Today, every man, women, child, company, not-for-profit organization or any public entity, all have the freedom to create whatever they want and publish it online.  Think about it for a minute.

Everyone is a media outlet.

Ten years ago, there were too many hurdles to jump through before you could get your own website.  Today, a site can be developed as fast as your hosting company can get you on to their server.  We’re talking hours, not months, weeks, or days.  On Twitter and Facebook you can have an audience within minutes of signing up.

When something that’s traditionally been expensive, like communication to an audience, becomes incredibly inexpensive (almost free) inevitably more people will utilize it.  That means there will be a lot of unintentional communication (more noise than signal).  Companies begin communicating without understanding the repercussions and soon will alienate their past and potentially future customers.  It happens on Facebook daily, updates that don’t solve a problem or entertain, just useless noise.

Here’s my warning.

Have you seen the Unsubscribe button on Facebook?

With one click, any one of your “friends/people” who like your page can silence everything you publish.  That’s just Facebook.

Filters on e-mail allow anyone to block your address if you’re sending them e-mails they don’t want.

Twitter’s the easiest, they can just simply unfollow you.

Remember, everyone’s a publisher now, if you or your company are trying to communicate something to an audience, it better be anticipated, engaging, relevant, timely, helpful, or entertaining.  If it’s not, no one is going to listen and you’re wasting your time.

Maybe it’s time to revisit your communication strategy.