Many in the Baby Boom Generation are now in their seventies, while Generation X'ers push into their forties and watch the Y Generation enter middle school… but there's a new Generation whose conversations are directly affecting the bottom line of corporate America and creating paths for new leaders in almost every industry.
Generation "i" is the first generational group that includes almost every age, every ethnicity, and every industry. It's full of mothers and daughters, CEOs and girl scout leaders, students and billionaires. It's everyone, everywhere, every minute of every day congregating in the social-sphere - in forums chatting, on their cell phones texting, online dating, Tweeting, Facebook friending, and LinkedIn networking.
Understanding how to locate, be accepted by, and motivate this generation of thought-movers allows brands to build almost overnight, fame to be boosted or squashed in minutes, and small businesses to compete with industry giants.
In short, leaders who use the social-sphere wisely have their finger on the pulse of their audience, while those still watching will never catch up.
Reaching, accessing and tapping into this generation can be as easy as aligning your message with the right media.
Let's start by using an old-tool in a new way: press releases.
You can expect to spend about 10% of your marketing time either writing or sending out press releases that are aligned with your message. And although some might choose to outsource the writing of a press release, you should at least try writing a few of your own because there's nobody better than you to write out your vision in a press release.
Understanding and dealing with the press is essential to making you a leader in your field (the "go to" person in your area of expertise - someone who's positioned in front of industry trends waves).
And understanding the press begins with understanding that although the masses dictate waves through their spending habits, it's not until the press focuses on a subject that it gains momentum, which in turn amplifies the behavior of the masses!
For example, if a company creates a marketing campaign designed to get the masses thinking about their bodyweight, that might cause a slight boost to the weight loss supplement industry and in turn the fast-food industry might feel a very minor drop in sales. But as soon as the press focuses on how overweight the nation is as a whole, then the overweight "thoughts" of the masses are reinforced - and their buying patterns really make a sharp change (the length of time and degree to which the press focuses on the subject would be a prime determinant to how long that wave lasts).
Because of this power to build momentum, the press can be a true asset to you if you understand what they need and give it to them in a way they believe fits into their media.
Understanding how to use tools like the Press is what separates business in high growth mode, from those who always seem to struggle to keep up.
The fundamental shift that Generation "i" created is this: distribution is no longer controlled by a handful of media companies. Anyone with a message and the right system can reach millions of people. Press releases are one of the oldest tools in that system, and they still work - but not the way most businesses use them.
A press release gets picked up when it's genuinely newsworthy to the people who read it. Not to you - to them. The number one mistake businesses make is writing from the inside out: here's what we did, here's why we're great, here's our CEO quote. Nobody picks that up. The press release that gets syndicated across dozens of outlets connects what you did to something the reader already cares about.
Think about your target market's biggest frustrations, the trends they're paying attention to, the questions they're searching for right now. Write a press release that answers one of those questions or speaks directly to one of those trends - and positions your business as part of the solution. The news hook is not about you. It's about your reader and what you're doing that matters to them.
Combine press releases with a consistent content strategy and you have something far more powerful than either alone. The press release drives initial pickup and creates inbound links from credible sites. The content strategy - YouTube, social media, email - keeps the audience engaged after they discover you. Over time, the two working together build the kind of reach that makes every future launch land far harder than advertising alone ever could.
The companies that use press releases most effectively treat them as authority builders, not just traffic drivers. Every pickup from a credible outlet adds legitimacy in the eyes of prospects. Over 12 to 18 months of consistent press activity, you accumulate a body of third-party validation that no amount of paid advertising can replicate. That's the real power of earned media - not the immediate traffic spike, but the compounding credibility it builds.
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