Vol.20: How Are News Media to Survive In Web 2.0 World?

In the previous article "Vol.19: What is Ideal Web 2.0 Wocial Journalism / Jourlist?", ideal journalism and journalist was discussed. The topic of this article is how news media as the organization (and employer of journalists) need to change to survive in web 2.0 online world.

1. What does news media need to know to succeed in Web 2.0 online world?

News media need to be aware of the drastically changing environment and the paradigm shift in the business model of journalism, attributing to the game change of news and all content business by Internet/web 2.0. This is supported by Fisher’s article of 10 Industries That The Internet And Social Media Will Revolutionize (2009), with print media as #1, television as #3, music as #6 advertising as #8 and public relations as #9.

2. What is happening in the news media and all content media industries?

There have been scrap and build (such as of AOL and NCB selling announcements), and staff cuts in news media and other content industries. Focusing on news organizations, some examples are mentioned by Steiger (2009) in his article Investigative reporting in the Web era, including closing of business, operating in bankruptcy proceedings, and drastic cut in team and staff/journalists. According to Steigner, newspapers have bought out or laid off nearly 26,000 journalists, which is the equivalent of more than 20 New York Timeses.

3. Are news and other content business market really shrinking?

No, it is not; it is actually on the increase in total. It may seem to be shrinking if looked focusing on traditional media business and/or as an extension of traditional business; however, total news and all other content business is not shrinking but potential demand is increasing. Take music industry for example. It is true that CD business is decreasing with the advent of online music business but with easier access to more online music content, more people are actually consuming more music content and thus total music business has expanded.

Many of the myth of news and content business are not quite right. Curley (2009) says in his article Crossing the burning bridge, under the new game in the Internet era, “it often appears as if the more our content is distributed, the more revenues decline”, but his stance is also that it all depends on how professional news media adapts to the changing business environment. The myth attributes to inappropriate, obsolete business model of many current news media and other content business organizations, not knowing the KFS under the new game rule.

4. What are the KFS to succeed in new game?

KFS to create demand and market to succeed in news and other content business are quality and distribution channel of content.

1) High quality content is a must.

It is true that news business seems to be on the decline in general, demand for high quality news content does exist and even seems to be increasing.

As mentioned in the previous article Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers, content is the king, and in addition, context the queen, as Joel (2009) advocates, and online consumers do pay for high quality content. This means that content business can be successful even thought many free content are available online. The issue is quality of the content.

According to Mohsin’s article The Future Of Paid Content (2009), global online consumers still place more value on content produced by “professionals” and pay for (perceived) quality content. Steigner (2009) is also of the same stance. This is the very reason why Comcast, the “content distributor” company decided to acquire NBC, the “content” company.

2) Controlling distribution channel to deliver content is also vital.

Controlling distribution channel to deliver high quality content is also a crucial competitive advantage under the new game with the emergence of Internet and web 2.0. Lewis (2009) says in his article Social Journalism: Past, Present, and Future, the future of social journalism will be driven by disintermediation, the replacement or removal of middlemen in the supply chain, and the author feels this has already started. This is also mentioned by a Japanese authority in this field in his online article series about IT and media/content business that he posts regularly on a prestigious media website.

Disintermediation is KFS for many traditional offline company businesses (manufacturers, retailers etc.), Dell model being an excellent example, and is indeed crucial KFS for online business. Some examples to name a few include Amazon, eBay, Yahoo! and iPod of Apple to name a few, all of which resulted to development and establishment of new business models. Such companies stimulated potential customer demand, created new market, and became the market leader, leveraging first mover advantage.

3) Collaboration is the key to achieve and leverage both quality and distribution channel of content.

With the objective of effectively and efficiently produce high quality content meeting customer needs and delivering them directly to online customers, collaboration has become a trend among news media organizations. This is quite natural when many companies in other industries (including offline traditional industries) are making alliances and collaboration to improve their competitive advantage.

Lavruski (2009) introduces with concreteness how news media are doing this in his article 7 Ways News Media are Becoming More Collaborative, mentioning the 7 points below. These are in line with what the author described as ideal social journalists in the previous article Vol.19 – What is Ideal Web 2.0 Social Journalism / Journalist?

