I Sleep With One Leg Under the Covers and One Leg Out to Balance the Hot/Cold - Walter Sabo

Your head of Internet Services has never mentioned this group to you or these:

"I Like to sleep with my cell phone under the pillow"

"I like to sleep with the fan on in the winter"

"The Annoying Orange"---10,000,000+ LIKES.

Channel 7 in New York, WABC TV, over 45,000 LIKES.

Social media is driven by the thrill of finding "social secrets®". First you admit to yourself that you have an interest or behavior, then you bravely admit it strangers and then experience the thrill of realizing that over half a million people share your preference.

Remember the movie RISKY BUSINESS? Everyone recalls Tom Cruise playing air guitar in his underwear because most viewers discovered they weren't alone in their private rock star persona. Few remember the hot sex scene on the Chicago L.

If you sleep with one foot out of the covers, it didn't even occur to you to share that information but now that you know there is a Facebook community dedicated to it, you feel validated and confident.

Look at the Channel 7 Facebook LIKES, the count is fewer than any of the organic community sites listed. During every newscast the station pushes viewers to their Facebook page. Most stations do. Channel 7 is America's most watched local TV station yet they only have over 45,000 Facebook LIKES.

THE ANNOYING ORANGE, a video web star who exists only online has 10,000,000+ LIKES.

TAKE THE CONVERSATION WITH YOUR CUSTOMER ONLINE:

• Asking a customer to LIKE you is arrogant. Why should they LIKE you? They are in control of the conversation, they set up the communities, they build the crowd. They want to be LIKED as much as your brand. Promise to LIKE them back. Watch your LIKEs and FOLLOWS take a jump when you make it an even exchange.

• Go to the crowd. Bring the conversation of the online community to the radio or TV platform. The reverse rarely works. For example, it is stunning how many groups online are devoted to SLEEP. The idiosyncrasies of adult sleep and the challenges of getting kids to sleep generates major communities---in the multimillions. Rather than trying to form new communities and failing, attach your initiatives to the existing communities.

• Study the Web Stars. We have distilled for our clients the success initiatives of the most watched video producers. By fashioning video production based on what works online versus what works on TV or on Screen, you will save multimillions in wasteful, 1980's style production. Key tip: The more expensive it is, the less likely it is to attract a crowd.

This is the moment for the industry to transition from technocrats to marketers and content creators. In 1926, David Sarnoff, at the time a staff lawyer at RCA, realized he had to meet a similar challenge. RCA in the 1920's was primarily an aggregator of radio patents. Radio sales in the late 1920's were declining. Sarnoff concluded that the wrong people were making the radio shows:

"Radio programs made by lawyers, accountants and engineers will have limited appeal." said Sarnoff. His solution was a creative hot shop, a home for the best show people in America with the mission of making radio shows that would sell radios. The company he started to achieve that goal is NBC.