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August 10 The relentless creep of paid-for contentIt’s coming, like or not. The recession is bringing forward the day when we’ll be paying for content as a matter of course and a number of publishers are beginning to experiment with how to charge for their content. The amount of content we pay for probably exceeds what we don’t. We (mostly) pay for movies, music, TV, newspapers in print form, magazines, games. Unless we subscribe to publications like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times though, we don’t pay to consume news and other content online. Publishers haven’t charged for their online content in the past but now they find advertising revenues from online divisions are not compensating for the loss of newspaper and magazine sales as more and content is consumed online. Advertising rates are falling and behavioural and demographic targeting is still way off where it should be. Publishers will find a way to start charging for content online. It’s not an if. The survival of their businesses depends on it. The challenge for publishers is not to change consumers’ minds that content should be paid for – they already do pay for quite a lot of what they consume – it’s just that they have to be persuaded to pay for a particular means of consumption that they haven’t previously paid for. It’s not completely unthinkable that if everyone starts charging people will become used to paying. Yes, you’ll always have some free stuff out there but if the choice is limited and the stuff people like is behind a barrier then why not? Publishers also don’t have to worry about losing ad revenue on the free pages. For every £10 subscription they get they would have had to serve anywhere in the region of 1000 to 3000 pages depending on sell-through rates and CPMs. And that’s not including the fact that it costs publishers to serve page views. They also don’t have to forego relationships with advertisers completely as there are plenty of ways of taking revenue from them that don’t involve simple banner ads. The fly in the ointment in this of course is the BBC – in the UK at least. Will we see the day when you have to have a licence to view BBC content? Today you might still be able to consume your favourite newspaper site for free but behind the scenes (and in some cases not very far behind the scenes) a number of publishers have started experimenting with the paid-for model in one form or another.
Publishers will find a way to get us to pay for content, BBC or no BBC. It’s only a question of when. Of course there will be a backlash. The Internet will try and find a way to make it all free once more. Share It
August 03 Political Twitter troublePoliticians are in trouble over Twitter again. The latest incident follows hot on the heels of David Cameron’s schoolboyish use of the word “twat” last week. It also follows the publication of government guidelines for departmental tweeting. It took up 20 pages. They got a bit of stick for that as you’d expect but, well, it’s the government isn’t it. At heart it’s a conservative (with a small c) organisation. You couldn’t imagine Barclays bank allowing employees to tweet on its behalf without an in-depth study of risks and rewards. The guidelines are more interesting than you might think as well. Some people have asked whether government employees, MPs or other, should be tweeting at all. That’s a bit of a non-question. They should go where their constituents are in order to communicate with them and plenty of them are on Twitter. Of course they’d need to tailor their communications to the platform and not do a Habitat but that’s another issue. The guidelines debate has come up before and it won’t be the last. Many corporations and media organisations have Twitter and social media guidelines. It’s only right that there should be some guidance for employees on what is expected of them as employees of that company. A couple of politicians who got Twitter before any guidelines were issued are Tom Watson and John Prescott. Share It
July 27 Is Twitter making Digg irrelevant?The worldwide growth figures of Twitter and social bookmarking sites are in stark contrast to each other. Twitter’s users, according to Comscore, have grown from 2.6m in May 08 to 37.3m in May 09. It is now the 7th largest social networking site in the world (and the 3rd largest in the US behind Facebook and MySpace). Digg comes in at 11th place. Digg has gone from 15.4m to 24.9m in a year (May 08 to May 09). That’s not bad growth – 62% – but nowhere near Twitter’s. Digg’s larger rivals have not performed as well. Yahoo! Buzz has gone from 7.2m to 9.2m and Delicious from 2m to 2.4m. While some of the smaller sites are showing good percentage growth, their audiences remain relatively small. Reddit has gone from 740k to 1.8m and Newsvine from 873k to 1.6m. Stumbleupon’s audience has actually dropped from 2.2m to 1.5m. The problem with Twitter, at least for bookmarking sites, is that Twitter is one of them. People use it to share links they find interesting. They also use it to talk about what they find interesting. Just like people can Digg an article and make it more prominent, the more people who talk about a subject on Twitter, the more likely that topic is to end up in Trending Topics. Twitter is becoming more and more relevant for finding out what people are thinking about at any particular moment. The don’t serve exactly the same purpose but if you only had enough time to maintain your Twitter or your Digg account, which would it be? Twitter’s phenomenal growth will take audience away from Digg and others like it. That’s not to say both can’t be successful but social bookmarking sites might have to find other models, other experiences to offer, if they’re not to be left behind in Twitter’s wake. Share It
