Being Accessible and NPR

If I synthesized every bit of advice I’ve given to people on “how to use the internet effectively” it would look like this…

Be Real and Be Accessible

By being real and accessible you do two things.

First you aren’t full of hype, people like honesty and they don’t like fake stuff. Sure lying can work in the short term but long term it completely fails, and here is a secret, the internet is long term. If you put it up it can stay up 4-ev-er!

Second the internet is used for communicating, as will all other communicating audience participation is key, people want to feel involved, relevant and important. This is why we have talk radio instead of monologue radio, American Idol instead of “listen to a famous person sing” it’s by blogging is huge and why the wall on facebook is the thing you really care about.

People don’t want to listen all the time, they want to talk back.

Here is a recent story that illustrates this perfectly

NPR has a new radio program called the Bryant Park Project (BPP) they interview regular people about unique things.

They also blog - they use Twitter – and facebook

I first started following them on Twitter then started listening to their show every now and then.

They tweeted about the California ruling (which I had just blogged about) and mentioned their blog

I went to the blog and commented [right over here]

They emailed me and asked if I would do an interview

I said yes

They called and we chatted for about 10-15 minutes

I hung up

They put a few seconds on the radio

[link - here it is]

Analyze:

NPR the BPP included me and made me feel relevant, I got chosen because I was real (a real live homeschool graduate) and I was accessible, I was on Twitter, I commented on their blog. Now I’m more likely to talk about the BPP and now I’m their friend on facebook. A win for them and a win for me, this is the internet done well.

That’s all.

Be Real and Be Accessible!

questions, comments, interviews, let’s talk
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