January 28, 2008

Seth Godin: Who are these people?

If you look at the numbers, you soon realize that a huge portion of the population apparently:

Has read two books in the last year, Harry Potter and The DaVinci Code
Uses only two websites, Google and Facebook
Visits only a few blog posts a day, and every single one of them is on the home page of Digg
Watches only two or three TV shows, including the Super Bowl
Eats only at McDonalds
Watches only incredibly snarky or juvenile videos on YouTube


Mass phenomena are tricky things. It's true, the typical American reads exactly one book a year. How are you going to predict which of the 75,000 books published are going to be that book?

You can't.

Many bloggers seem to be on a perpetual hunt for the front page of Digg. Sure, it brings you hordes of eyeballs, but then they turn around and leave. What's the point of that, really?

I think that are plenty of tips you can follow to optimize your offering for this fickle mass group. But it's still a crap shoot. Doesn't it make more sense to incrementally earn the attention of a smaller, less glitzy but far more valuable group of people who actually engage with you? And the best part is, your odds of success are a lot better.