The old adage “news travels fast” needs an update.
With the advent of social media, text messages and email, news travels instantly.
A growing contingent at the SHOT Show is our Internet media. In fact, more than 600 Internet media representatives — bloggers, forum leaders and website producers — will be at the show this year. When we first started registering Internet media four years ago, that number was under 100.
If you don’t think this group should be taken seriously, ask Netflix and Bank of America what their thoughts are. Both companies recently experienced instant backlash that quickly went viral after making announcements their customers weren’t too happy to hear about.
Gun bloggers and the Internet media have the ability to take a new product and give it instant recognition — which also carries with it the possibility of it quickly going viral. And quite often, these writers and video producers are producing the same reviews that print magazine subscribers will read about months from now.
It still amazes me how many companies out there do not include Internet media in their ad spend.
Where can you find all this coverage? For one, follow the #shotshow hashtag on Twitter. Also, do a search for “SHOT Show” on YouTube, Facebook, Google+, Google Blog Search and countless other sites.
The amount of coverage, comments and quality you’ll find will no doubt make you a believer.