BlogPotomac: WaPo Dan Beyers talks about the future of the media

BlogPotomac: WaPo Dan Beyers talks about the future of the media
Media needs a new model of audience engagement

Dan Breyers, local business editor at the Washington Post, talks about how social media is impacting the media and how the paper is adapting.

He starts by reading a prediction that within 10 years there will be no more print media. And goes on to give his personal strategy as business editor.

 1.  Provide excellent content.

2.   Provide new ways for companies to engage with the audience. Offering access to the data and more indepth content about the companies

3.  Make it easy for people to use and share the information

This is definitely not your grandmother's newspaper. 

Take note, PR folk.  If this is where reporters and newspapers are heading, your media relations strategy will have to look very different too.

Hat tip to Geoff Livingstone for the video

Custom Content Is Your Best Bet
Last year 10% of audiences caught their favorite shows online.

Brands are catching on to the idea that they can create custom content and attract the right audience.  Where is this custom content being viewed?  Online. By the end of the year, an estimated 40% of programming will be viewed through the Web, says James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research.  Internet advertising in the United States will grow eight times faster than the overall market, surpassing newspapers, cable TV, and broadcast TV by 2012, IDC predicted today. The Yankee Group expects the market to reach $50.3 billion by 2011, double the amount of 2007.

Marketers have found a new way to try to keep viewers from tuning out their ads: offer them online programming created by the marketers themselves, often with help from their advertising agencies, says The New York Times.

One way is to sponsor content that appeals to your audience - National Geographic's Dog Whisperer is virtually owned online by Petco, writes Brandweek.

Some brands are investing in their own channels and shows. What is called Advertorial in print has become advertainment online.

Chivas This is the LIfe has a channel on MSN.

BlendTec has made entertainment out of their product testing with the Will It Blend videos. Now they're doing co-branded content    

Just a year ago MySpace announced branded channels with custom content from National Geographic, The New York Times, Reuters, The Daily Reel, Expert Village, Flow, IGN Entertainment, Octane TV, Kush TV, Ripe TV, VBS TV, and Young Hollywood.

Sites like Kyte and FlexTubeTV allow you to produce your own branded content channel online.  This Is 50, is the online destination site for articet 50 cent.  It's part hip-hop/pop culture blog, part fan community, and part original content destination.

Heavy.com  aims at men ages 18-34, They offer an online dating reality series using partially user-generated content and a show that won a Webby Award for the sports category in Online Film & Video.

I's a no-brainer for travel and tourism sites. eMarketer projects Online travel sales in the U.S. sales will reach nearly $146 billion in 2010, up from nearly $127 billion in 2009 and $110 billion in 2008. Travel bookings surpassed offline bookings in volume for the fitrst time in 2007, according to PhoCusWright.  Any travel or tourism destination that is not using online video is missing a huge opportunity. Video is a major influencer in travel sales.

Have you thought about how you could use online video to build your brand, engage loyal customers and offer content that they want to watch and come back for?

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Gartner Names Top 10 Technologies That Will Change The World
What is sauce for the goose... the advice to CIOs should be taken to heart by PR Managers

Dr. Jim Amderson posted in The Busines of IT blog about the Gartner Top 10 Technologies that they think will change the world in the next four years.

1. Multicore and hybrid processors
2. Virtualization and fabric computing
3. Social networks and social software
4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
5. Web mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous computing
8. Contextual computing
9. Augmented reality
10. Semantics

Dr. Anderson says that 1 - 4 spell a sea change in IT departments.  "Uh, oh - can you hear your job going away?" he asks.

"What does this all mean, and more importantly what should a successful IT staffer (or CIO) do today? The key to your future success is to understand how IT is going to change and what you need to do to change with it."

#3 on the list is having a profound effect on PR and marketing departments. and I'd say that same advice applies:

The key to your future success is to understand how PR is going to change and what you need to do to change with it.

Social Media has given the PR industry much more insight into the fundamental aspects of relationship-building, says Todd Defren

Is this how PR should always have been?  Yes, indeed.  Social software and social networks are empowering the consumer and their voice is being heard - loud and clear.

