• 8Reduce the layers for engagement
  The Conversation (4:49)
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• 9Mobile phones, the ultimate direct response device
• 10Be the connector
• 11Give options for engagement
• 12You need to participate
•  Introduction
• 1The economics of your time
• 2We don't need more choice. We need more TV Guides.
• 3Video: The new core competency
• 4Ego grows the Internet
• 5Be truthful or be exposed
• 6Believe your gut, not the statistics
• 7Interest and then engage

Principle 8: Reduce the layers for engagement

I want to abolish the opening words “There needs to be…” from every single new media conference panel about audience engagement. They’re the words you’ll hear just before a lazy answer that puts the solution to the problem of audience engagement on some unnamed faceless person or company. Yes, there are many “how to engage” issues with regard to new media. But by beginning a sentence with those words the person is asking someone else to solve the problem so that he or she can capitalize on it.

I’m active with many conferences about new media. And every person in the panel prophesizes on what the future will be in new media. All the examples they offer are from the same New York Times article that everyone in the room has already read. Don’t tell me what “there needs to be.” Give me a suggestion of what you’ve done to get people to engage.

And the simple answer is successful engagement requires reducing layers to consume, produce, and share. I’m kind of amazed how everyone missed the biggest story behind MySpace, podcasting, and YouTube. The reason all of these new technologies took off is because they simply made it easy to consume, produce, and share. They weren’t the first to introduce social networking, audio, or video to the Internet. But they were all the first to make it easy to consume, produce, and share content. That’s it. That’s the big, simplistic headline that everyone missed.

Look for tools that reduce engagement layers, and if you’re going to create engagement, reduce the layers yourself. Every time you put up a layer like a registration, you’re creating a barrier to engage. Consumers will go through some barriers if they see a positive value exchange for themselves. For example, they might give you an email address for access to a library of content, but they might not if you ask for their mailing address and their phone number.

Think about what you need most. Do you need qualified email addresses, or do you simply need more people to see your content? Whatever your minimal needs are, shoot for them by reducing the barriers to engage. Engagement should be your number one priority.