HIRE ME TO SPEAK
HIRE ME TO SPEAK

Mobile phones are the new lighters

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

white papers  |  ebooks  |  Corporate blogging

Last night I took my teenage daughter to the Orpheum Theatre in Boston to see two of her favorite bands: Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace. We had a great time. This was one of the first concerts I've been to recently where the audience was in their teens and twenties. Alas, the bands that I choose to see attract forty-somethings like me.

Concert

Last night, half the crowd was holding up mobile phones during the show. Some were snapping photos. Some were shooting videos. And still others wanted to be part of the action by waving around a light source.

When I was my daughter's age in the late 1970s, I went to dozens of concerts. Some highlights: The Clash, The Ramones, The Grateful Dead (25 times), Talking Heads, The Romantics, Muddy Waters, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Frank Zappa… I'll stop naming bands now because this is probably way too much information at this point.

Back in the day we all held up lighters to be a part of the action. Sometimes you'd see thousands of lighters.

Last night there were a thousand mobile phones (and a handful of lighters too).

At rock concerts, mobile phones are the new lighters.

I was thinking how many of the online marketing tactics we use today are really new ways of doing things that have been done for many years.

> Ebooks are the new white papers (but white papers are still important for many audiences)

> Google AdWords are the new Yellow Page ads (but in some local markets the Yellow Pages are still important)

> Wikis are the new print directories (Print directories? Do they still make them?)

> Blogs are the new guy on the barstool who is funny and smart and people listen to (anyone have time for the bar anymore?)

Are your marketing and PR tactics better suited to a previous generation?