Forget old media, new media is the media

The term ‘new media’ is officially dead! Just ask Obama’s PR team. In the span of just three short months, the President of the United States has been interviewed by BuzzFeed, Vox.com, Re/code, Fusion and Vice, and word is that soon we will be seeing an interview with Obama from the senior politics editor of the Huffington Post.

So where are our pollies? It appears nowhere to be seen except in old media. I rang the PM’s office to ask for an interview on BuzzFeed, no reply. It seems an anomaly to me that large corporations or politicians still place emphasis on the dying newsprint and still ignore the online social news sites.

The main benefactor of this ignorance is the small nimble operator: The SME who can outperform and out-communicate the large organisational beast that is simply tied up in its own self-perceptions and old ways of doing things.

Here is why SMEs can outperform corporates in media:

• With no brand guidelines you can be yourself, you can create the brand you want, you can be truly authentic, like Cam Greenwood from Monstasurf 
• You can develop close relationships and networking opportunities without the confines of a structured approach, organising your own networking events, mixing online and offline networking
• You can establish marketing and PR campaigns fast and on topic, with no protracted sign-off procedures
• You can offer a better customer service experience that is personal and easily build a database using cloud services
• Using technology you can distribute press information fast and widely spread through tools like PRWeb and track the results
• Being unfettered, with no IT blocking policies, as an SME allows you to use all the cool free tools and apps online to your advantage
• The big boys now try to make video content look unproduced, so it is as ‘real’ as possible – we know it’s not real. Watch Coke’s “real” guerilla marketing, Happiness Project here. Try guerilla style tactics that are honest and raw. Try your own flashmob! Get on to https://www.tubestart.com and look at how you can make great content that competes with the likes of Coke
• As an SME it’s easy to pick up your phone and get real with a quick vox pop and post it online

With all the online resources available, the world is your oyster.

Fi Bendall is the managing director of Bendalls Group, a team of highly trained digital specialists, i-media subject matter experts and developers.