[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Bear in mind here, it's their social media I'm referring to, not random social media or something. They choose what they hype to their FB followers, what they consider important enough to try to ensure that I'm aware of.

The number of times I've ever organically visited Grantland in its entire existence is almost certainly single-digits. That's not a site -- nor are 99.99% of sites -- that I sit around and think "oh, let's go see what's there today".

I hit my aggregator site/browser home page, FB, two newspapers, one sports site, this musty joint and on most days 1-2 music sites of my own accord. Oh and I guess Google counts there since it gets hit when I'm in search of something specific, which is multiple times a day. Virtually everything else comes from some prompt. Either a social media prompt/hype/link from a site's own doing or something that's been shared by a friend/acquaintance that catches my attention enough to look closer.

One of the older tendencies I'm aware of with mass media is that consumers perception of you is exponentially affected by what you promote. The classic example that was used to teach the importance of promotion & positioning (what is usually called "branding" now) was the radio station that got low marks from listeners as a source for traffic & weather over several years despite being #1 for news. They shot to the #1 unaided recall position within 3 months by making one & only one change to their traffic & weather coverage: 5-10 times an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week they hyped themselves as having "traffic & weather together on the 5s". Their coverage didn't change one iota, the only change they made was that they emphasized the amount of coverage they did. Suddenly, the listeners considered them THE go-to source for traffic & weather in the market. THAT is the power of promotion/branding, say what's important to you & people will generally believe it's important to you.

That same phenomena has worked in reverse with me & Grantland. They may have changed absolutely nothing except what they promote within my line of sight ... and in doing so they've made a rapid shift in how I perceive them overall.

A reality show featuring JimInGA searching the Internet is something I would support.