AND

Recently I was in a good conversation and the subject came up of “and”, in this context… the problem that many companies have in new media is that they believe this is an and…meaning new media adds to their workload.

Middle manager: “You mean I have to do my job…and this new media thing?”

There is no and. New media is a push-pull marketing strategy that takes the place of other advertising, marketing and public relations initiatives. Meaning you can push messaging into the new media space, and pull positive impressions by engaging with consumers. You can cut down your print advertising. Cut down your press releases. Cut down your number of events.

And then you can invest some of that money in publishing interesting content into your distribution channels. You can work on attracting tweeters and bloggers with that content and then bring your messages into the marketplace with many different voices. You can retrieve real-time market-research when consumers address your products, customer service, or marketing initiatives.

And yes, it will cost money. But not as much money as you were investing in simply a push marketing strategy.

There is no and when it comes to new media. And if brands think there is…then those brands are already behind. Consumers want to talk with real people in a company. And if you hide behind a strategy that force-feeds messaging to consumers and ignore their questions, then consumers will only ramp up the volume.

Consumers now publish. Brands should not fight it. They should publish content. Engage. And convert.

And if companies think new media is an add-on, they are ignoring the thousands of people reading about the brand and responding to the product everyday.

New Media is not an add-on.

It is called change.