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NJPA Notes
January 31,
2012
Links to Sections in NJPA Notes:
Feb. 2 This
week:
Feb. 10 Webinar:
Feb. 16 Webinar: Feb. 28
Government
Affairs Committee
March 1 Webinar:
March 2 Webinar:
March 27 Government
Affairs Committee
Inquirer, Daily News Could Be Headed for
Sale A minority shareholder of the parent company of The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News is looking to sell its 30 percent stake, according to a story in the New York Post. Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that holds interests in several newspapers, was one of 32 investors that acquired the two daily newspapers and Philly.com for $139 million in October 2010. Now the owners of Philadelphia Media Network Inc. are “in the middle of an auction” to sell the company for roughly $100 million, according to the Post story, which cited a source close to the situation. The same unidentified source told the Post that “several suitors” were meeting with company management and those groups “would be asked to make binding offers in a few weeks.” … Alden Global controls significant stakes in many media companies, including Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc.; Irvine, Calif.-based Freedom Communications Inc.; and New York-based Reader’s Digest. It also owns the Yardley-based Journal Register Co., which publishes the Delaware County Daily Times, the Times Herald, Daily Local News in Chester County, and other daily newspapers in the Philadelphia suburbs. For the rest of the article: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/138302614.html
New York Times Co. Confronts Leadership
Vacuum as Shares Follow Sales Down The departure of New York Times Co. (NYT) Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson last month leaves the company with a leadership vacuum amid falling revenue, profit squeezed by pension costs and pressure from family members to restore a dividend once worth more than $20 million a year. … The departure comes as Times Co. struggles with a slide in traditional print revenue on top of pension and interest costs that leave little to invest in its future. Last year, about 70 percent of its estimated $237 million operating profit went to pension contributions and interest costs, compared with 19 percent in 2007, according to company statements. … Times Co., which is scheduled to announce fourth-quarter results on Feb. 2, is projected to report revenue for last year of $2.33 billion, a 2.7 percent decline from 2010. That would make the sixth year in a row of sliding sales. For the rest of the article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/new-york-times-co-faces-leadership-vacuum.html
New York Times Releases Code to Help
Journalists Collaborate on WordPress, Other Platforms More and more journalists use blogging platforms to write and edit stories, but those text editors are pretty basic: It’s not easy to see what changes others have made to a post. And two people can open the same post, overwriting one another’s edits. The New York Times has solved those problems for online journalists by building a tool that will track changes in a browser-based text editor. The tool, called ICE (for Integrated Content Editor) was built so that it will work with a variety of text editors; the Times has already built plugins for WordPress and TinyMCE, a common text editor used in blogging platforms. … In effect, the Times has combined the ubiquity and ease-of-use of brower-based text editors with the accountability and scale of newspaper word processing systems. … A demo of the Times’ text editor shows how it works. Changes made by different users are marked with strikethroughs or highlights. A user can press a button to accept or reject a particular change or all of them. It looks a lot like revision tracking in Microsoft Word. For the rest of the article: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/160460/new-york-times-releases-code-to-help-journalists-collaborate-on-wordpress-other-platforms/
Meet Deep Dive, the New York Times’
Experimental Context Engine and Story Explorer Thinking about the sheer volume of information — stories, images, videos, data — available from The New York Times can evoke a simultaneous glee and terror. Skimming Times Wire gives you an idea of the hundreds of pieces of content they produce each day. For readers, it’s a tip-of-the-iceberg thing: Yes, on a day-to-day basis you have access to the news and a decades-spanning archive, but you’re not seeing anything close to all of it. … Deep Dive uses the Times’ massive cache of metadata from stories to go, as the name suggests, deeper into a news event by pulling together related articles. So instead of performing a search yourself within the Times and weeding out off-topic results, Deep Dive would provide readers a collection of stories relating to a topic, based on whatever person, place, event or topic of their choosing. …. It’s a novel project, still just in demonstration phase — one that aims to let the Times put its extensive archives to better use, but also to create a different experience for consuming news. For the rest of the article: http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/meet-deep-dive-the-new-york-times-experimental-context-engine-and-story-explorer/
Tonight: Local, county, school, and state governments do not always include all relevant information in news releases, on websites or in speeches, nor do they open all necessarily public policy gatherings. So, as a citizen and taxpayer, what can you do to find out what else is there? The New Jersey Taxpayers’ Association presents Walter M. Luers and John Paff to explain the Open Public Records Act, what it will and will not help you to access, and some best practices for getting that information and access that you want and OPRA ensures you. This seminar will be Tuesday, Jan. 31 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the Morris County Public Library, 30 East Hanover Avenue, Whippany, NJ 07981, across from the Frelinghuysen Arboretum. No reservation needed. On Feb. 7 at a free seminar in Monmouth County, Paff and Luers will discuss how to get public records in New Jersey: how to make requests for records, what types of records to request, and what to do if you’re denied access to records. They also will discuss how public agencies are supposed to conduct public meetings in New Jersey. This seminar, sponsored by NJFOG, will be held on Feb. 7, at 7 p.m. at the Howell Township Library, 318 Old Tavern Road, Howell, 732-938-2300.