July 20 It’s not all doom and gloom for media companiesThe cover story of Barron’s is a timely reminder that at least some believe there is at least short and medium-term potential in media stocks. The article points out that the recession has exacerbated the media industry’s woes, but “While print, broadcast networks and radio are fading, The advertising market is getting to grips with supply and demand. The cheapness of ads, the difficulty of reaching audiences, the over supply of inventory, all these are contributing to the current sorry state of affairs for many media companies. The advertising market is not evolving quickly enough to cope with what consumers are doing online. If we can solve that problem, if we can make advertising more relevant, engaging and better targeted, then content can still be king. Share It
July 14 Why teens don’t matterThere are a lot of very concerned people out there who have read, or read about 15 year-old Matthew Robson’s research report for Morgan Stanley. The report is about the consumption of media by teenagers. It throws up a few surprises but also many things your grandmother probably already knows. This is not to say that the report isn’t a worthwhile read. There are some interesting points and if you’re marketing to teenagers you probably want to know what they think, or want to know what one of them thinks anyway. But if you read it because you think you might gain valuable new insights for how media will be consumed differently by the adult generation of tomorrow then you might be disappointed. Here are the report’s conclusions. Thanks to The Guardian for reprinting the report. Radio: Teens don’t listen to radio because you can get music for free. Me: I don’t listen to radio either. Television: Teens watch TV but not that much. They use iPlayer. Me: They don’t watch TV because they’ve got other stuff to do and the distractions of the internet and phones. Newspapers: Teenagers are reluctant to pay for newspapers and only really read the freebloids. Me: I have also reduced the number of papers I buy, though I haven’t replaced them with freebloids. Gaming: PC gaming has little or no place in the teenage market. Teenagers play video games and as most consoles can connect to the internet are starting to use them to chat, so having an impact on phone usage. Me: no surprises about PC gaming. The video gaming point is intriguing though. Internet: Teens use Facebook not Twitter because texting Twitter uses up credit. In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are ‘pointless’. Me: Makes some sense. Do teens realise you can update Twitter from a computer? But yes, Twitter does seem like something that is easier to do if you’re sitting in front of a computer all day or can pay for texts. Also teenagers probably get more use out of instant messenger which can fill a similar function to Twitter. Marketing: Teens respond better to viral marketing than pop ups and banner ads. Me: As do we all. Music: Teens listen to a lot of music and download it illegally. Me: If there’s someone out there who didn’t realise this please try and remember all those New Year’s Eve parties for the last 50 years. It’s not 1959. Cinema: Teens visit the cinema more at 13 and 14 than at 15 when they have to pay full price. Also they might be tempted to buy a pirated DVD. Me: Again, teens are cost conscious. No real surprise. Mobile: Teens use the free features of their phones rather than the ones you have to pay for. Me: So do I. Devices: Teens like big TVs, long battery life, and touch screens. Me: Me too.
Why teens don’t matter (that much):
Obviously I’m being flippant here. Clearly teenagers’ disposable income is huge in this country and is a difficult market to tap. The point is rather that if you don’t market to teenagers then you don’t have to worry about what they think too much, or as much as we seem to. Share It
July 10 Celebrities and phone hacking: a microcosm of Britain?Vanessa Feltz, Tony Harding, Max Clifford, Alan Shearer, Alex Ferguson, Gordon Taylor, Simon Hughes, Elle MacPherson, John Prescott, Tessa Jowell, George Michael, Boris Johnson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jade Goody, Nigella Lawson, Anne Robinson, Lenny Henry, Patsy Kensit, Lisa Snowdon, Sadie Frost and Jude Law are among those whose phones are alleged to have been hacked or communications illegally recorded or intercepted, or were targets of the News of the World. Thanks to the Guardian for the list. Are these the celebrities middle Britain cared about most in 2005/6? Probably a combination of that and of luck and ease of access. I wonder though if there’s any jealousy from celebrities who weren’t targeted. Do any of them feel slightly aggrieved at being left out? Share It
June 26 Habitat still don’t get itHabitat have blamed their anti-social use of media on an “overenthusiastic” intern who did not fully understand what he was doing. The intern made tweets using inappropriate hashtags such as #iranelection, #mousavi and #iphone followed by something inane about Habitat’s spring/summer collection or suchlike. This person is apparently “no longer associated” with Habitat. A few thoughts on this: a) Habitat don’t have a clue about the relevance and impact of social media marketing if they let an intern lose on it b) Habitat are still responsible for their staff, interns included, and so who was responsible for the intern? c) If the intern did it completely of his own volition then fair enough but he is/was an intern and one who has learned a very valuable lesson. Is it fair to have got rid of him? d) The real crime here is the continuing inanity of Habitat’s tweets, such as “Acrylic pendant light. Available in magenta and smoke”. @team_woolies is a much much better example of how it should be done. e) The number of tweets, articles and err, blog posts about this topic is out of proportion to what actually happened. Some of the tweets are incredibly self-righteous about the sanctity of Twitter and sites like it. It’s just a website people. Habitat is full of contrition and realises it has alienated an audience by misuse of a site and by piggybacking on the Iranian demonstrations. Some of those who have taken offence on Twitter are now calling for discounts for Twitter users. Why? Slightly hypocritical I think.
