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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Even snackers eat full meals

snackersKevin Dugan tagged me on the MediaSnackers meme, a concept I’ve been digesting (pun fully intended) before juping into well-covered territory. The question: How do you respect MediaSnackers?

By way of background, Jeremiah Owyang started the meme on October 24 by presenting the video from the MediaSnackers site and offering a terse definition:

What???s a mediasnacker? Folks who consume small bits of information, data or entertainment when, where, and how they want.

I’ve now read at least 15 posts contributing to the meme, subscribed to the MediaSnackers feed, watched several related videos…basically, I’ve gorged on snacks. Here are some observations that don’t duplicate too much what’s already been said.

What are MediaSnackers snacking on?

There seems to be a growing body of evidence to suggest that consumer-generated content (CGM)—particularly video—doesn’t have all that much reach. Sure, there are some CGM videos that attracted tens and hundreds of thousands—even millions—of views. These tend to be things like laughing babies, otters holding hands, and thelike. But by and large, the typical YouTube video has gets just a few views, mainly from friends, family, and people searching for videos on just that topic. What typically gets the most views? Professionally produced and, often, copyrighted material.

There is, therefore, plenty of room for organizations wanting to reach snackers to create snack-size content.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s no value in the videos that get 400 views—if the right 400 people are viewing them. My choice of the number “400” is not arbitrary. It’s based on Shel Israel’s assertion that…

...the Internet is being structured around small circles of friends, usually containing no more than 400 people. There are millions of these global neighbourhoods.  In the not too distant future, there will be 10s of millions of them and they, by definition, will be self-governed.  They will have a great deal of influence iover what people buy, watch, listen to and read.  They will influence where we travel, how we get there and where we stay. They will determine, in some cases, who will get elected.

Shel’s dead on with this. Most of the videos I watch these days are the ones my Facebook friends are posting; I see them when I do my twice-daily scroll through the my Facebook feed. As a result, I see mostly videos that my friends are recommending and sharing, as well as some they are producing. There’s a real challenge ahead for organizations to figure out how to reach these micro-communities with content they’ll want to share without disrespecting and alienating them. (I do expect a sizable part of the marketing and PR profession do do one hell of a job disrespecting and alienating them.)

One final point that a couple people have made but deserves repeating: How well are snackers digesting what they consume? That is, will a call to action be effective in snack-sized content? What is message retention like? I don’t have answers to these questions, but it sounds like a nifty bit of research for SNCR to consider.

Does anyone snack full time?

No. Even people who would classify themselves as Media Snackers have full meals, and probably do so more than they’d care to admit. Given media snacks are, by definition, small, a full meal would be traditional content.

I have two kids—26 and 18—and they both fit the definition of snackers. My son leaves various videos that he wants me to watch open on websites on my computer. My daughter samples music from a variety of sites. Yet both of them go to the movies. Both of them watch full-length TV shows—and if it’s an episode they’ve been waiting for (like the final installment of the three-part South Park “Imaginationland” arc for my son or the finale of “America’s Next Top Model” for my daughter), they’ll even watch it in real time, commercials and all. My daughter will instantly grab the latest Chuck Palahniuk book as soon as it comes out. They go to the movies. They read print magazines (but not the newspaper…except for the comics).

You can probably continue to reach snackers through full-meal media.

Is every snack a snack?

My wife often orders two appetizers to serve as her main course, and she’s hardly the only person to do this. The question, then, is when does a snack cease to be a snack?

If I watch a two-minute video the link to which somebody has emailed me, it’s a snack. If it leads me to find related videos, videos by the same producer, websites that address the issues raised in the video and otherwise consume related content resulting from focused research, then I’m no longer snacking. I’ve assembled a meal from smaller portions.

It is probably worth somebody’s effort to figure out how to identify common memes and engage through the meme rather than (or in addition to) the individual bite-sized nugget of content.

Are young people the only media snackers?

Of course not. I’ve always gotten a kick out of the “Ask a Ninja” special delivery episode titled, “What is Podcasting?” The Ninja says, “People under the age of 12 have asked the Ninja, ‘What is podcasting?’” Cute, but wrong, since Arbitron research suggests that most podcast listeners are somewhere in their late 30s or early 40s. Why? Because the producers of most podcasts are generating content that is of most interest to that group.

Media snacks didn’t generally exist before the whole Web 2.0 thing kicked into gear, so us older folks didn’t have snacks to consume. But it’s a mistake to assume that only the IM generation (born after 1980) are embracing this kind of content. Now that it’s available, everyone is taking advantage of it. If the younger generation has an edge, it’s figuring out how to consume snacks when they’re not tethered to a computer.

How do I respect media snackers?

Like everyone else who has answered this question, I respect media snackers in a number of ways—none of which were concentrated, focused attempts to appeal to snackers. It has all just been adoption of the media that work best to do what I want to do. These include…

  • Embracing Twitter and Jaiku.
  • Tapping into services like Jott and Utterz that make it easy to produce quick, snack-sized morsels.
  • Blogging. Sure, some of my posts are long, but none are as long as your average Atlantic Monthly feature.
  • Photo sharing with Flickr
  • Contributing at least a little to the video world on YouTube
  • I’ve created a widget for my blog and have several widgets on my blog, making it easy for visitors to consume content other than mine in small portions

There are probably other things I do that accommodate snackers, who do deserve attention. On the other hand, as Kevin Dugan points out, Neville and I produce a podcast that runs an hour twice each week, which has a healthy community of listeners and participants. It’s a mistake to assume someone is exclusively a snacker.

It’s probably past time for tagging anyone else on this meme—I’m not even sure I know anybody who hasn’t already been tagged. But comments, as always, are welcome. (Comments are, after all, snack-sized bits of content!)

11/05/07 | 1 Comment | Even snackers eat full meals

Comments
  • 1.Thanks for providing your take on the meme... thought-provoking stuff on how well the snacks are being digested and what defines a snack!

    Just added you to the juicy list:

    http://tinyurl.com/2hqk8x

    DK
    MediaSnackers Founder

    PS thanks for grabbing our feed :-)

    DK | November 2007 | UK

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