Know Any Local Heroes of Open Government? ASNE and its Sunshine Week partners are seeking nominations for the annual “Local Hero” awards, which are presented to individuals who have played a significant role in fighting for transparency in local government. All nominations must be received no later than Feb. 20. For more information and the nomination for, go to the Sunshine Week website: http://sunshineweek.org/LocalHeroes.aspx
NNA’s Annual Conference: We Believe in
Newspapers The 2012 convention theme is “What It Takes.” Programming will focus on what it takes to lead the digital and mobile transformation of a modern newsroom, as well as the leadership skills necessary to run a news organization in the digital age.
America East 2012 In today’s environment, change is the only constant. America East is no different. It is evolving! Today, it’s much more than a production trade show. There is something for everyone involved with newspapers and their expanding multimedia projects. With a new floor plan and a packed schedule of sessions, America East is an interactive forum for both vendors and attendees to meet in one convenient and inexpensive location. Through innovative educational sessions, attendees will find answers and ideas for leaner and greener news companies, revenue-generating streams, social media strategies, new delivery models, sustainability programs and improved efficiencies. Register by Feb. 17 and save up to 20%.
ASNE 2012 Convention American Society of Newspaper Editors’ quadrennial election-year convention will be held concurrently with the Newspaper Association of America’s annual MediaXChange. The two groups will come together for some joint programs, including two lunches and receptions. Join fellow editors and leaders in the field of journalism education to refresh your spirits, create a roadmap to transform newsrooms, and shape the future of professional journalism. For more information: http://asne12.org/
NAA mediaXchange 2012 The largest annual gathering of industry executives in North America, NAA mediaXchange offers unprecedented networking opportunities that combine an exchange of information and ideas with programming designed to generate results. For more information: http://mediaxchange.naa.org/index.cfm
American Press Institute Merges with
Newspaper Association of America Foundation The American Press Institute (API) and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation (NAAF) announced today (Jan. 25) that they will merge to create a dynamic new organization focused on meeting newspapers’ crucial multimedia training and development needs. The merger agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both organizations. API and NAAF have complementary strengths and fulfill related missions in helping the newspaper industry navigate its ongoing digital transition. Because of this, the leadership of both organizations views the merger as an excellent opportunity to combine resources and better address digital revenue opportunities, while continuing to help newspapers draw upon the long-term strengths, such as quality journalism, that they demonstrate in the changing media landscape. … The new organization will have a board chaired by Mark Newhouse, executive vice president/newspapers of Advance Publications Inc. … For the rest of the article: http://www.naa.org/News-and-Media/Press-Center/Archives/2012/American-Press-Institute-Merges-With-Newspaper-Association-of-America-Foundation.aspx
Jason Klein Resigns as Newspaper National
Network President/CEO This morning (Jan. 27), Jason Klein announced his resignation as Newspaper National Network president/CEO. He ended a nearly nine-year reign to, he says, “move on to a new leadership role in the broader media/technology/ information world. I’ve been delighted to work with such an outstanding team at NNN, and I’m proud of our accomplishments championing newspaper media in such a changing landscape.” … NNN was formed in the early-1990s by the then-Cathie Black-led Newspaper Association of America to bring more national advertising into newspapers. For the rest of the article: http://www.minonline.com/news/Jason-Klein-Resigns-as-Newspaper-National-Network-PresidentCEO_19806.html
Gannett Bested Estimates for Q4 Gannett reported Q4 EPS of $0.72, better than analyst estimates of $0.68 per share. Revenues for the quarter were $1.39 billion in-line with consensus estimates. Gracia Martore, president and chief executive officer, said, “During a period of weak economic growth, Gannett once again differentiated itself within the media industry by delivering solid profitability across each of our market-leading business segments – publishing, broadcast and digital – as well as free cash flow of $775 million in 2011. Gannett’s strong balance sheet and cash generation give us the flexibility to execute our growth strategy and successfully compete in the digital era while paying down debt and returning capital to shareholders.” For the rest of the article: http://www.fnno.com/story/news-corner/331-gannett-bested-estimates-q4-gci-handwritten
The Frederick News-Post to Resume Monday