June 19 MPs’ expenses: The Guardian vs The TelegraphThe MPs’ expenses saga continues to grip the nation’s interest. As I wrote in an earlier post it seems a peculiarly British affair. I could not imagine this story running the amount of time it has in many other countries. That’s not a value judgement, just an observation. As well as what’s being reported what has proved interesting to those who work in the media is how it’s all been reported. We’ve seen a variety of approaches from “old-school” scoop-based reporting to a more collaborative UGC-based method. In the former camp sits The Telegraph and in the latter The Guardian and to a lesser extent the BBC. Martin Belam, who works for The Guardian, makes a similar point in his blog currybet.net. He writes: “The MPs expenses scandal has been the defining political story of the year, and with the final publication of the information by the House Of Commons we can now see another potentially defining battle emerge for the future of news - that between the cheque book, bunker and 'traditional' journalism, and an alternative path of open crowd-sourced data-driven journalism.” The Telegraph became the envy of its rivals when it scooped the MPs expenses. Day after day it published revelations. Other publications must have been highly annoyed at having to kick their heels while the Telegraph stole a march. The Telegraph’s coverage has been, and continues to be, exemplary, both in the depth and the quality of reporting. It has been a massive effort. As Ian Douglas writes in his blog: “This has been the biggest piece of data journalism I've ever worked on, or suspect I ever will work on. Throughout the project the focus has been on accuracy and the publication of every scrap of information that we can.” It culminates today with the publication of the largely uncensored claims forms. Other publications have used the time before the records were released by Parliament to plan how they could take advantage of it and regain some lost ground. The Guardian has used the time well. Their crowd-sourcing project has allowed them to harness the power of their users and sift through the thousands of documents much more quickly than the “bunker” approach of the Telegraph. Their live blog yesterday was an excellent example of how a collaborative effort adds to the story. It’s also an example of how to get high quality user comment on a site. Too often just asking for opinions will lead to a load of drivel but saying what you want and how you want it can lead to higher quality submissions. A useful reminder for those of us looking to increase user-generated content on our sites. So we have two quite different approaches to the story both hugely compelling and offering lessons we can all learn from. But would most readers rather see the heavily censored versions of the expenses reports on the Guardian or the lightly censored versions on the Telegraph? Which of the two publications would they believe has more and indeed more accurate information? The old media approach has attractions that cannot be denied. It would be interesting to know what the Guardian’s approach would have been if it had been the paper to secure exclusive access to the expense claims. Would it have been as open as it is now and risk losing the exclusivity? While the Guardian has often led the way in “new media” I wonder if it too would have adopted a more insular, “old media” approach had the circumstances been different. And is its adoption born out of the necessity to compete rather than simply a desire to tell more sides of the story through harnessing the power of users? Share It
Twitter and censorshipI read in the excellent RWW this morning that Twitter is censoring the trending topics list. Topics of a sexually offensive nature were removed. The post asks: “Should there be an algorithm for trends rather than making trending topics a pure numbers game? Should the system be fixed so that #liesboystell doesn't win out over truly important, significant, or newsworthy content? Should tweets, like images and other kinds of content, be screen for "adult" material and user preferences be set accordingly? Or do trends really belong to the lowest common denominator?” It does provide for a strange experience when you’re using Twitter to exchange useful links and are having highly charged debates on the Iranian demonstrations, social media or what you had for breakfast to glance to the right and see that some of the most popular topics are #threewordsaftersex or suchlike. It makes you realise that a vast number of Twitter users are, well, not quite as interesting as you. Light self-deprecation aside the post raises the important issue of censorship at a time when everyone is talking about Twitter as a tool of democracy. If an algorithm is brought in to ensure that the trends board is kept for “important, significant, or newsworthy content” then the obvious question of who gets to determine this is raised. Also there is no such thing as a global profanity filter. I’ve had experience with the word “pud” being filtered out in the UK, referring to a Christmas pud, because it means something else entirely in the US. Perhaps the answer is an option to allow users to set their own filters if they choose, as the post suggests. Another option is to limit trending topics to the people you follow, though that rather defeats the purpose of trending topics. A further option might be to allow users to select types of trending topics they want to see (similar to allowing users to set their own filters). Twitter is still evolving as a communication platform and no doubt these issues will be debated for some time. However, one thing shouldn’t be lost sight of. Twitter’s USP is in allowing conversations with all sorts of people across all sorts of divides. Any form of censorship risks its USP. Share It
