Posters are original content creators who rule the social web. They write blogs, upload pictures, create and hang videos on YouTube, microblog on Twitter. The good ones create interest and action. Action might take the form of a comment or pass along of the original content — a behavior I call Pasting. So there are Posters and Pasters on the Web. The ratio is about 1 to 10. I counsel clients to target Posters and the Pasters will follow. It’s more efficient.
The million dollar question is “How do you find Posters?” Where do they congregate? And once found, how do you know if a Poster has a following? The beauty of the web is that there are a crazy number of measurement tools. Views is a good indication of a Poster’s popularity on YouTube. Number of comments on a blog is a strong litmus of sway with readers. Number of friends or tweets on Twitter is a good Poster measure. With Flickr the number of photos or recency of photos are telling.
Numbers and measures are one thing, but sometimes the best Posters are hidden. If you find them first, on the way up, it’s like finding marketing gold. A good way to determine if a Poster is on the way up is to get into their art. Read them. View their work. See how they treat people. Do they listen and help or are they just there to crack wise. Do they care about their topic or are they just clicking for friends. What’s their motivation?
Posters earn the earned media for marketers. Peace!
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Steve Poppe is the Managing Partner of “What’s the Idea?” a marketing consulting firm. Steve has a blog on: https://spoppe.livejournal.com and can be reached via Twitter @spoppe.
