A couple of weeks ago I sat at a meeting with about 30-40 people talking about, among other things, social media. Through the course of that meeting, a couple of us bantered pretty animatedly with occasional off-cuff references to "long tail." At one point I asked the person sitting next to me if she knew what we meant by "long tail." Other than some general reference to "reaching a lot of people by using the internet," the answer really boiled down to "I get the gist, but I can't really explain it." I made it a point to take some informal polls at other meetings. I found interestingly similar results.
Many people hear "long tail" and get the gist at some subconscious level that it's about "a way" to reach a lot of people by using the internet. And while that seems well enough, I also can't help but feel that on another level, some of us might be missing the point. I say that because when I poke and prod a little more, I get the sense that some of us understand it to mean that you can sell large volumes of things by leveraging long tail. Therein lies the rub for me.
From my perspective, long tail isn't about selling large volumes. It's actually more about selling things in small volumes.
I'll finish this up in a follow-on post. But, in the meantime, if you have a practical/working definition you use to explain "long tail" to the guy (or gal) sitting next to you, I'd love for you to share it.
For the rest of us, try this at the next meeting you attend where the speaker says "...'long tail'...": Ask the person next to you, "Do you know that 'long tail' means?"
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