Publication “You asked, we listened.” … Nearly three years after suspending publication of the Monday edition, it’s back. Beginning Feb. 6 — the day after Super Bowl XLVI — The News-Post will return its Monday paper. … The emphasis for the Monday edition will be on general-interest business and sports news. “In designing the Monday paper, we really stepped back and tried to build a completely different newspaper,” Geordie Wilson, publisher of The News-Post, said. “It has a lot of new features and has a different focus. It will be a convenient, useful agenda-setter for the week.” … The Monday newspaper will have a different approach to generating advertising, Wilson said. The new design has fixed ad positions, which are being sold on separate contracts. No additional ads will be placed when the space is filled until demand supports an expansion of the number of pages in the paper. For the rest of the article: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/displayBreaking.htm?StoryID=130979
MinnPost Ends 2011 in the Black MinnPost, the nonprofit regional news site in Minnesota, ended 2011 in the black for a second year in a row, according to its annual report published today (Jan. 26). Its year-end surplus — a bit more than $21,000 — isn’t exactly retire-to-the-Caymans money. But in a sector where so many nonprofit news outlets are struggling to find sustainability, the four-year-old operation is demonstrating that it can support itself. MinnPost makes money from public radio-style memberships, advertising, grants, and events, including its annual MinnRoast. CEO Joel Kramer told me he is most pleased with the growth of individual and corporate support, which now represents a majority of the revenue pie, about $815,000. Grants made up about a fifth. Altogether, MinnPost raised $1.5 million. For the rest of the article: http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/minnpost-ends-2011-in-the-black-adds-a-million-minnesotans/
Can Good Journalist + Good Capitalist =
Possible? This month’s Carnival of Journalism, hosted by Michael Rosenbaum, asks the provocative question: “Can a good journalist also be a good capitalist?” I’ll probably open myself up to charges of being “ageist,” but here goes… Working at a university journalism program (University of Colorado Boulder), I’ve come to the conclusion that the next generation of journalists will be better capitalists than older journalists. Because what I’m seeing on this campus, and I’m sure it’s similar at other university journalism programs, is a growing number of students who are interested in business-model innovation for news. No, certainly not a majority, but enough to feel some optimism. That’s logical, since many journalism students (but not all, in my experience!) recognize that the old news institutions that try to cling to their old business models are crumbling, and they understand that to forge a career in journalism they will need to come up with new ways for news entities to be profitable, or at least sustainable — whether they go to work for an existing news organization or create a new digital news enterprise from scratch using today’s and tomorrow’s inexpensive or free digital publishing tools. … Can older journalists who’ve crossed from print and broadcast into digital become successful capitalists? Of course there are the exceptions, but I’m less optimistic about my age peers than about the students I encounter daily. … For the rest of the article: http://steveouting.com/2012/01/25/journalist-capitalist/ Epic Fail: Separate Digital Sales Teams Did this happen at your Newspaper, TV or Radio station? Consultants told you to hire a separate digital sales staff to win online. You were told that traditional staffs could never sell interactive marketing to local business. So, upon that consultant’s recommendation, you hastily hired a bunch of hip 20-somethings with i-Phones and limited sales chops to start knocking on doors. Outside of a few success stories, this strategy is a money loser and massive time suck. … We’ve seen it first hand. A newspaper hires a separate digital sales team and the print team immediately shuts down. The ‘burden’ of selling digital was taken off their shoulders. As time goes by, the print team falls even further behind with understanding digital. Why should they care? The digital reps do all of that really hard, icky stuff. We’ve know many so-called ‘old-school’ print & broadcast vets selling digital like a pro. How does this happen? It’s simple. These legacy sales teams have excellent client relationships and the maturity to sell just about anything. All you have to do is provide regular training, attractive financial motivation, a simple sales process and smart leadership from the top. So think twice before someone tells you that your print or broadcast staff can’t be trained for web. It’s a total fabrication and it’s incredibly disrespectful to the sales reps. For the rest of the article: http://meltaylormedia.com/2012/01/top-10-separate-digital-sales-fail/
