It is trite to link to Seth Godin but his article last Friday had very useful ideas.

“How big is your farm?” he asks. The idea is that you shouldn’t spread yourself around everywhere.

The number of media channels available to you keeps growing. The number of places you can spend time and money is almost endless. Yet your budget isn’t. Your time certainly isn’t.

Some people would have you spend a little time on each social network, run ads in ten or fifteen media, focus on one hundred major markets and spend time on PR and publicity in every publication willing to listen to you.

Or you could pick one channel and win.

My friend Gary Nordlinger, a successful international political consultant, gives a different version of this basic idea. I have always liked Gary’s version, because it’s very hard nosed.

This is Gary’s answer to political neophytes who say, “How much should I spend on advertising?”

• Order your media channels in descending order of importance
• Spend enough to dominate the most important
• If you have money left over, spend enough to dominate the next most important
• Repeat, etc.

Don’t spread everything around, even though it feels good.