We are undergoing a change in our media habits. We are going from caterpillar to butterfly - from media consumer to media creator. What does this mean for you?
How much time do you spend on the computer every day outside of work? Studies show that you are spending the majority of this time on websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, message boards, chat rooms and blogs. These sites are the enablers in your media behavior, they are pulling you away from yesteryear's passive traditional media towards a more engaging online media.
As little as five or ten years ago, most people consumed traditional media such as television, magazines, books or film before spending time on the computer. Traditional media use still exists today, although it's playing a smaller role. There are infinitely more options due to two main reasons. The first is that a connected, people-driven internet is given a myriad of options available to them, the Long Tail economy. The second is that millions of people have become independent media creators themselves, empowered by their personal computers.
The Long Tail
We have more access to more media outlets today than ever before. Our media buying habits have also changed, we have adapted to this ever-expanding landscape. For example, iTunes or Amazon gives the average user a degree of choice unlike anything ever experienced by mankind. Hundreds of thousands of options await the user. For these types of businesses, shelf space concerns are irrelevant, the only constraint now is bandwidth and digital storage space.
The Long Tail is also reflected in the brick and mortar business. Bookstores such as Barnes & Noble or Borders now carry 500+ magazines, ten times more than were available to a previous generation of consumers. All of these magazines came from somewhere. Are they all new publications fueled by an influx of new media creators or do we have more options available to us due to technological reach? Yes and yes.
We even see the Long Tail show up in traditional media too. Television offers a ridiculous amount of channel programming - my DirecTV has something like 1000 channels. This produces a different consumer compared to traditional media's 'everybody watches Threes Company' generation of years ago. This media user took part in water cooler talk. They connected around a shared experience of what was on television, a great film, or funny TV commercial. There was a limited selection so everyone had a basis of connection from media that came from the major networks, studios or record labels.
Yesterday's media bandwidth was much narrower than it is today - our range of choices were smaller, denser. In addition, most people spent more time with a more dedicated approach to work or study and spent the majority of their 'media time' after hours. Today's work or school day is interwoven with tweets, text messages, and Facebook status updates.
Personal brands and media creators
The advent of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are ushering in an era of personal brands and media creators. Each brand connects with other brands and creates communities or simply exists in it's own brand atmosphere. Facebook Connect and myOpenID are facilitating a user-driven web where each person brings their identity with them as they jump from site to site or platform to platform.
The Long Tail has brought about an evolutionary scenario of adapt or perish, better described as produce or perish. Businesses and brands are faced with global competition for their products and services. While their reach is wider, their competition base is equally broader. They must produce media to gain recognition, enhance search engine placement and set themselves apart.
Businesses and individuals are grasping their roles as media creators by writing blogs, creating video, sending tweets, etc. They are responding, or adapting if you will, to the Long Tail influences of greater options and more competitors. Consumers individual tastes in media inspire the new media creator to produce brand-driven media channels of their own. They are generating content with a plan to attract an audience, establish a client or make a connection. In some cases a simple small business will have a blog, podcast, video content, Twitter account and Facebook brand page. The goal is to be where the eyeballs are and where the conversation happens.
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