SOCIAL MEDIA IS GENERATING NEW WAYS FOR COMPANIES TO MAKE MONEY…

• Endless choice is creating unlimited demand so you probably need to re-think your business model: make everything available and help customers find it easily (online).
• Traditional business models attest that high-selling hits are required for success. These are at the high-volume end of a conventional demand curve.
• But in the internet era, the combined value of the millions of items that only sell in small quantities can equal or even exceed the best sellers. This is the now much-coveted long tail.
• Modest sellers and niche products are now becoming an immensely powerful cumulative force. In this respect, many “mass” markets are turning into millions of aggregated niches.
• You no longer need huge warehouses, retail outlets, or big inventory. Many products can be delivered online or on demand without any of these costly overheads.
• Lower your costs, think niche and lose control to the market.
• The nine big rules of The Long Tail are:

1. Move inventory way in…or way out
2. Let customers do the work
3. One distribution method doesn’t fit all
4. One product doesn’t fit all
5. One price doesn’t fit all
6. Share information
7. Think “and”, not “or”
8. Trust the market to do your job
9.  Understand the power of free

Inspired by The Long Tail, Chris Anderson

http://www.thelongtail.com/

On Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/cdymceg

Welcome to my new series of mini blogs, inspired by some of my favourite business books/authors.

SOCIAL MEDIA CAN TRAP YOU IN A NEVER-ENDING YOU-LOOP…

• You can get stuck in a static, ever-narrowing version of yourself (a filter bubble) if you are unaware of the way in which the internet filters your search information.
• The internet is hiding a lot from you because it guesses what you want to see. Google has 57 signals to work out what they think you want to see, which means that your computer could be becoming a one-way mirror, reflecting your interests and reinforcing your prejudices.
• Two similar people searching ‘BP’ on the same day get totally different results – one all about share prices, the other all about environmental isses.
• Taken to the nth degree, this means that you may discover no new ideas.
• A filter bubble is the unique universe of information for each of us that only we see.
• It has three main characteristics:

1. You’re alone in it
2. It’s invisible
3. You don’t choose to enter it

• This can create an endless You-loop
• Viewed collectively, this could mean we are, without knowing it, giving ourselves a ‘global lobotomy.’
• Once owners of such data have clocked your habits, they can embark on all sorts of ways to exploit them, including ‘behavioural retargeting’, in which the 98% of people who leave retail websites without purchasing are prompted again.
• If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer – you’re the product being sold.

Inspired by The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser

http://www.thefilterbubble.com/

On Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c33z9a3

Enjoy!

Watch this video on YouTube.