All about “Citizen Marketers”
A solitary citizen today with a broadband connection and several inexpensive or free tools has a substantially better chance of influencing the public's perceptions of billion-dollar corporations than ever before.
With a voice, a vote and a vocation, tens of millions of Americans are involving themselves in the cultural lives of business. The "social media" of blogs, podcasts and social networks are fusing pop culture with traditional marketing, and it's causing all manner of disruption.
"Citizen Marketers" makes the case that the distributed, power-sharing nature of social media is a reflection of the ideals of democracy, where liberty, free speech and freedom of association are its ruling principles. As a result, positioning, message delivery and reputation management are in the hands of the populace, where anyone can be a publisher or broadcaster. For tradition-bound managers, the message is simple: Control is out of control. People are creating content about products and services whether companies like it or not. They are the new cultural influencers.
Paradoxically, the citizen marketers themselves are not your typical members of society or customer databases. That makes them either progressive or dangerous. "Citizen Marketers" examines and classifies the work of everyday people who build content on behalf of products, brands, companies or people and provides a framework for working with them.
More cultural guide than business or marketing book, "Citizen Marketers" examines the significant changes caused by social media. "Citizen Marketers" outlines a common architecture of participation for the everyday person as citizen marketer, entertainer or information source. It's ideal for readers hoping to convince colleagues, coworkers or clients about the broad and tactical changes social media are having on business, marketing and popular culture.
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Why social media are important
Here's a few statistics that explain why:
- By March 2006, 84 million Americans had broadband at home, a 40% jump from 2005 figures
- By March 2006, some 48 million Americans were regular online content creators
- By the end of 2005, 139 million people in the world had a DSL (broadband) connection
- In 2005, $6.7 billion worth of digital cameras were sold in the U.S.
- About 41% of all cell phone owners use them as content tools
- By the end of 2005, just over 1 billion people were online -- that's 1/6th of the world
- Asia represents the world's most populous online segment
- By July 2006, 50 million blogs had been created and their number was doubling every 6 months
- About 7,200 new blogs are created every hour
- By 2006, 10 million people were listening to podcasts in 2006; by 2010, it's expected to be 50 million people
- About 100 million videos are viewed every day on YouTube; about 65,000 videos are uploaded every day
- In 2006, MySpace had over 100 million registered members, most of them from the U.S.
- In early 2007, Digg had 900,000 members and 20 million visitors per month
- About 28% of online Americans have tagged a photo, news story or blog post; about 7% of all American Internet users tag content every day
For educators
If you're a high school or college educator and would like a review copy of "Citizen Marketers" to consider for inclusion in your syllabus, contact Ben McConnell (ben ***at*** benmcconnell.com).
Learning more
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