Remember the days when getting an author in the New York Times, on the Today show, Oprah, or, for us old-timers, Carson practically guaranteed a spot on the bestseller list? That world of mass media, in which a few prime national outlets controlled the messages everyone saw and heard, has largely vanished. It has been replaced with what Barbara Cave Henricks and Rusty Shelton, authors of Mastering the New Media Landscape, recently published by Berrett-Koehler, call “scores of pebbles”: websites, social media, podcasts, and blogs, all of which encompass micromedia. To many, the new media environment, although it began about 20 years ago, still feels like the Wild West.
In their book, Henricks and Shelton show how to tame the media beast by understanding it and thus win the ability to maximize all these “pebbles” to grow an audience, get out a message, establish a brand, or perhaps sell a book. They answer these most frequently asked questions about new media:
● How do I create an audience for my message?
● What is the relationship between traditional and micromedia?
● How should I approach social media, and is it worth my time?
● How do I coordinate my social media efforts and outreach with my traditional media?
● What is the one media hit—online or traditional—that will be the tipping point for me in terms of mass exposure?
● What is the best way to integrate traditional and social media for a campaign with broad depth and reach?
● Why should I focus on online results? Isn’t national media attention the only way to move the needle?
● How does working on one influence the other?
● How do I build a platform?
Henricks and Shelton will be at Ingram’s booth (941) today, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., to answer a question or two and sign their book.
This article appeared in the May 12, 2016 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
