Some time ago Conrad sent me the link to the following video:

Long story short: 50 Taxi Drivers were invited to the renowned TEDx conference in Buenos Aires, where they heard six hours of innovative ideas from different speakers. After these talks they were told to spread the word among their customers and tell them about the ideas that caught their interest and inspired them the most.

While this video is an entertaining approach to ‘spreading the word’, it also demonstrates two essential functionalities of today’s digital communication architecture and especially of social media:

1. The Social Filter
   The cab drivers only told their customers about those stories they actually found worthy of sharing – so only the most interesting stories were spread among a bigger audience. The same systematic applies to content in the social web: only good content will be shared on networks like Twitter or Facebook. Bottom line: content has to be ‘king’ in order to get past the social filter.
2. The Reality Check
   Every now and then it is a good idea to check how the broad audience (in this case the cab drivers and their customers) react to complex digital marketing ideas and whether they understand them or not. While digital marketers are tech-savvy and early-adopters of new technologies, this does not have to be true for their audience. This fact is often forgotten when trying to create innovative digital campaigns: if only a very small proportion of the target audience actually knows what QR codes are and how to scan them – why make them a key element of campaigns? Once in a while every marketer needs to perform a reality check on their own ideas in order to match them with their audience’s tech-savviness. This is also true for the current status of Google+: Right now its audience is way too ‘techy’ and far too small to make sense for broader approaches.

To sum it up: Focusing on the two kings in today’s world of digital communications (content and your audience) is an essential step for successful campaigns.