June 12 A thought on Murdoch’s time limit for pressRupert Murdoch has apparently said that digital will be the primary form of press delivery within the next decade and that the presses will stop rolling in twenty years. This seems reasonable to me, my only demurral would be whether it would take that long. Journalism is alive and well but more and more people are losing more and more money. Unless a charitable organization, an NGO or the government itself funds the press it’s difficult to see it continuing in its current form. The blog post I linked to above reminded me of a podcast I listened to earlier in the week, Media Talk USA with Jeff Jarvis from The Guardian. One of the commentators was suggesting that print is in a more competitive position than many believe since the New York Times is unique with a strong editorial line. But it was the mention of the Denver Post that brought home to me that the UK press might have to find a different solution to the US market if they are to monetise press – print or digital - more effectively. The US press is far more local than the UK. Cities have their own newspaper and there is no truly national newspaper. The UK on the other hand has plenty of national newspapers. The local newspapers are there but are few peoples’ first-choice newspaper. The US might find it easier to generate advertising revenue because of the more local focus since they will have more access to classifieds, local and national advertising campaigns than the UK’s press. Perhaps the next ten years will see more problems in the industry on this side of the Atlantic. Share It
June 09 Twitter is a party where only a few have all the funIn my last blog post I compared Twitter to a party at which people mostly talk to those people they already know. Now it appears that not only do people mainly talk to those they already know, only a few people at the party talk at all. The news that broke yesterday that just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content (reported today by the BBC) means that most of the people at the party are sitting in the corner not talking to anyone. Or perhaps they took one look through the door, spied a whole bunch of twitterheads and decided to leave well enough alone. @mazi writes that “you can go to a party where a few talk more than others, but it can still be a good party!” That might be true – the 10% seem to be having a blast. What’s more remarkable about this study is that it should come as a surprise. Most websites in my experience, social networking ones included, get the majority of their traffic from a minority of users. An implication of the study might be that Twitter is not attractive to the majority of people. This is not necessarily a bad thing either for Twitter management or Twitter users. Having a core group of highly committed users has often been proved to be more lucrative in the long run than having larger groups of vaguely interested people. And having a smaller group of people to interact with is often better. A conversation between 5 people you find interesting is going to be more productive than trying to have a conversation with 5 million you don’t know or want to know. Twitter’s “exclusivity” might be the cause of its longevity. Share It
June 05 Twitter v MessengerAn interesting question was posed on Twitter this week by @megpickard. It asked if Twitter has reduced the usage of instant messenger to communicate with friends. I’m not sure if it went anywhere after the question was posed but for me it highlights the difference between the two services. I use messenger for private conversations or for one-on-one conversations and Twitter for public conversations. Messenger is for a chat with a friend or a colleague and is closer to a phone call, while Twitter is for a chat with a group of friends and other random people you don’t mind listening and joining in – Twitter is like going to a party where you don’t know everyone (and some conversations you find there are more interesting than others). My usage of Messenger has stayed the same since I discovered Twitter since I use them for different things. The question also raises the issue of whether Twitter is a new form of social interaction or just a development of things like email, messenger and Facebook. It’s all of those things and none of them. One thing for certain is that unlike email and messenger to a lesser extent it’s a popularity contest. Twitter grader ranks people by the number of followers, the ratio of followers to following and the number of retweets. The party metaphor is apt. As much as I love Twitter (and parties) as with a party you get cliques forming in Twitter. In a way it’s also like being back at school and desperately trying to prove that you’re one of the cool kids. Or maybe that was just me… Share It
