Was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night (like most nights) and he was making fun of the News Correspondents who were all bent out of shape that the Invisible Children Video about Kony's atrocities against children in Uganda has gotten 70 million hits on the internet.
According to Stewart, the Correspondents are whining that that they had done stories on Kony's abuses for years themselves and now, because of this viral video on the internet, a lot of young people are passionate about trying to help in Uganda and want the U.S. to take action. Jon Stewart spoofing the correspondents: "Hey we're on the news, and we're good looking, and we've reported on this for years. Why haven't you watched us?"
Stewart pulls a pouty face.
Stewart was funny and the Kony 2012 story is horrible and sad and its good that he shone a light on it as I'm trying to do with this blog article. His story also illustrated another strong point. A lot of people are getting their news on the internet now.
Apparently, TV Network News is not the mode for keeping us informed any more. Hasn't been for me for a long time. I've tracked the top stories as I logged into my email service provider for about 10 years now. I read about and saw the Kony 2012 video at least a week ago that way.
With Hubspot statistics like: 1 out of 8 minutes online is spent on facebook, and upwards of 90% of US Citizens are facebook users, and the average facebook user spends 7.5 hours on fb a week, you can continue to deny the power of the place where A LOT of people are spending A LOT of their time, or you can embrace it, and market to them where they are spending their time. Invisible Children did and they were able to get the word out.
Why are more and more people online more each day? Well obviously, this is the information age. A large percentage of us spend all day working on computers so it's easy to take a break by surfing or going on a social networking site to see what is happening in the world, and what friends and family are up to. People can quickly and efficiently research that all-important-upcoming purchasing decision without burning gas which is about $4.50 a gallon right now in Northern California.
We're all trying to make ends meet by doing more with less money and online is a way to do that from both the consumer's and the seller's point of view. It's estimated that sales leads generated via inbound marketing (which is internet marketing) cost only $135 each which is 3 times less than the average cost of a lead generated by traditional marketing methods at $436.
So you can bury your head in the sand or you can accept that the internet is the main communication source for a lot of people now and embrace internet marketing and news.
And hopefully the world and the "Powers that Be" won't bury their head's in the sand regarding Kony 2012, now that its gone viral on the internet.
Sources: The Daily Show by Jon Stewart, Invisible Children Kony 2012 Video, Yahoo News, and Hubspot
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