Business Week updated their 2006 article on blogs and said when they wrote that story they missed an even bigger one:  social networks and social software.

"Social connectors are changing the dynamics of companies around the world. Millions of us are now hanging out on the Internet with customers, befriending rivals, clicking through pictures of our boss at a barbecue, or seeing what she read at the beach. It's as if the walls around our companies are vanishing and old org charts are lying on their sides."

And even if the social media bubble bursts—and Business Week predicts it will—they also predict that the power of social media to transform our businesses and society will only continue to grow.

Are you ready?

Digital Future
Users see the Net as a more important info source than traditional media

80- percent of users 17 and older consider the Internet to be an important source of information, says USC's 2008 Digital Future Report ..

 68 percent rated it higher than TV, 63 percent preferred the Net to radio and 63 percent rated it better than newspapers as an info source.

The Digital Future Project also found that the social aspects on online communities is growing at a rapid rate

Membership in online communities has more than doubled in only three years. More than half of online community members (54 percent) log into their community at least once a day, and 71 percent of members said their community is very important or extremely important to them. Fifty-six percent of members reported meeting their online counterparts in person.

More than half - -55 percent -- say they feel as strongly about their online communities as they do about their real-world communities.

Just as the Internet is changing the way we communicate and interact, so it is changing how businesses should interact with their customers and stakeholders. 

The role of PR is shifting.

Find out where your audiences are online and make it easier for them to share ideas with you and with each other.

Domain vs. Subdomain
When you get ready to set up a professional blog, one of the first decisions you will need to make is if you want to use a domain, subdomain, or a free option, such as blogger.com. I recommend treating a blog just like any other website, especially when it comes to the hosting. Some hosting companies allow you to [...]

The Slovenian Designer
Recently I had the pleasure of seeing some of the work of a graphic designer, known as the Slovenian Designer. I was so impressed by what I had seen, that I decided to take a look through his blog. WOW! This is definitely a site worth spending some time on. Not only is he an extremely talented web [...]

Making Social Media Content Work For You
Social media does have new rules, but some of the old rules apply too

Executing Social Media was a good conference.  Everyone participated in the sessions, so we got the benefit of some very smart people sharing ideas about what works and what doesn't.

There were two excellent keynotes:

George Wright from Blendtech spoke about how the Will It Blend campaign came about and why it has been so successful. The videos have had over 40 million views and sales are up 5X.

Peter Shankman woke everyone on day two with his energetic keynote about where all this social media sruff might be going.

Being wired and on the grid is a fact of life.  We have no privacy. Someone always has a camera or a laptop switched on and everything you do or say could end up online. What we do have is the ability to control what gets seen or found online.

His prediction is that we are moving towards a world where we have one tool that connects us and it's more about how we live our lives than the tools we use.

How can this be used to advantage by companies? Create PR stunts people will talk about and share.  Since everyone is now a citizen journalist with a camera and the means to publish, give them great content that is worth publishing. 

He did this for Harrah's. 

As a way to promote their new Water Tower, the Harrah's Resort Atlantic City gave away $1 million worth of free hotel rooms in four major East Coast cities, starting in New York.

They had a bevy of beautiful models painted in the Harrah's logo on Wall Street giving away room keys.  And it caused a storm of tweets and images, as well as mainstream media coverage.

LInda Zimmer made a great point in her wrapup - use best principles rather than best practices.  What worked for one company may not be the right stunt or content for yours.  Use the idea, but keep your target audience and end goal in mind..

Example:  If HerRoom.com did a similar stunt to promote the Undie Awards, I am sure they'd get just as much attention and coverage - but a ton of traffic from young Wall Street hot shots would not sell any bras. 

The old rule of the right message to the right audience still applies.  It's just a new channel..

 

Advertising Your Website
Yup, I admit it, I am a bit biased, but I think that one of the very best ways you can advertise your website is through the V7N. First, without a doubt, your site needs to be in as many high quality directories as possible. The V7N Directory is the one directory that I personally recommend the [...]

