what traditional media can learn from social media
by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt
and this is also not a presentation on how social media is going to save the day...
1. relevance
2. interestingness
3. engagement
stuff that DOES save the day
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92wardsenatorfe/3126055165/
be relevant
relevance is how well media organizations deliver what matters to their readership.
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Mark Twain
Did you know 4.0?(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8
0
22.5
45.0
67.5
90.0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
How People Get Their News
Television Newspaper Internet
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1066/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source
40% get their news
online
35 6
1 0
4
1613
18
29
23
2832
34
59
62
68
59
Respondents Aged 18-29 - 2006-2007-2008
Television Internet Newspapers Radio Magazines Other
59% gettheir news
online!
Up until journalism became a profession rather than a trade...(p)ublishers paid attention to readers needs and wants, and hired and trained editors and reporters accordingly...
Howard Owens, "Maybe it's Journalism Itself That is the Problem"http://www.howardowens.com/2008/maybe-its-journalism-itself-that-is-the-problem/
Get Facts Straight Admit Mistakes Professional
1498
27
70
6359
21
29
The Public’s Opinion of the Media
Yes No Don’t Know
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1341/press-accuracy-rating-hits-two-decade-low
The goal is to find some meaningful measure of reader satisfaction and fashion a new journalism that meets reader needs...
Make your focus your audience. Try to figure out what readers want, not just what you think they want.
Howard Owens, "Reporters and editors should develop a reader satisfaction index"http://www.howardowens.com/2008/reporters-and-editors-should-develop-a-reader-satisfaction-index/
and are you giving them what they want?
Health Care Economic Crisis North Korea US Auto Industry Sonia Sotomayor
55
11
1516
Media Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media
College Lawsuit Freed Journalists Radiohead Song Newspaper Troubles Obama Admin.
78
11
19
24
Blogger Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media
7%
7%
9%
19%
23%
35%
Twitter OutageIranITV Sells SiteJohn Hughes DiesNews Corp Charges 4 ContentOther
and on Twitter?
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media
the good news.
3%
28%
10%
7%
52%
News SitesTwitterEmail NewslettersAggregatorsBlogs (by reporters/analysts)
where people findtheir news online.
http://www.fortexgroup.com/best-practice-surveys/40-study-on-how-people-get-their-news-online
top news sites - august 9, 2009
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites
Site Monthly Visitors Inbound Links
CNN.com 25,900,000 27,246,000
news.yahoo.com 18,800,000 15,857,000
digg.com 12,300,000 544,422,000
nytimes.com 12,200,000 33,792,000
USAtoday.com 9,800,000 13,197,000
BBC.co.uk 2,400,000 27,243,000
reuters.com 12,400,000 19,180,000
washingtonpost.com 6,900,000 16,717,000
news.google.com 5,700,000 19,066,000
huffingtonpost.com 11,100,000 8,013,000
so...how do you become more relevant?
1. have your ear to the ground
For any beat...there is a listing of topical tweeters:
sciencepond.com
facecaker.com
followformation.com
wefollow.com
geofollow.com legalbirds.com
2. be part of the community you cover
being part of the community
a) talk to your readers
b) get out to events
c) find out what your current readers respond to and do more of that (not the same subject, but the same kind of story)
3. learn from feedback (the data is there!)
cnn.comnytimes.com
news.yahoo.com
“the most– e-mailed and most-blogged stories in the paper, as well as the most-used search terms...(is) a rough gauge of reader behavior, to be sure, but as it turns out, a fairly consistent one.”
Michael Hirschorn, "The Pleasure Principle" The Atlantic Monthly Dec 07http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/newspaper
bloggers won their audiences by figuring out what is relevant to their readers and then producing more of it...there are no barriers - customer call in centers or walls - between a blogger and his/her audience so the learning is faster and more agile.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelldavies/375432858/
be
“Stop being important and start being interesting.”
Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic Monthly
it’s not about you, the awards, how awesome you are, your page views, etc...it’s about...
being interesting doesn’t mean chasing ambulances and sensational headlines...it means that you bring value to your reader’s lives...
Jacek Utkohttp://www.utko.com/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html
“I came to London, and I've seen performance by Cirque du Soleil. And I had a revelation. I thought, "These guys took some creepy, run down entertainment, and put it to the highest possible level of performance art." I thought "Oh my God, maybe I can do the same with these boring newspapers." And I did.”
DELIGHT
Utko’s Redesign Process
1. Strategy: what is our goal?
2. Content: which content serves the readers better?
3. Design: does the design flow with the content & strategy? what’s the reader experience?
4. Testing: how do readers use this? react? is it meeting the reader’s needs?
5. Workflow: how can the organization, itself, change to produce better products?
6. Branding: how can we tie this together across platforms?
7. Execution: how can we ensure continuous quality?
http://www.utko.com/index.php?id=22
SIMPLIFY
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
http
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3622
2430
6/
Nate Silver - fivethirtyeight
“The uncanny, poll-wrangling, stats-freaking Nate Silver took it upon himself to demonstrate that some level of governable, rational reality could be brought to bear on the confusing world of competing tracking polls, and along the way all but cemented the geek-chic trajectory of this election season.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/24/2008-the-year-in-media-hi_n_153362.html
if you can succeed in making your readers feel smarter, more in control, sexier, excited and more interesting themselves, you will win.
http
://w
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2/35
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be ing
engagement is about creating a deeper level of interaction between yourself and your readers as well as between your readers and other readers.
1. sharing
2. discussing
3. portability
4. connecting/getting social
5. mixing the media
at the end of the day, it is the blending of social media and traditional media that will produce the future of media...this is not an ‘or’ situation, it’s an ‘and’ situation...
the big question is...even with all of this...
WILLTRADITIONALMEDIASURVIVE?
is it too late?
people don’t like paying for digital stuff
“Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying "this will sell a lot of papers!" Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model.”
Paul Graham on Post-Medium Publishinghttp://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html
advertising models are mostly flawed
Sales teams are expensive, there is the issueof the balance of being objective whilemaking advertisers happy (multiple conflictswith this)...
non-profit models? hyperlocal? niche markets?
maybe? feels like these models would work forsome, but not for all. great examples emergingthat can test this out.
http://www.bayareanewsproject.org/
“Our community has 25,000 members. 1% produces content and a 1,000 are very active. Among the active, you have what we call "guests". They are bloggers and columnists that are paid on a revenue sharing basis. Amateurs send 400 to 500 contributions and write 6,000 comments a day.”Benoît Raphaël, Editor & Chief, Le Postinterview at: http://mediacafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/le-post-successful-and-innovative-news.html
http://current.com/
http://current.com/
the answer doesn’t lie in social media itself, but rather what we our customers and their needs as the adoption of social networks increases...
thanks! these people gave me LOADS of ideas...
• Rachel Weidinger - @rachelannyes
• Burt Herman - @burtherman
• Will Straw, PhD - http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw.html
• Alex Ikonnikov - @alexikonn
• Jay Seidel - Professor, Fullerton College
• Adam McNamara - @adammcnamara
• Heather Flyte - http://www.hbflyte.com/
• Kellan Elliott-McCrea - @kellan
• Chris O’Brien - @sjcobrien
• If I forgot you...tell me! And I’m sorry!
Order Whuffietoday!
http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com
licensing:
share/remix/spread ... but don’t forget to attribute.
http://slideshare.net/missrogue
photos/screenshots
• most of those gorgeous photos are from istockphoto.com unless indicated on the photo as a link to a Flickr creative commons shot
• screenshots were snapped on Skitch (plasq.com)
• please do not re-post the photos as it will be a violation of their copyright/left. however, have at the screenshots where you will!
contact me:
Tara ‘missrogue’ [email protected]@missroguemontreal, quebec, canada514-679-2951
http://www.horsepigcow.com
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