National Survey Shows Classified Opportunity Pulse Research has released the results of the just concluded Quarter 4, 2011 Pulse of America readership and consumer shopping survey with almost 6,000 sample from all 50 states. Even though general classified revenue has not fallen as sharply as real estate, automotive and recruitment over the last ten years, competitors like Craigslist have taken a significant share of private party transient advertising. For the quarterly results ending December 31 2011, the Pulse of America survey offers some very positive news for daily and weekly community newspaper publishers. Classified ads deliver results: Of those who ran a newspaper classified ad, 76% stated they got results from their ad; 31% sold what they advertised and another 45% stated they got “many calls.” Classified readership: Newspaper classified ads have high readership. 62% always or frequently read classified ads in the local newspaper. Classified opportunity: 78% of newspaper readers and newspaper website visitors did not place a classified ad in their local newspaper in the last 12 months. Real estate classified opportunity: Over 8% of newspaper readers and newspaper website visitors plan to rent a house in the next 12 months with another 5.2% planning on renting a new apartment. The rental market is strong compared to the still soft real estate market for purchasing a residence. Craigslist is showing some softening: In the last 30 days, 78% of newspaper readers and newspaper website visitors did not respond to a Craigslist ad. In addition, 83% of newspaper readers and newspaper website visitors did not place an ad on Craigslist in the last 30 days. For a complete copy of the Pulse of America survey with over 120 readership and consumer shopping questions go to www.pulseresearch.com/results.
Publishers Should Embrace Small Ball It hasn’t exactly been easy street in the world of publishing this year. Digital spending is slow. Exchanges and agency trading desks are putting pressure on prices. And every new device/channel/platform wreaks a new round of havoc on the industry. Even if the digital-ad pie does grow to $51 billion this year, it’s likely to keep shrinking for every publisher whose name isn’t Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or AOL. The “Big Five” pulled in a stunning 83 percent of U.S. online ad revenue last year, and their reach just keeps growing. What’s a conscientious publisher to do? You need to compete with the top players and maximize revenue. You’ve put in all manner of roadblock and banner. Go too much farther and you risk driving traffic away from a too-cluttered site, and it seems there’s nothing left to monetize anyway. Publishers can’t increase revenue by simply replacing content with advertising. They can, however, add advertising to currently ad-free content, without diminishing either the quality of that content or the experience offered to users. That’s where new and untapped inventory enters the picture: images. New products are making it possible to apply the same types of keyword targeting to images that we bring to matching ads with page content. The targeting technology is tried and true. The user experience is seamless. The results for advertisers are excellent. … So the opportunity for publishers is obviously significant, but benefits accrue for advertisers too. In-image ads are cost-efficient – CPMs usually hover around a dollar – and integrate easily with existing campaigns. … Saving the most important for last, what about site visitors? For them, the experience delivered by in-image advertising is unobtrusive – small ads are simply layered onto images in slideshows or alongside articles – and doesn’t add to already ample clutter on the page. … Publishers, we know you face a plethora of challenges. Maybe it’s time to take another look at all of the terrific content you already have just sitting on your site waiting to be monetized. For the rest of the article: http://www.digiday.com/publishing/the-incrementalist-approach-to-publishing-success/
What Newspapers Have to Learn from Magazines The future of the newspaper is in magazines, believes Jacek Utko, design director for Bonnier Business Press, which publishes newspapers in eight Central European countries. This is a trend that news organisations should embrace rather than fight, he added, speaking at the 5th Arab Free Press Forum in Tunis. … Newspapers have a lot to learn from magazines, Utko said, starting with how to structure the information they provide. Magazines are small, with abundant spreads: when they deal with a long text, they make it as easy as possible to understand the content. He called for news organisations to take a more creative approach to presenting news, rather than to be reactive, like “barking dogs.” “Small visual forms rule” in our SMS and Twitter world, he believes, and this should be reflected in print. Breaking up the story into a selection of shorter sections, with bullet points, lists, boxes and graphics is much easier for readers to understand, he said. Studies have shown that this approach leads to better retention of information, while as long tests with no entry points are seldom read to the end. Newspapers should also pay attention to their front pages, he argued: news websites always look the same but in print you can break the front page template every day, creating magazine- and poster-style pages. Redesigns work, Utko said, citing multiple papers that have seen circulation increases. However, it is essential to have a good reason for the move based on analysis of the market – strategy must come first, then content, then design. For the rest of the article: http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2012/01/what_newspapers_have_to_learn_from_magaz.php
How ABC News Built a Top Social Media
