A friend of mine has asked me to make a presentation for his sales staff. in order to keep my remarks brief, I found myself trying to jot down as few points as possible about how buying habits have changed.  What I came up with was a case to pay attention to twitter.

National consumer behaviors influence local buying habits and always have. The method of delivering marketing messages has undergone a fundamental change on both a national and local level.  In order to keep pace with your customers evolving buying habits let’s do a thumbnail review of how people are influenced to buy.

In the media age the masses were made aware of new products and services from a limited number of central sources. In the 1800′s that was print, mainly newspapers, magazines, and catalogs.

In the 1900′s mass marketing followed entertainment venues from print to broadcast. From radio to television to a slowly fading print media, the same processes of disseminating marketing messages through a limited number of central sources prevailed.

in the 21st century the distribution channel has blurred.  Print has continued to fade into the internet, motion pictures are being delivered as digital files, radio is available online and the music they play on iPod, and television is scattered over hundreds of cable channels and on the Internet.

The blurring of distribution channels has had an effect on the public that is reflected fairly well in the new ad campaign for Microsoft Bing.

Today people are influenced to buy differently. Instead of a small number of central distribution points for entertainment and information there are a large number of individualized sources. These include text messages, emails,  and posts to twitter, also known as tweets.

This message is hammered home again and again if you are listening.  Look at the recent protests in Iran. Hundreds of just plain folks risking their lives to text and send cell phone video images of the truth.

When Michael Jackson died there were hundreds of thousands of messages racing across twitter within minutes. Many people found out about this event from their friends via text and twitter and only then turned on their television sets to watch.   This is true despite the fact that most twenty – somethings are too young to care about the King of Pop. So who is doing all that tweeting? Everyone.

Related Story: U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran

It is a good time to redefine the mission of the web strategies podcast.  This program is dedicated to the business of the Internet

My original posting on March 18, 2008 said this:

Welcome to the Web Strategies Podcast program web site featuring program notes and links for each show. You may subscribe to our program here or through iTunes. The Web Strategies Podcast is a program dedicated to the technology and techniques of marketing your business on the internet.  I am the site administrator and podcast moderator Tom Anthony.

How did we pick the name?  Well, first the program is a podcast, and it is specifically about web strategies.  That is where I live my professional life. In my day job I am the Vice President, Client Services for our program sponsor Web Teks, a Virginia based Consulting and eBusiness Solutions Firm.

Second – this is true so help me – while sitting in the waiting room at a routine doctor’s appointment I looked up this domain name on my Palm Treo phone. When I found it was available I actually purchased the domain through the browser on my cell phone. Seemed like a good sign.

Shortly we will post a series of programs with a focus on the strategic internet.  We welcome your feedback and hope you will review our podcast on iTunes.  Thanks for your interest.

Has the mission changed? No. It may be refined a little bit more but our goal is still to discuss strategy for marketing business on the internet.  What clearly has evolved is the tactics to do that.

Literally speaking, strategy is to leverage a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan. The tactic is the art of finding and implementing means to achieve immediate or short-term goals.

So the strategy of keeping up with current technological trends is unchanged – but the technology surely has. New in this landscape are a number of factors to be aware of.

1.       The continued growth of broadband usage is creating a paradigm shift in the concept of media delivery systems.

2.       Mobile is the next big thing

3.       Social Networking is not just for kids anymore

Each individual topic could be the source for discussion across many programs – and indeed books are written everyday about each respective subject.  For this program let’s just engage in a high level description for each of these items.

First… The continued growth of broadband usage is creating a paradigm shift in the concept of media delivery systems.

Across the life span of all media or all technology for that matter is an arc of adoption and abandonment. I’ve covered this concept before and it may be better known as the Diffusion of innovation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_Innovations

Wikipedia has a really concise definition and the link can be found in the show notes on the program blog at http://webstrategiespodcast.com

“Diffusion of innovation is a theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers introduced it in his 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, writing that “Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.”

That book describes some specific behaviors which may be used to define how any technology is introduced into society…  this seems to have been true across history – but quoting from the book – well paraphrasing from the book:

innovators - had larger farms, were more educated, more prosperous and more risk-oriented

early adopters – younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders

early majority – more conservative but open to new ideas, active in community and influence to neighbors

late majority – older, less educated, fairly conservative and less socially active

laggards – very conservative, had small farms and capital, oldest and least educated

So in the case of my second point for example, “Mobile is the next big thing”

That’s actually already to the “early majority” stage of adoption.  Over a year ago I purchased the web domain “webstrategiespodcast” on my Palm Treo phone. Today I can download these episodes on my Blackberry Curve. As of this podcast the new iPhone-like blackberry Touch is all the rage… and so it goes.

You decide where in that curve newspapers fall.  If you want to know where television is headed check out http://www.hulu.com/.  Full episodes of TV shows from 24, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes – to 30 Rock, The Office, and Family Guy.  Did I mention free?

And that third concept of Social networking being not for kids anymore… when this podcast started just last year to web site Facebook was frequently dismissed as a kid’s site like MySpace. Not so much now.  Facebook is regarded by many – including me – to be one of the best options for marketing exposure – and for many reasons.  But that topic deserves its own show – which will be on Social Networking. Next time.

Thanks for listening to this web strategies … well update. I’m Tom Anthony.