Perhaps the fragmentation of influence, that’s being driven by the self-publishing phenomenon, is the most disruptive change for legacy marketers that were schooled in the “mass-media” era.

They want to buy influence, rather than earn it. Also, they approach independent bloggers in the same way that they’ve always reached out to traditional journalists. It’s a though they are trapped in a time-warp.

It’s puzzling. Some acknowledge the apparent shift in the marketplace that results from open broad-based social media usage, and yet they continue to apply the same old methodologies from a bygone era.