- Curating and filtering the stream.
- Working with the audience.
- Leverage collaborative tools (e.g. Google Wave)
- Social media partnership.
- Large news partnering with blogs
- Local news organization teaming up
- University partnership

5. What do news (and other content business) organizations need to know and do immediately?

News media and all other content business organizations are required to change their mindset and overcome the mission in the next few years to survive. Curley (2009) describes this by saying “get all the way across the burning bridge, from analog to digital journalism, and make the difficult choices that this crossing presents”.

Leveraging learning from, for example, Crocker’s article 4 Things Old Media Can Learn From the Music Industry’s Last Decade, news media and other old media need to know that myth is exaggeration and change their mindset. They need to fully understand the essence of the paradigm shift in their business environment triggered by web 2.0/social media ecosystem and determine correct KFS. Social media ecosystem introduced in the previous article Vol.5 – What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? could be of reference. Then they would be able to develop and establish new business model meeting the new era to win the new game.

It is with successfully adapting to paradigm shift and developing/establishing new business model that the value and importance of professional mainstream news media would increase more than ever, as Defren (2009) insists in his article Mainstream Media Relations: More Important Than Ever.


In the next article, the author would like to further discuss some of the actions news media (organizations), one of the primary content business players, are expected to take survive in web 2.0 world. The author believes that marketers, communicators, PR representatives and online business owners can learn from such actions how to succeed in their web/Internet marketing and online business.


References:-

Betancourt, Leah (2009) How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom
http://mashable.com/2009/06/08/social-media-newsroom/

Crocker, Nick (2009) 4 Things Old Media Can Learn From the Music Industry’s Last Decade
http://mashable.com/2009/10/08/news-industry-music/

Curley, Tom (2009) Crossing the Burning Bridge
http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/internet/crossing-the-burning-bridge

Defren, Todd (2009) Mainstream Media Relations: More Important Than Ever
http://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/2009/09/mainstream-media-relations-more-important-than-ever

Fisher, Lauren (2009) 10 Industries That The Internet And Social Media Will Revolutionize
http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/10-industries-internet-social-media-revolutionize/

Joel, Mitch (2009), Six Pixels of Separation – Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. Business Plus

Lavrusik, Vadim (2009) 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive
http://mashable.com/2009/08/14/newspaper-survival/

Lavruski, Vadim (2009) 7 Ways News Media are Becoming More Collaborative
http://mashable.com/2009/12/29/7-ways-news-media-are-becoming-more-collaborative/

Lewis, Woody (2009) Social Journalism: Past, Present, and Future
http://mashable.com/2009/04/07/social-journalism/

Mohsin, Umair (2010) The Future of Paid Content
http://animoney.thoseinmedia.com/2010/01/07/the-future-of-paid-content/

Steiger, Paul (2009) Investigative Reporting in the Web Era
http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/internet/investigative-reporting-in-the-web-era

Vol.18: How PR in Web 2.0 Online World Should Be?

In the previous article "Vol.17: How to Make Social News Release", possible methodologies of making social news release were introduced. The topic of this article is how PR activities needs to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world leveraging the social news releases, to make it the ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world.

1. What is the essence of PR activities in Web 2.0 online world?

In short, it is to adopt marketing approach. In order to succeed in PR with new rule of marketing, PR and IR as mentioned in the previous article "Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World" to effectively reaching directly to bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists, marketing approach is vital. This means adopting marketing concept/framework of segmentation, targeting, value proposition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), AID(M)A (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, Action), LTV (Life Time Value) of customers (buyers), Pareto Law and ROI (Return on Investment) or marketing to name a few. This can be said as another aspect of convergence of marketing and PR.

2. How PR activities should be performed in web 2.0 online world?

From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of effectively performing PR activities leveraging social news releases and converging with marketing are as below.

1) Send/distribute social news release whenever there are good reasons to do so, not only when big news and events are present.

In the web 2.0/Internet world, successful PR activities of companies and other organizations is frequent sending of news releases in the framework of total story of the company/organization. This is because PR activities in the web 2.0/Internet online world, PR needs to target all web users including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers, information are now usually updated frequently leveraging the characteristics of the Internet mentioned in the previous article "Vol.8: How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing" and now and web users are used to frequent updating of information on the web.

Each news release targeting every web user is in effective (as in principle in marketing that communication targeting everyone does not meet customer needs and ineffective), and therefore each of them needs to be made and distributed with careful segmentation, positioning and targeting in market-in approach. This is a different approach from traditional PR in offline world in which news release was made and sent only when there are big news and events to journalists and media exclusively, in product-out approach. Strategy, value proposition/offering, story telling (scenario building), and optimization of each news release in total framework are required for the new approach.

