Promotion helps turn flows into authorative stocks

Before the Web, the availability of information was tied to the ubiquity of the promotion medium. Today, all information is equally accessible¹, but promotion can accelerate its distribution.

Before the Web, information was strictly divided into stocks (books) and flows (newspapers & magazines). Today, through the power of search flows are immediately converted into stock resources.²

Before the Web, promotion could only be used to maximise exposure through flows. Today, promotion is used to speed up information flow. Speeding up dissemination of your ideas allows you to set the agenda, frame the context and establish yourself as an authority. In effect, speed helps establish your flow as the stock resource.³

When executed correctly, promotion today provides far more potential for long term value than previous mediums ever enabled. Establish the context and conversation and you will become established as the authorative stock.

Footnotes:

1. All information lives on a web page, and can be seen by simple distribution of a link. In that way, my lowly blog post is equal to CNN’s biggest story of the year.
2. Background on stocks and flows.
3. Search engines are complex beasts and continually evolving, but this is roughly true of how they work.