Creating a Conversation

Check out today's fantastic Variety article on social media right here.

Creating a conversation is the key to any social marketing campaign, and that's exactly what the marketing behind Sam Bailey is all about. By publishing different perspectives on Sam Bailey as a man, as well as by opening our production up to internet scrutiny, we hope to fuel a larger discussion. That discussion can range from the nature of fantasy and what it means to be immortal all the way to what it takes to make an independent movie.

Why do that? What's the point?

Read the article. Media has grown past feeding it's audience. Now, things are more like they used to be before mass production.

Here's another example - a blog focused on the financial side of the audience-performer relationship, written by Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame. Apparently, she's been getting flack for personally billing her audience for content. Of course, her welfare has always come from her audience. Now that those relationships are becoming more transparent, some folks are balking.

For performers and audiences alike, rejecting the realities of our interconnectedness isn't going to get us anywhere. Embracing those realities, on the other hand, is at the very core of what defines New Media. People like Homer and Shakespeare knew their audiences. On the one hand, that relationship invited a whole lot of heckling - something no internet denizen is a stranger to. On the other hand, it also invited intimacy and honesty.

Some artists have become enamored of the anonymity that mass-produced media offers. As tech-savvy generations of filmgoers grow up, there's going to be less and less places for those artists to hide. Why do you think people like David Lynch are tweeting? Why is Mashable in this year's top ten list of influential Britons? In short, they're relevant.

Come on. Get into the conversation.