Just the facts ma'am:
The US population is 311 million.
The top rated broadcast TV show typically has an audience of around 20 million.
The top rated cable show typically has an audience of 7 million.
The largest daily newspaper is the WSJ with 2 million circulation.
The largest paid magazine is Better Homes and Garden with circ of 7.5 million.
The largest radio audience is Rush Limbaugh at 15 million weekly.
The great American mass audience...is now a myth. Collectively we have very few unifiers in media. Yet we keep paying to play on these mass vehicles, and try to build "mass" brands. Godin is right, it's about tribes and niches.
Coca Cola has 40 million "likes" on facebook. Is it a community? No, but the 'like' gives Coke posting privilege on the "likers" wall. Twice the reach of the typical #1 show on tv...and with prudence they can engage them repeatedly weekly for months, even years. At very little cost.
What is the value of that community?
One spot on American Idol reaches 20 million people and costs about $400k. No the editorial context is not the same...but then fb has twice the reach and marginal cost.
How can we not be spending LOTS of time learning how to build these communities? Learning to engage in a way that eliminates media cost? It's not free...you have to have content...but it's dramatically less than paid media.
Nobody has all the answers, but we all have to be asking the questions.