2) Broadcast news release and other PR information leveraging social ecosystem.

It is ideal for PR representatives to leverage social ecosystem introduced in the previous article "Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize?" and broadcast social news releases and other PR information online such as podcasts and blogs, as some leading companies are already doing. In traditional PR in offline world, news release was faxed to journalists and/or distributed in publicity and press conferences and posted on the company website (in news release section) when Internet emerged. In web 2.0 online world, it is ideal to leverage social ecosystem (social media) to broadcast targeting all web users. This would trigger successful viral marketing.

Some tactics include starting official company Twitter and Facebook account and broadcast by such social media vehicles, and proactively distributing and introducing in e-newsletter, to name a few, with the objective of drawing attention and interest the first “A” and “I” of AID(M)A at the driving point of the persuasion scenario explained in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?".

In addition, when sending social news releases and other PR information to journalists and bloggers, it is often effective to segment and target with cover letter and additional document tailoring to respective target to meet their respective needs with one-to-one marketing approach.

3) Engage bloggers and other influencers in the web 2.0/Internet world as well as traditional journalists by interactive conversation online.

Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives interacted exclusively with journalists and media, PR representatives need to reach proactively interact with influential bloggers as well as traditional journalists to win their engagement. This would mean companies/organizations to open the door to inviting influential bloggers to publicity and press conferences as well as interacting on regular basis in the future.

Expanding target to influential bloggers and managing all targets effectively is a challenge. It requires careful screening selection and retention of targets, similarly to cultivating, selecting and retaining loyal customers in marketing with Pareto Law for successful CRM leading to maximization of customer (buyer) LTV and ROI. Such topics as online engagement and social media ROI, as well as viral and one-to-one marketing, deserve further discussion, and the author would like to do so in one of the upcoming articles.

4) Leverage social media vehicles to perform public hearing and monitoring.

Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives communicated one-way sending out news release only, PR representatives in web 2.0 online world need to leverage social media ecosystem for effective public hearing and monitoring.

Traditionally, PR representatives used to monitor their PR activities only by clipping of news and magazine coverage and how and when information on their company/organization went on the air on TV and radio news/programmes. However, with emergence and popularization of the Internet, online coverage (e.g. online news) has been under monitoring in many companies. And with the emergence and popularization of social media, PR representatives (and marketers) need to monitor the reputation of their company/organization i.e. what the general public talks about their company/organization in social media world. To do so, they need to monitor major social media vehicles such as news sites (e.g. Digg), major blogs (e.g. Marshable), microblogging (e.g. Twitter), audio/video podcast (e.g. YouTube) and social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) as well, as some leading companies already does now.

Public hearing and monitoring leveraging social media helps PR representatives better understanding the needs of online audiences including journalists, media, bloggers and the general public (prospects and buyers). Input from such hearing and monitoring contributes to planning and execution of market-in PR instead of traditional product-in PR.

In addition, it is ideal for PR representatives or other members assigned to proactively participate in social media/online communities, by interactive conversation, to positively influence reputation of the company/organization.


Having briefly discussed ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world, the author would like to touch on how such PR activities are influencing or could influence journalists and media, primary stakeholder of PR representatives in the next article.


References:-

Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize?

Some social media vehicles have already been mentioned the previous articles but in this article 15 social media categorized by Safko and Brakd (2009) that form social media ecosystem is briefly explained. All of them are realized by Web 2.0 technologies.

1. Social networking: This is a common place online that any trusted network, a group of like-minded people who have come together to share thoughts, ideas and information about themselves. Examples of social networking site include Facebook, Linked, Bebo and MySpace, to just name a few.

2. Publish: This is a broad category that might be a little misleading because technically people can publish all kinds of content, including video, audio, photos and games as well as texts of e-mail, web pages, blogs, Internet forums and wikis. Examples of tools, companies, tools and applications include Blogger, Constant Contact, Joomla, Knol, Slide Share, TypePad and Wikia.

3. Photo: Picture is worth a thousand words and that is where the value of being able to sort, organize and share photos with people in one’s network comes in. Examples of companies, tools and application include Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Radar.net, Slide, Smug Mug, Twixr and Zoomr.