May 29 The web’s changing entry pointsI rediscovered Baekdal.com today. It bills itself as an “online magazine about great experiences” and it’s certainly worth a read. I say rediscovered because a while ago I came across a story when using Stumbleupon which recounts an experiment with robots. As the robots could only walk in a straight line, they relied on the kindness of strangers to point them towards their destination. It’s an interesting social experiment showing how humans co-operate with each other at the same time as interacting with technology. Sounds a bit like what happens on social networking sites. I’m finding more and more content through social sites that I use like Stumbleupon, Digg and Twitter. And it’s not just me. Many sites now get a considerable amount of traffic from social media sites. Baekdal itself claims that it gets 65% of its 200,000 monthly users from social sites with only 15% coming from search engines. Facebook is apparently a bigger referrer of traffic to Perezhilton.com than Google and here in the UK, the Telegraph has recently claimed that it gets 8% of its traffic from social media sites. People are getting more and more information from their peers, their communities, and their networks. A couple of years ago the entry point to the web was a search engine. Now it’s increasingly likely to be Facebook and Twitter. Over the next year more money will be spent on social media optimisation just as a few years ago there was a sudden realisation that search engine optimisation was paramount. So far I think smaller businesses have been quicker to pick up on this. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Large media companies are only now starting to realise there is money to be made from social media – or at least from the traffic that these sites send to the showcase website. That is probably a dated model – the notion that a media site is a like a trawler fishing for traffic which it then sells on to advertisers – but I’ll leave that for another post. Share It
May 27 Content like waterThis article from Nieman Journalism Lab is a good analogy in some ways. It points out that sellers of bottled water have found a way of charging for something you get in other places for free. I’m not sure it works entirely. We have to ignore the fact that tap water is not free, though it might appear to be so, and that water fulfils a wide range of needs – it’s essential but bottled water is also sometimes just a fashion accessory. Content is a different type of product entirely. But it does work in other ways. People pay a premium for bottled water because of two reasons I’d say: convenience and the idea (correct or not) that what’s in the bottle is better for you than what’s in the tap. A third could be celebrity endorsement. The idea that newspapers will be able to charge for convenience and for something that at least gives the impression that it’s something you can’t get elsewhere is not new. It’s just that most publications haven’t figured out how to do it yet. So, the analogy doesn’t contain a new idea, but sometimes analogies are what’s needed to get the creative juices flowing. Share It
May 21 BBC: journalists have to consider use of social media carefullyInteresting article on journalism.co.uk. BBC director-general Mark Thompson told the publication that journalists had to consider “consider their use of social media carefully” because of the name and the title they've got. As with the WSJ (see below) it’s obvious: journalists working for a company represent that company and so the boundary between personal and business will, or rather should, be more rigid than perhaps many Twitter users would like. Share It
Wall Street Journal’s guidelines on “online activities” are spot onThe Wall Street Journal’s guidelines on social networking seem very sensible and I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. They could very easily be re-written without reference to “connecting” or “friending” and serve as a general code of professional conduct for all employed journalists. By stating that journalists should not mix business and pleasure the guidelines do not miss the point that Twitter is inherently personal nor do they prevent journalists from using Twitter as a source or sharing details of their personal lives. Journalism is often by its very nature secretive and things like Twitter make protecting of sources and story more difficult. Any sensible journalist will know exactly where they need to draw the line to keep business separate from their personal lives. Twitter’s ongoing usefulness to journalists will lie with its networking capabilities. If Twitter becomes solely a large group of people exchanging tweets on what they had for breakfast, the early adopters will move on to the next social network and Twitter will die a slow death. Only close friends, and sometimes not even them, are interested in what each other had for breakfast, but many more might be interested in discovering related professional areas of interest that journalists might have. The WSJ’s rules for online activities are reprinted below, courtesy of Editor & Publisher. Online Activities More critique of the WSJ guidelines from editorsweblog.org can be found here. Share It
May 20 MPs’ expenses map is a hitMSN’s own MPs’ expenses map has proved a hit. It’s a geographical representation of the amounts that MPs have claimed in the last complete tax year. It allows users to quickly see what their MP has claimed as well as comparing him or her to others in the vicinity or other parts of the country. A search on Twitter for MSN + expense or MSN + expenses will throw up comments like “My MP has claimed X for transport but Y up the road has claimed twice as much.” Developed by Shoothill, it shows how popular very simple ideas can be and also how spatial representations can bring a different element to story-telling. The map has gone viral. So far I’ve tracked it in places like Cosmopolitan, Moneysavingexpert, The Spectator as well as on politicians’ sites and local news or community sites. Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC and Charles Arthur from the Guardian have picked it up and most of the momentum on Twitter seems to have come from them – the power that comes from influencing the influencers maybe. Further urls of coverage: Share It
