Chris Brogan wrote a great post about promoting your media to the online world. That made me think about increasing your audience by reaching out to new people.
Jon Swanson and I decided to collaborate on a follow up, how to promote your online 2.0 media to the offline 0.0 world.
Here are my suggestions:
- Talk about it. Tell people what you are working on. Ask for their opinion.
- Invite offline friends and experts to co-author or contribute.
- Mention your media project in your regular printed materials.
- Print business cards specifically for your blog or podcast. (credit: Vaspers)
- Put it in your bio and resume.
- Teach a class on how to create new media.
- Reprint your writings in offline venues: newspapers, newsletters, journals.
And here are Jon’s ideas:
- On your regular business card include the data for your Flickr and blog and LinkedIn and…
- Talk about it all the time.
- Use online friends as references for 0.0 jobs.
- Collect your posts and print as a book.*
- Email your posts from reader to people who only check email.
- Have low expectations so you are more subtle.
- Talk about online friends as real friends.
- Get family members involved.
*In fact, compilations of all kinds of media would make great handouts. Booklets, audios, workbooks, PDFs, etc.
What other ideas do you have for reaching new people?
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
DVDs. I love how Macs let you produce easy-to-run DVDs so that people can take your media and run with it. I’m a big fan of that as a distribution method of stuff to “not so online” types. : )
thanks for dragging me along, Becky.
Which is another one that both you and I have done. We’ve taken trips and have used social media to report on them to our friends and family and colleagues at home. They don’t think about the media, they are just thinking about being able to follow along.
Chris, great idea! Thanks for letting me riff off your excellent post.
Jon, thank you for contributing. You make an excellent point. For non-techie people, it’s not about the technology or the tools. It’s about the communication.
Thanks for the post, this is definitely something we’re thinking about as a company that makes software specifically for small businesses. I am thankful both my mother and my mother-in-law are non-techie business owners, they often give me a reality check!
You’ve already mentioned this but I would say just talking to people is great to really learn about what they need. We host small dinners and invite local small business owners to come, network and help us get perspective on what’s important to them. It’s always very illuminating (and fun!)
Michelle, you have added some great points about not only talking, but also listening. That is the best way to find out what people really need, and how you can best serve them and grow your audience in the process.
Thanks!
This is a bit specialized, but my husband is a filmmaker and he puts clips of his work (his ‘showreel’) on his PSP (this would work with iPhone/iPod/Zune, too, I think). He’ll stuff it in his pocket when he goes out somewhere he’s likely to meet people and can just show people his work right there in hand. (The PSP’s screen is gorgeous!)
And while that’s specifically for film, I would think anyone who does visual work – design, web design, whatever – could put together a little slideshow that could be shown on an iPod or Zune or PSP or whatever. A ‘showreel’ for designers!
Mitten, great idea! I would think that could be adapted to any visual and even audio work, and through using photos you could extend it to even more products. I love this idea so much, I’m going to create a new post to feature it.
For a follow up, Jon Swanson expanded on this idea at his own site, Levite Chronicles. Even Vaspers showed up to leave a comment there! :)