Presence with a Small Dedicated Team … All of the major networks are using social media in new and interesting ways. But social media data show that ABC News is doing a particularly good job building a following. In the last six months, Facebook referrals to ABCNews.com were up 111 percent, while referrals from Twitter were up 163 percent. Approaching social media as a shared responsibility Since last summer, ABC News’ social media team has held 12 two-hour training sessions. While the sessions aren’t mandatory, they’ve attracted hundreds of ABC News employees, including desk assistants, anchors and network executives. During the training sessions, staffers learn how to use social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and have discussions about why these sites are important and how they can best use them. The training is reflective of ABC’s new slogan, “see the whole picture,’’ which is aimed at broadening the definition of what ABC News’ journalists do. [Joe Ruffolo, senior vice president of ABC News Digital] said training has helped show that social media is a shared responsibility and that an entire network can’t thrive on a social media team alone. … ABC News’ centralized social media team, which consists of three people, is responsible for developing new strategies, general account maintenance and keeping track of new opportunities and platforms. They also help test the effectiveness of social media features on ABCNews.com, and have learned that breaking news stories tend to work best on Twitter, while evergreen stories work best on Facebook. In addition to the network’s centralized team, each show has a social media producer who oversees their show’s account and implements new strategies. … Driving up numbers, creating more engagement In April 2010, ABC News’ Facebook page had 32,000 fans. Now, it has about 383,000 fans. Similarly, the “Good Morning America” Facebook page has gone from 22,000 to 520,000 fans in the same time period. For the rest of the article: http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/158998/how-abc-news-built-a-top-social-media-presence-with-a-small-dedicated-team/
NBC News Creates e-Publishing Business NBC News announced today (Jan.23) the formation of NBC Publishing, based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. The company said “this new business unit will extend the NBC News brand into the evolving world of digital publishing by leveraging the resources of NBC News including, Today, NBC Nightly News, Dateline, Peacock Productions and NBC’s vast archives.” … NBC Publishing will create original eBooks and e-single formats based on current events, documentaries, trends, biographies and profiles. Building on NBC News’ previous collaborations, the NBC Publishing group will continue to work in partnership with traditional trade publishers. The business will also publish independent authors looking, it said, “to create content that taps into NBC’s resources, to enhance their work and broaden their reach.” … For the rest of the article: http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/2012/01/23/56931/nbc-news-creates-epublishing-business
The Newsonomics of Global Media Imperative … Let’s take a NASA view of the media landscape, enjoying the clear, whole-earth picture of our struggling news planet. The wide view would tell us that, although the U.S. often believes itself to be the straw that stirs the global drink, we make up but 5 percent of the world’s population. Our special friends in the U.K. make up only another 1 percent. While much of the world’s digital inventiveness and entrepreneurial investment is born in the U.S.A., the marketplace for digital news, media, and information products has been going increasingly global. The global digital media revolution is transforming how, in economic terms, we now think of the business. Global growth is no longer an add-on to the usual in-country business model; it’s becoming a major driver of business — and product — planning. As we look at the newsonomics of the global media imperative, let’s pick out just a few of the many diverse datapoints on which we have to draw: • The Financial Times, probably the single best model of print-to-digital transformation success.… The company, founded in 1888, now finds 31 percent of its readers in the Americas and only 23 percent in the U.K. — with another 13 percent now in Asia. … • … The Wall Street Journal[’s] … digital audience is now 30 percent international, and just last week in launched still another international local (in native language) edition, for Germany. The Journal’s crosstown rival, The New York Times, is moving globally as well. Already 12 percent of its paying digital subscribers are international.… • Less than a year after launching its first non-U.S. site in Canada, Huffington Post last week added an Italian site, alongside its French one. … • The (second) British invasion of the U.S. continues apace … the Guardian …, the Independent …, the BBC … and the Daily Mail. … Yes, there’s lots of current political hullaballoo about “bringing jobs home to the U.S.,” but the truth is that much of the digital industry, as with their brethren in the Fortune 500, is now truly global. … It’s a stark fact for what once were nationally defined media businesses: If you don’t go global, you’re at an increasing disadvantage to your competitors — and who isn’t a competitor for audience or advertising? If you stay nationally focused, you’re trying to wring as much revenue out of a much smaller market, while competitors are building their top line and their capability to innovate with global revenues. So increasingly, I