In PR, it is becoming increasingly important to go beyond getting into the article and get onto the list. Let me explain.
It is harder than ever to get attention for companies, products and services. No, it is not because of a lack of places to go to get coverage – rather, it is because of all of the noise that we must compete with.
This has a lot to do with the changes in how people spend their time and stay informed. Some say that there is information overload, due to the fragmentation and growth of media channels. Clay Shirky famously said that information overload isn’t the problem, rather it is our failure to filter.
People use various means to filter. Google, newsreaders and Twitter can be first lines of defense. Increasingly, we rely on ranking and trending lists to winnow down content choices.
I thought about this as I read Nick Bilton’s NY Times piece: Top 10 Lists Lead to Less Choice on the Web He says:
The digital age has us living in a perpetual and pervasive popularity contest. Leader boards, top 10 lists, most-liked posts and most-clicked search results define what is successful in business and culture. Amazon’s lists of the top-selling electronics, top-selling books, or top-selling electronic books, each with subcategories, tell us what to buy. The top choices of a Google results list are the ones we click on, never the ones at the bottom of the page.
Being at the top of these lists can generate substantial windfalls. The iTunes App Store, where apps like Angry Birds, Words With Friends and Pages have spent months at the top of the charts, help the app makers collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, while those who cannot get that visibility founder in obscurity.
As you can tell from the title, Nick is not necessarily happy with this. Regardless, it seems clear that more people are relying on these lists. PR people need to adapt, understand what this means, and ideally find ways to make the cut – without gaming the system or relying on other ethically suspect tactics (I first wrote about this back in 2007; see my post Heavy Meta).
That being said, here is another excerpt from the NY Times article:
Ben Lorica, a senior data scientist with O’Reilly Media, who closely tracks the iTunes App Store, says the other technique to getting into the top lists in iTunes is to be promoted by Apple on the “New & Noteworthy,” “What’s Hot” or “Staff Favorites” section of the App Store. He said: “Getting on one of those lists is the single biggest thing you can do to boost your downloads.”
While it may not be possible to influence Apple’s iTunes reviewers with traditional PR, it could be useful to know about the criteria that Apple applies (yes, you should of course worry more about having a great product and less about lists; some say that quality, download count and iOS optimization all play a role here).
I wrote about some of these things in this post for Handshake 2.0: Getting your Apps in Gear.
What do you think of this trend? Do you have tips for making the list?