My Happy Crazy Life
It isn’t often that I come across a blog that I am so impressed by that I find myself wanting to tell everyone I know about it, but My Happy Crazy Life is definitely one blog that I want to share with others.    When I found this blog, authored by Amy Sue of the Zany Zebra, [...]

Offline Marketing Techniques
  Offline marketing is very similar to online marketing, either way, word of mouth is one of the best forms of advertising there is, but a huge part of that involves getting to know the people around you. Online, that might mean joining and actively participating in groups and forums. Offline that could be taking a sincere [...]

Top 10 Drinking Achievements Before You Die
Written by Mitch Martin Even booze hounds need to have goals in life so, I decided to come up with a list of the 10 things that every true drinker should accomplish before they die. Not every item on the list requires drinking massive quantities of alcohol. Once you have covered every item on this list [...]

Written by Mitch Martin

Even booze hounds need to have goals in life so, I decided to come up with a list of the 10 things that every true drinker should accomplish before they die. Not every item on the list requires drinking massive quantities of alcohol. Once you have covered every item on this list you will be a well rounded drinker who should have a shit-ton of good stories to tell. Personally I can put a check mark next to six of these so it looks like I still have some work to do. Figure out where you stand and then plan your weekends accordingly.

Case In A Day - 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I prefer to think not. You need to sit down with a couple of friends and a couple of cases and power through the day and the case. People that have never done this think it’s easy and the people that have, know it’s not. Added Difficulty: Keep a hand written journal of what you are doing each time you crack a beer. Bonus Points: If anything is legible after beer 17.

Run The Taps At A Bar… Conditions: must have 12 or more taps. This is pretty self explanatory. Belly up to the bar and order a single pint of every beer they have on tap one after the other. You are going to get to try a lot of new beers and chances are you will be piss drunk before the sun goes down.

Century Club - Pretty simple, 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes without puking. Much like the case in a day challenge people always think this is easy until they actually try it. 60 seconds starts feeling like 5 seconds once you pass the 70 minute mark.

Brew Your Own Beer - Yeah it might not taste that great and you will be “that guy” that makes all your friends try their shitty brew but every true booze hound has to give it a shot at least once.

Pub Crawl Conditions: 12 or more pubs covering at least 1 mile. There is nothing better than getting a big group of friends together on a sunny day and catching a buzz while going on a walk. A beer at each stop with a short walk in between and you will be primed for a night of debauchery.

Go To An AA Meeting at least once you should see how the other half lives. Learn a lesson from Charlie Kelly, throw out your beer before you actually get into the meeting. If you don’t somebody will rat you out.

Learn Something About Wine And I don’t mean memorizing the flavors of Franzia, Carlo Rossi or Charles Shaw. Go on a wine tour and actually pay attention (without pounding Busch Lights between wineries) or go to a multi-course meal where they pair a wine with each course and explain why they go together. The knowledge will pay off each and every time you take a lady out for a nice dinner.

Black Out Before Noon - Just once get out of bed at 9 a.m. and crack a beer instead of having your morning Tropicana. There are a finite number of years in life where you can get drunk before noon and not feel like a total douche about it the next day. If you are a college football fan then this is easy to accomplish. If beer isn’t your bag first thing in the A.M. then I would recommend a Boones Farm Strawberry Hill. It’s slightly fruity, high in booze and fan-fucking-tastic.

Oktoberfest in Germany - As someone who’s been there twice, trust me in terms of a unique alcohol experience, it’s pretty unparalleled. Any place where you can puke on the floor under your table, and one waitress jokes with you while she cleans it up and another brings you another beer is unique in my book. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a girl throw up while making out with some dude so that it squirts out the side of their mouths. Gross but hilarious. -Mr. Wonka

Scotch - learn to drink scotch either on the rocks or neat. Much like golf, it is a pain in the ass to learn, but it will pay off in the business world. While you are at it, learn the difference between bourbon and whiskey so that you don’t look like a total fucking hayseed. If you really want to get a gold star on your chart learn the difference between a blend and single malt as well.

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