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Micro Persuasion

A curated stream of consciousness, observations and insights on emerging technologies.

Media Companies Must Divide To ConquerAugust 12

The following essay is also my Forbes.com column for August.

Media Companies Must Divide To Conquer

The media is something that for most, if not all, of our adult lives, we have taken for granted. Media giants form the terra firma of the marketing industry, both its paid and earned disciplines. They provide the lifeblood of services and bring us the audiences we need to do our jobs.

However, underneath it all, the harsh reality is that there's a new digital dynamic present today. This will mean that many media companies divide themselves into dozens of smaller independent operating companies if they wish to survive. Many won't.

First, there is some good news.

Over the last few years, to their credit, traditional media outlets have done an outstanding job adapting to new technologies, including social networks, mobile and tablets--and helping marketers do the same. Rather than see Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, the iPad, et al, as threats, most media companies have embraced them as potentially lucrative revenue

Hot or Not: E-mail Marketing vs. Social-Media MarketingAugust 10

Image credit: Rapportive at The Next Web Conference

The following is also my column this week in Advertising Age.

Contrary to popular belief, video didn't kill the radio star, YouTube didn't knock off TV and Twitter didn't shut down blogging. However, in each case the steady advance of new technology definitely forced the incumbents to evolve. One can argue, for example, that some of the more established blogs on the web benefited greatly from building content strategies that engender massive link sharing on Twitter. Much the same, TV ad creative has changed to facilitate additional exposure on YouTube.

Enter e-mail marketing, which, to some degree, has been beaten down by regulation, and has taken a backseat to social networking. Nielsen revealed last week that e-mail's share of time declined 28%, putting it in third place, while social networking, the leader, climbed 43%.

Despite these attention currents, however, the reality is that e-mail is stronger than ever. According to an eConsultancy study of 1,400 U.S. consumers

Presentation: Six Digital Trends to WatchJuly 20

One of the best aspects of my job is that I get to learn from incredibly smart people. Working for Edelman is like playing for the Yankees. Richard Edelman has an approach to talent that in some ways resembles the late George Steinbrenner (not the Howie Spira side of George, but the good side). The firm consistently attracts all-stars to the team and puts them in a great position to succeed. The result is that every day I get to hit the field with pros like Mike Slaby or Richard Sambrook or Carol Cone - it's all very inspiring. 

One of these people is David Armano - who I work very closely with - and we recently tag-teamed on this presentation on six trends to watch. For more head over to David's blog. As always, we're eager to hear your thoughts.

Tip: Tweetify the Lead of Your EmailsJuly 20

In this age of information abundance, we all get a little too much email. It's highly likely that - thanks to the message preview function - your recipient will make a decision about what to do with that message before he/she even opens it. This means that the first few characters of your note are essential. You got to hook 'em or they be gone.

Here's a little tip I am going to try - don't bury the lead. Instead, Tweetify it! Here's why...

Most email systems preview the first 50-75 characters of an email. Therefore, to be heard, you increasingly need to write your first sentence like a tweet - or more like half a tweet. Skip openers that start with "my name is" and get some of the meat in your first sentence. It will increase the likelihood that your reader will get further into your note.

Here's a good example. Brett Kelly, whom I have never corresponded with before, sent me a brief note about his new eBook on Evernote called Evernote Essentials.

It's the End of the Web as We Know ItJuly 12

The following essay is also my AdAge column this week.

Wither the web? It's hard to believe but soon, if not already, the web is going to become a lot less interesting to consumers -- and just as it approaches its 20th birthday.

 

According to Morgan Stanley, within five years global internet consumption on mobile devices will surpass the same activity on PCs. This sounds like good news. It's natural to think that browsers on the third screen (phones) and the fourth screen (tablets) will simply replace time spent in front of the same on a PC. That's not the case.

 

Mobile devices, by their nature, force users to become more mission-oriented. As more internet consumption shifts to gadgets, it's increasingly becoming an app world and we just live in it. Innovation, fun, simplicity and single-purpose utility will rule while grandiose design and complexity will fall by the wayside.

 

It won't be enough just to build branded mobile applications that repurpose content across all of the different platforms. That's like newspapers taking the print experience and replic