You Should Take This Style Advice From A Nerd

Thursday, October 22, 2009
Trust Is The New Black
Excerpted from OnlineSpin article by Dave Morgan

Trust is the new black. I wish that I could claim credit for coining that phrase, but it was Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist. Earlier this week, Craig penned an opinion piece in The Huffington Post titled " A Nerd's Take on the Future of News Media."

Craig makes the point that news media has lost its way, having squandered the trust of its consumers and having done a poor job "curating" news. With respect to trust, here is what he said and how he used his new phrase: "Trust is the new black, as I like to say. The great opportunity for news organizations is to constructively demonstrate trustworthy reporting, and to visibly do so."

With the rise of social media, the possibilities for more relationships are growing fast and exponentially. This phenomenon is turning marketers' and advertisers' worlds absolutely upside-down.

When consumers have so many different kinds of relationships with so many different people and companies and products and services and ideas, how can any, or many, of them stand out? There is only one answer now: trust.

Trust is the new black. It is too hard for most people to truly distinguish the complex and too-subtle differences of so many tangible and intangible products and services. Consumers need something else. That something else is trust. Trust is finite. Trust is generally based on experience and time. Trust is quite personal. (emphasis mine) A person's trust is something that he or she controls. While it can be won and lost, it cannot be forced or taken or imposed by recipients.

Craig might call himself an amateur when it comes to news media punditry (he does), but he's certainly not. He's right. Trust is the new black.

My Take

"Word of mouth" is all about trust. Period. That's why it's always been the ultimate form of advertising.

Social media can cut through ad clutter by harnessing this trust. As consumers adopt social media based networks to find trusted businesses, other forms of media will rapidly become obsolete.

Social Media - Revolutionizing Major Media

Excerpted from

My View On 'The New Socialism'

by Dave Morgan

The title of this year's OMMA Global was "The New Socialism" and a key focus in the sessions was the growing importance of social media and micro-blogging as a central means of online engagement -- and the role of those services in tapping the $500 billion global spend on offline brand advertising.

Online social media is growing at an extraordinary rate, already representing an extraordinary share of the total time that many consumers spend on media. Those services will become significant factors in reshaping the media and advertising landscape.

Media is changing, not shifting. Distribution, once scarce, is now plentiful. Media exposures, once scare, are now plentiful. Audience attention, once plentiful, is now scarce. These are the facts on the ground and they are changing the underlying foundation of media, not just shifting it from one channel to another.

Business models and pricing models are changing most dramatically. There are no better examples of the changing business and pricing models than newspaper classifieds and Craigslist. The former has made all participants -- sellers, advertisers, subscribers -- pay dearly, while pocketing outsized profit margins. The latter only requires a tiny fraction of the participants to pay relatively little, and still pockets outsize profit margins. Of course, the $100 million that Craigslist might generate this year is only a fraction of the billions of dollars that it displaced.

Platforms changing, too. It's not just about the PC anymore. It's becoming more and more about the person -- on mobile, on connected TV's, viewing digital out-of-home, on e-readers.

Everyone is now media. You no longer need to be CBS, The New York Times or Sports Illustrated to deliver "consumer contact" to a marketer. Everyone and anyone on Twitter, Facebook or a blog can now do that -- and millions and millions are doing that.

Results for you, me and marketers are all that matters. There is a tough road ahead for exposure-based pricing of media. Online media exposures are growing at an extraordinary rate, maybe even exponentially. The future is not about delivering "cheaper, faster" impressions. It is about delivering results -- helping people find things, helping people buy things, helping people sell things.

My Take

Social media is indeed placing more of the share of media - its mindshare and marketshare - into the hands of media consumers. As this occurs then another change will unfold.

The distribution channels of media will change. The effects won't be limited to the struggling print media outlets. Prediction - in 5 years major sports and media events will forego distribution by broadcast media in favor of straight-to-Web technology.

As this occurs, the revenue streams traditionally flowing toward major media outlets will be diverted into new channels. These channels will cut out the traditional recipients. As social media results are measurable, the revenue generated by social media can be paid directly to those producing the results.

That's revolutionary!

Word of Mouth Tops All Other Media

Excerpted from World Advertising Research Center's 7/9/2009 article
"Word-of-Mouth Works for Consumers"

Based on a survey of 25,000 adults in 50 countries, Nielsen research finds online and offline word-of-mouth are regarded as being the "most trusted forms of advertising."

• 90% of consumers around the world trust recommendations from people they know when discussing brands

• 70% accord the same status to online consumer reviews

According to Jonathan Carson, international online president of The Nielsen Company, the "explosion in consumer-generated media" means the importance of word-of-mouth "has increased significantly."

My Take

With the growth of social networking sites and the dominance of social media usage, the Web-inization of local word-of-mouth is inevitable. If consumers begin sharing trusted word-of-mouth referrals it at a rate similar to their adoption of social media, it will tip the $100 billion US local ad market.



About YouGottaCall.com

YouGottaCall.com is a local and Web-based (Web 2.0) social network that provides businesses with a means for connecting with their customers and neighbors encouraging more word-of-mouth sales leads rewarding their network of referrers

The purpose of YouGottaCall.com is three-fold:
1. to facilitate “word-of-mouth” referrals among consumers for the local businesses they trust
2. to increase sales revenues for trustworthy businesses
3. to benefit the not-for-profit organizations that are supported by the network members

Membership in the YouGottaCall.com network is free.

The mission of YouGottaCall.com is “Rewarding the community by empowering trusted relationships.”

The goal of the YouGottaCall.com is to “turn local advertising upside down and inside out”. “Upside down” because businesses only pay for advertising after it has been effective – not before. “Inside out” because businesses pay the advertising fee to their neighbors and satisfied customers who brought them the qualified sales lead – not to a third party publisher.

Related Web-based Services:
No other services offer the combination of social, local, affiliate, not-for-profit features which comprise YouGottaCall.com's process. (see chart)