Consider Your Media-as-Business Strategy

I’ve found myself approaching this problem from what might be a different angel. When I think of the notions of personal branding I think “well, what are you branding?” I mean this in a very deep sense. This video gets to what I mean. According to Jungian psychology we each spend half our lives getting to know the world around us and the other half getting to know the world within us.

So within us is a very deep mystery.. The reason why I think this is important has to do with the question of what is you’re definition of success? That definition would seem to be the metric all else is defined by.. And it seems to be that a “true definition of success” has to be the expression of that very deep inward mystery, and if its not you’ll be dysfunctional in one way or another. According to Jungian psychology psychosis happens when the way you live is so far away from your nature that you’re nature eventually says “stop it” and forces you into a new challenge of personality integration, basically.

Here’s another good video that illustrates this idea.

As more and more the lines between our personal lives and our business / work lives becomes blurred, and the more this revolution that we are only in the early stages progresses, the more these kinds of questions will gain importance. So I think, when thinking about media monetization strategies its very important that we try and think holistically about these problems.

The journey I start off with is an inward one. My goals and strategies must come from a kind of inner voice.

I think the difference between this and a surface level way of looking at what you’re talking about has to do with what defines the shapes that articulate our definitions. This comes down to the metaphysical presumptions that underly how we think. The evolution of language is driven by questions, needs, conflict, and power relationships.

So how you break up (or down) the problem of media monetization into a diagram, or a whatever, is all about the underlying questions. I think of Joseph Campbell talking about the problem of Buddhism: Basically Buddhism is about realizing your Buddha consciousness. We all innately have Buddha consciousness, we “are all it” the trouble is that the world is always trying to tell us that we are not it. So.. what’s the center of all human values.. is it in us, or is it something outside of us?

I might have lost track of where I was going with all this, but anyway…

The way I go about it is not the “plan your work work your plan” sorta method, its more of a dialectic with the unconscious. It’s sorta like plans are “these man made things,” much like laws, and what does justice have to do with tragedy? Like that poor girl who committed suicide because a peer’s mom pretended to be a boy who was interested in her and then turned against her. There was nothing illegal about it, but doesn’t it make you want to do something uncivilized to that mom?

I find that when I set out to make my plans.. that there’s something deeper inside that’s more important that needs to be honored, I guess. So maybe it has to do with something like you’re existential relationship to your plans, and what it means to treat something like business.

I suppose it doesn’t help that business grew up, for quite a long time, by trying to eliminate the human element.. what with industrial engineering and all that.. and so now the challenge is personality integration, in a sense.. as the answer to our collective psychosis.

Hope that adds something to the conversation

Chris, thank you stating very clearly one of the tenets of new media: your blog / your podcast is NOT a strategy. Too often, in a rush to get on the new media bandwagon, companies have a classic knee-jerk reaction: we need a blog, we need a podcast, etc. These are tactics, not strategies.

Your point dead-on: first determine your strategy, your goals. Then and only then can you build an effective program around it.

And one of the other essentials is, if you’ve got a traditional marketing plan, how does new media fit in with it? We online types spend a lot of time thinking about our channels, but the reality is, social media is not the end-all, be-all of marketing. There should be smart integration between online and offline media where appropriate, and ways to drive interaction with both.

I agree a strategy is needed, and that you have to blog from the heart but somehow make that part of your stategy. My experience has been to follow Nik Butler’s advice, and blog to be useful and express my own personality without the business hat on (http://bloggingforblondes.com) out of which I was asked to write a magazine article about women blogging and got a radio interview, all of which reflected back on my business with some free advertising.

Now I need to work out how to continue that as part of a strategy, and integrate my upcoming PR campaign, with no real role models to follow.

So far I have integrated my desire to encourage technophobes into online SN by creating a Ning site for my clients, but it will take a year of hard work to get them really involved because this is all new stuff to them (and me!).

If anyone can give me some mentors or role models on how to create a cohesive strategy that supports the marketing of my businesses and reflects my desire to be a useful person, send them my way!

I look forward to more on this topic Chris. Lead the way.

For individuals, your strategy can be simply generating awareness for your brand, opening up new opportunities by networking with others or to learn the fundamentals of web 2.0 by actively participating.

Seth Godin has some interesting things to say about Souvenirs. People buy books, t-shirts, mugs and other stuff as souvenirs, or reminders, of a good experience. Whether it’s a collection of shot glasses from places you’ve been, books by a favorite author, or a twitter t-shirt- all act as memory prompts of positive ideas and experiences. We surround ourselves with these things because they make us feel good, and recreate small bits of these experiences for us.

I think this goes back to having something remarkable and worth remembering in the first place. And that requires authenticity, and knowing yourself as Matt said above. You can be that something remarkable, you can “monetize” it through the selling of souvenirs of the experience, with a book, or a speech, or a tshirt- whatever “it” is, but the “gift” of the thing is really a memory and how it touched someone enough to want to remember it and have a reminder hanging around in the first place.

Great post Chris, thanks.

I think both you and Scott hit the nail on the head – a blog or podcast is not a strategy unto itself. To succeed with anything, you need to know what success means, right? To know that, you need to know what your goals are, how you want to achieve them and then plan which tactics you need to take you there. That’s the strategy – you can’t do it backwards.

Personally, I ‘lurked’ for a long time, reading blogs and listening to podcasts and bouncing around social networks, before deciding to get involved. I worked out what I wanted to achieve before I decided how to achieve it, and I think this has paid off immeasurably.

This leads me to one comment on your chart. I would argue that the ‘your blog/podcast/whatever’ box should be the third one from the top rather than at the head of the chart. That seems to gel more with what you’re saying than where you currently have it. You don’t indicate a flow on there though, so I may be reading more into it than I should.

I just want to say thank you for your post today. I am new to social media and have been taking my time investigating its potential to my particular interests and desires. I feel your post today clarified so many questions I had for this new type of communication and marketing, and I feel grateful that I was introduced to this blog by a dear friend. I think what you say is awesome- and I look forward to reading your blog daily.

Thanks Chris-

I’m confused by your post. Maybe you’re being to abstract when you explain your ideas.

I really appreciate your mindmap … and this post. Thank you. I came here on a mission to read something else, but I find that I’m so interested in what you’re writing that I can’t resist. Thank for great content.

Chris,

Great post. I definitely agree with you on having a plan.

But sometimes you don’t even know how to start. This was me a year ago. I had no idea where to start. But I started doing something anyway and I am finding my voice and building my plan as I go.

Just a thought for those people who feel they have to have everything planned out and perfect before they start.

Joel Mark Witt

Todd and Micah, no hard feelings, and here’s hoping it can be turned into a positive! BTW for the record, Tara Anderson has been my Lijit contact up till now, and as I said on my blog, she had been extremely helpfu

Hi Chris,

I am working on social media strategy for my company and wanted to know if you have some tips for me on rolling the implementation internally. Anything that can help me pick up few pointers ?

Thanks,
Deepti