Page 48 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

For any person or company trying to monetize scarce or premium content on the
social web, there is always somebody else out there willing to provide the same
webinar, video, or eBook for nothing, destroying your idea of a scarce resource.
Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price codifies this idea by
basically saying “get used to it”—you have to find adjacencies and other revenue
streams because people expect Internet-based content and services to be free.

Is there anything scarce on the Internet?
Yes, there is, according to digital marketing savant Christopher S. Penn of
SHIFT Communications. “Scarcity is actually more powerful than ever on the
social web,” he said. “While content may be free, what has become extremely
scarce is time, attention, and influence. These are hot commodities, rare
commodities. As an example, I have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter. I
can’t tell you the number of direct messages and tweets, Facebook messages,
and emails I receive every day asking, ‘Hey, can you promote my whatever’
because they know that it means something. Moving content creates true value.
So in that regard, scarcity is a weapon that is in play like never before.”
On the other side of the coin, providing exclusive or limited access to content
can create the perception of scarcity that can make the content move.
Scarcity and exclusivity boost word of mouth by making people feel like
insiders. If people get something rare, it makes them feel special, unique, and
high status. And because of that, they’ll not only like a product or service more,
but tell others about it more. Why? Because telling others makes them look
good. Having insider knowledge is social currency. When people who waited
hours in line finally get that new tech gadget, one of the first things they do is
show others. Look at me and what I was able to get!
As the publisher of a popular blog, I am deluged with requests to try new
products and services. I ignore these pitches because I know the same email is
being sent to a thousand other people. Why would I create content on a subject
that could appear in hundreds of other blogs the next day? I want something
exclusive. I want to be an insider.
But there is one type of content that makes me stop, pay attention, and share
what’s being offered—exclusive insight. Here are three examples of companies
who used “first access” as an effective way to transmit their information:

When a well-known digital analytics company was acquired by a large
international firm, their PR team set up an exclusive opportunity for me to
interview the company’s founder right after the announcement. I wrote a
lengthy post about the company and its prospects in the new organization
… I moved their content!