described above for both good and bad.
He shares what he describes as a systematic approach to media coverage as a way to inform the general public that not all media coverage is as truthful or simple as it may seem.
The book should be a real eye opener to those in the media world and my guess is that Holiday has a few enemies among the bloggers and media companies he attempts to expose.
The book is must read for PR professionals, bloggers, PR students, business owners and, I suspect, those that want to manipulate the media in this way. My guess is there’s an Internet Marketing guru out there somewhere dreaming up a get rich quick program based on Holiday’s book as we speak.
