My brother Josh Koster works in politics. He does “new media” at Chong & Koster, which means that he handles doing viral and Internet marketing of campaigns — not the presidential ones, but downticket ones… like Al Franken’s. (If this interests you, they are always looking for new advertising talent).

Ars Technica just posted an article about something Josh wrote for Politics which he calls “Long Tail nanotargeting” of marketing messages. I thought both were a great read, and have relevance and applicability well outside of politics.

People don’t go to one place, looking for one thing. Their whims take them to a million places. The trick is to be everywhere, with tightly targeted messages. It’s about showing them highly relevant factoids/ads tailored to the whim they’re currently indulging, which if clicked, will redirect them to a relevant part of your website or related off-site content. In short, long-tail nanotargeting takes those little gems—be it an endorsement, video, news story, or ask—and shows it to the people who would care.

— Josh is Managing Partner at Chong & Koster