When I read ‘Driveby culture and the endless search for wow’, I had to really think about how I was going to answer. Was I going to answer as a marketing professional or a consumer? So I decided on both.

As a consumer who enjoys entertainment, some tawdriness and cheap laughs, I can honestly say, that each time I jump online, I am wondering what’s going to catch my eye today? Or, coming from a marketer’s prospective, what’s going to distract my mind today!

Each time I hop online, I have already been notified by my trusty phone what Google Alerts have been funneled into my inbox. So, I already know that my first order will be to filter through those alerts and read those pieces that are most valuable to me. However, along with those Google Alerts, are Facebook notifications, retail notifications, sensational articles, coupons and so on that are vying for my attention. So I know that if I skip my Google hour, I am going to be sucked into a vacuum of junk for the rest of the day.

From a consumer’s perspective, that’s okay. Because in my consumer mind, although, I don’t have time to read all of those articles, I don’t have time to watch the entire video, and I don’t have time to fill out that charity form, I know that I NEED to be in that vacuum. Why? Because there is just so much more that I need to gobble up today, and I know that I can’t linger too long in one area or I’ll never see it all. What is that all? I don’t know. I just know that I haven’t seen it and I need to.

A Marketer may ask me, “Consumer, why do you feel the need to see it all?” and my response is, “Well, I don’t know. It just seems that there’s so much I don’t know. I mean just look at the number of apps, pages, groups, social sites, articles, speakers, blogs, podcasts, videos, whitepapers, seminars, webinars, that are out there and I haven’t even begun to make a dent! I mean, being online has taught me that everything is accessible with just a click. I started with Facebook to stay connected with friends, but then LinkedIn came about and my recruiters told me it was good for business so I Joined that and then this Twitter popped up and that just seemed easier, only 140 characters, and then I have my groups that I joined but I joined because I was a friend of the organizer not really a client and then someone told me I should join other groups and it just seemed to snowball from there… So now I’m part of everything but nothing! So you see, I’m just trying to see everything because I’m afraid I’ll miss something. You understand don’t you? I mean, isn’t that why you joined half of my groups, followed me and asked me to join your groups? Because you were afraid that I was going to miss out on you?!”

That’s how consumers feel. Or at least, that’s how this consumer feels sometimes. I feel like I’m going to miss something if I don’t look at EVERYTHING.

That’s the problem with the online world right now. Everybody wants to be a part of everything online because we’re afraid we’ll miss something.

We’ve been taught that ANYTHING is accessible with just a click of the mouse. That we can learn, buy, sell, trade, publish, watch anything online. And we can.

The problem of course is that we now have to wade through mountains of fool’s gold before we find the chunks of gold that we really want. All that fool’s gold is “fun” to pick through looking for the real stuff. Pick up a piece, stare at it few seconds then toss it, pick up the next piece, stare at it for a few seconds then toss it and so on. It’s and endless tossing contest until we hit upon a chunk of real, stare at it for a really long time and then store it for future reserves. But then, we’re on to more mining until we come across another gold chunk to put away for the future.

From a consumer perspective, it can get exhausting trying to consume everything. But, I’ll die trying because there is so much to look at. But, I will admit that sometimes I just wish there wasn’t so much junk to look at.

That paragraph just above is the problem with many online consumers. We really do want to consume it all but we also wish there just wasn’t so much to look at sometimes.

Sometimes, we really do just want someone to tell us what to skip over, where to go, who to talk to and how to get there so we can avoid the noise in between.

That’s why those great amateurs, marketing professionals and story tellers need to keep creating deep content and not pander to the masses. Because consumers like me are trying to find you.

That’s why I joined social groups of like-minded people. So they could tell me where I could find you. That’s why I have Google Alerts set up. That’s why I’m on social networks so I can get your information directly or hopefully through a re-tweet or re-post.

Don’t make celebrity news your headliner in the hopes that it will bring me to you because that’s what’s trending right now. It probably won’t be trending in a few hours even minutes.

If you’re concerned that I’m not finding you have you put forth a strategy to find me? Are you in my groups of like-minded people? Did you target me on Facebook? Did you find like-minded people on Twitter to get your information out there?

I’m not talking about just posting or tweeting multiple times. Did you actively engage your friends, fans and followers to spread your good news for you? Did you go outside of your social box to look for different networks that may have an interest but just aren’t categorized as such?

Do you tell me how to find you? Perhaps tell me what keywords to use when setting up Google Alerts?

As a marketer and a consumer, I would rather know that you took the time to look, engage, and be patient versus push junk out to the masses in the hopes of getting higher page views for a millisecond. Because I’ll know that each time I receive information from you or go to you for information that it’s been created for me. The who.

Thanks Seth for always keeping it real. To read Seth’s piece go to http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/03/driveby-culture-and-the-endless-search-for-wow.html,

The state of consumption is not driven so much by the desire to learn anymore but by the desire to know. With access to too much we sometimes forget to stop and learn instead of just running and knowing.
—————-Jasmine DS Torres

Jasmine DS Torres

aka MzMarketing

In Response to A Driveby Culture by Jasmine DS Torres is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License