4. Audio: Now iPod have become such a ubiquitous and indispensable device that people want to take around with them to listen to audio contents, and more than 30 million people subscribe to podcasts already, and therefore audio can be a critical aspect of a social media strategy. Examples of companies, tools and applications include iTunes, PodBean, Podcast.net and Rapsody.

5. Video: Video recording could also be considered a podcast because the iPod and other digital playback devices display photographs, audio and video but in this article audio recordings as a podcast and video recordings as video or vlog (comes from Video web LOG as the word blog stands for weB LOG). Video recording refers to Web 2.0 services with the ability to deliver video content on demand that can also be shared and promoted across social networks. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Brightcove, Google Video, Hulu, Metacafe, Viddler and YouTube.

6. Microblogging: This is text messaging with character limitation (e.g. 140 characters) but can be considered as a cross between blogging and text messaging. Microblogging includes the ability to send messages, audio, video and even attached files from a computer or mobile phone and offer business in particular a versatile way to interact with employees and customers, and therefore has the potential to be used in variety of settings for variety of objectives. Examples of companies include Plurt, Twitter and Twitxr.

7. Livecasting: This is a category of social media tools that enables people to broadcast information (video and audio) using the Internet/Web 2.0 technologies, distributing (or streaming) that content to his/her network. For businesses, these applications have a variety of uses on the communication, collaboration, entertainment and education settings. Examples of companies, tools and applications include BlogTalkRadio, Llive 365, Justins.tv, SHOUTcast and TalkShoe.

8. Virtual Worlds: These present a new frontier for businesses with the possibility of real-time interaction with employees, customers and vendors. Other businesses are also pursuing ways to sell actual products and services in a virtual world. The 5 key players in this space are Active Worlds, Kaneva, Second Life, There and ViOS.

9. Gaming: Online gaming is one of the Internet phenomena that are continuously gaining popularity, being a magnet that attracts large numbers of people (gamers) with a common interest. Gamers currently represent a special kind of social network but there is an opportunity in category to influence word-of-mouth promotion. Some applications (games) include 4x4 Evolution, Entropia Universe, EverQuest and World of Warcraft.

10. Productivity Applications: These are all of business productivity tools. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Acteva, AOL, Google Alerts, Google Gmail, MSSTAG, TiddyWiki, Yahoo! And Zoho.

11. Aggregators: This is about market and business intelligence which can be an extremely valuable part of social media strategy. Some aggregators gather information and data in one place for easy access and are directed to keep it updated, and some others additionally leverage the wisdom of the crowd and tell what other people are saying about a particular product, service or brand. Examples of applications include Digg, FriendFeed, Google Reader, iGoogle, My Yahoo!, Reddit and Yelp.

12. RSS: This is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, which is a one-click solution that allows all one’s content to be sent to his/her followers the moment the content is published. This is extremely valuable for a user when he/she has a favourite blog or regularly visits a website that provides updated information with specific value to him/her. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Atom, FeedBurner, PingShot and RSS 2.0.

13. Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are techniques by which web pages, photos and even videos are optimized to maximize search engine rankings. The ability to search and easily locate a variety of content on the web represents a tactical advantage to the business. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Google Search, Yahoo! Search, Bing of Microsoft, EveryZing, Ice Rocket and Meta Tube.

14. Mobile: Mobile phones are the epitome of both digital convergence and social media, and probably have contributed much to advance social media than any other single device. And today, iPhone, BlackBerry and other similar device functions as an operational control centre for people’s business because many of the social media tools in the ecosystem function just as well with mobile devices as they do with computer and therefore this category is rapidly growing. Examples of tools and applications include airG, AOL Mobile, Brightkite, CallWave, Jott, Jumbuck and SMS.ac.

15. Interpersonal: This refers to the many applications and websites in the social media ecosphere that allows people to communicate live, real time on a one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many basis. Examples of one-to-one exchange tools include Skype, AOL Instant Messager, GTal, Apple’s iChat and Jott. One-to-many tools include Jott, Twitter, Yahoo! Messenger, Microsoft Live Messenger and Doodle. Many-to-many applications include GoToMeeting, WebEx and Adobe Connect. Many-to-one could be considered page aggregators where the conversations of many different bloggers are complied into a web page or even Google Alerts where alerts about many different mentions of one’s search terms are sent directly to his/her personal e-mail.


How the above social media categories form an organic structure together with Website(s) and e-mail marketing comes next, so that use of Web 2.0 technologies companies will be better understood in the upcoming articles.


References:-

Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.