May 15 Media on media: week ending 15 MayPlenty in the press this week about publishers making readers pay for content. The only thing people seem to agree on is that a solution needs to be found to the rather vulgar problem of publishers not making any money. So far the only publishers who have made a success out of charging for content are those who clearly offer something a little different, perhaps a bit more niche. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times do that. Publications like The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian might find it that much more difficult as they’re always going to be more mainstream their problems are compounded by the dominance of the BBC in the UK. The other ways publications can charge for content is by figuring out a way to make people pay for convenience rather than the actual content. Of course publications need to embrace a variety of business models to make money: there’s a lot of revenue in ecommerce type deals, for instance. Also I believe that advertising platforms and solutions will become a lot more effective at targeting by demographic and behaviour and providing a richer experience (see blog post from May 13). Interesting articles I’ve come across this week on the paid-for debate: Something most people almost certainly wouldn’t pay to consume is the column inches filled by the MPs’ expenses scandal. I suppose if you were an MP you would pay for it, but then expense it along with your moat. Stephen Fry’s rant on the issue was amusing but perhaps goes too far in dismissing it as “not that important”. We have a right to expect elected representatives to follow the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law. One thing is for certain though, the scandal has a particularly British feel to it. Where else would a nation be up in arms at public money being spent on lightbulbs, paper napkins, dog food, HobNobs, loo seats and a subscription to Sky? Interesting local journalism initiatives are springing up across the world. This one in the Czech Republic allows you to “touch your editor”. A company is setting up newsrooms-cum-cafes, according to this New York Times article, allowing consumers to interact with the editorial staff putting the paper together. I wonder how journalists will feel about Joe Public peering over their shoulders and I also wonder about what kind of punter the cafes will attract. Regardless, local journalism is in dire straits and will need creative solutions if it is to survive. MSN’s own new local initiative, surprisingly enough called MSN Local, is live in the UK. A possibility for this project is for it to grow into a platform that supports local journalism. Finally, on social media, Malcolm Coles reports that The Telegraph gets 8% of its traffic from social media sites. This is an impressive number and shows that while social media itself is difficult to monetise, traffic from those sites can be. Sites will have to up their social media optimisation strategies. At the least, Coles’ article provides a reason for journalists and marketeers to spend even more time on Twitter. Share It
May 13 Pay walls? Get the ads right firstThere are arguments raging over whether newspapers can and should charge for content. Shane Richmond has posted on this earlier today, partly in response to Emma Duncan’s Evening Standard article. The recession has hit publishers hard and they’re searching for a way out. But it’s not just the recession. It’s the internet, a point that Duncan makes in her article. She says that because the internet with all its free content is damaging publishers, readers should be made to pay to consume journalism and the BBC should be reined in to allow others to flourish. However, the internet has been undermining the paid-for business model for years as the publishing, music and film industries have experienced. Charging for content is an old-fashioned business practice. That doesn’t mean it’s rubbish of course. The FT has been quite successful with a part-subscription model. But I doubt it can rescue publishers on its own. I don’t think we’ve yet explored the true potential of advertising online. It still accounts for a low proportion of marketing budgets even though internet usage is on the rise and is already higher than consumption of TV in the UK. Video advertising, rich ad formats and demographic and behavioural targeting can help publishers grow their online revenue to compensate for falling revenues from the print product. Quality publications should be able to generate enough engagement and high enough CPMs and CPAs to reduce the need for a paid-for model. And if the advertising is non-intrusive it won’t matter if the BBC is still free. The question is whether it will happen in time to save some of them from going under. Share It
May 11 Would you hire someone to do your social media strategy?Interesting article from soshable.com on the pros and cons of hiring a social media specialist, hiring a company or training up someone internal to do it. Social media marketing these days is big business and there are plenty of experts out there. Any company though that takes its social media profile seriously is not going to rely completely on a third-party to manage its profile. The point of a social media profile is really to provide the customer with a more intimate connection with the company and I think it needs someone close to the company and passionate about it to lead it. Use third-parties and experts by all means – they may have knowledge you don’t have – but keep hold of that close connection with your customers. They’re good at sniffing out overly-corporatized social profiles. Share It
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