think we’ll see media companies that are either global or regional/local, with national ones more the exception than the rule. … There are lots of ways to play the global game. Many newspaper companies are putting out editions of their core product, aimed at in-country issues. Some are putting a new face on the same content. Then there are those truly becoming multi-national news and information companies. You’d have to put Oslo-based Schibsted in that group. Now eighth overall by revenue in the global news industry, the company operates online classifieds businesses in 28 nations; in 20, that’s its main business. Those nations can be found on three continents and now include such populous growing markets as India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as much of Latin America. That’s a truly global play that is supplying Schibsted with 49 percent of its profits, on just 25 percent of total revenues. … A lot of what we are seeing in the marketplace today is prologue. If you look at how small the non-home-market revenues are for many companies — in the low single digits — we see not global businesses, but national businesses with stronger global intentions. For the rest of the article: http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/the-newsonomics-of-global-media-imperative/
How a Tightly Paywalled,
Social-Media-Ignoring, Anti-Copy-Paste, Gossipy News Site Became a Dominant
Force in Nova Scotia Every morning, the business and political elite in the biggest province on Canada’s East Coast turns to an unlikely source of information about their own world. Among all the online news organizations trying to find a way to profitability, consider AllNovaScotia.com, which has just celebrated 10 years online and now challenges its historic print rival for the attention of the province’s leaders. It’s done that by not following the rules: It has a nearly impenetrable paywall, no social media presence, no multimedia, and only rare use of links. It doesn’t cover crime and barely covers sports and entertainment. However, it delivers up-to-the minute coverage of business, city hall, and the provincial legislature via the web and apps for iOS and BlackBerry. It scoops its news rivals almost daily and has won loyal readers through dogged combing of public records and often by prying into the personal lives of the province’s movers and shakers. … AllNovaScotia has 5,950 subscribers, whose monthly dues generate 80 per cent of its revenue. The site doesn’t come close to having the broad appeal of its 137-year-old print competitor, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, which has a Monday-to-Friday circulation of 108,389. Three people with different email addresses can share a $30 a month subscription, but they can’t pass the stories on to anyone else without some effort. … No sharing buttons here. … The news site appeals directly to the province’s tight-knit and family-oriented business community, according to Kevin Cox, AllNovaScotia’s former managing editor, who retired in June. “The strange thing was they liked to read about other people within their circle. Not in a satirical way…but in a serious way,” says Cox, a former Globe and Mail reporter who still writes commentaries for the site.… This focus on people and their wealth makes AllNovaScotia a different beast from typical business coverage that focuses on companies. People’s names are bolded in stories, frequently paired with their corporate compensation and the assessed value of their house. An almost-daily feature is Who’s Suing Whom. “We wrote about property. We wrote about local stocks. We wrote about the old families,” says Cox, of his time managing the site beginning in 2004. “We wrote about the big business deals and the little business deals. We wrote about the breweries and the coffee shops. Some of it was micro-news that no one else was paying any attention to.” For the rest of the article: http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/how-a-tightly-paywalled-social-media-ignoring-anti-copy-paste-gossipy-news-site-became-a-dominant-force-in-nova-scotia/
Study: Only 1% of Facebook ‘Fans’ Engage
with Brands For a few years now, brands have been touting frothy Facebook “like” numbers as evidence of their social-media acumen. But how many of those fans are actually bothering to take part in conversation with brands? Not too many, as it turns out. Slightly more than 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook are actually engaging with the brands, according to a study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, an Australia-based marketing think tank that counts Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and other major advertisers as its supporters. … You might assume these are damning numbers. But this isn’t necessarily the case. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” said Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute who describes herself as a “Facebook advocate.” “People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can’t do. Facebook doesn’t really differ from mass media. It’s great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic.” For the rest of the article: http://adage.com/article/digital/study-1-facebook-fans-engage-brands/232351/?utm_source=mediaworks&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage
New Facebook Data: Be Topical, Ask
Questions, and Tell Jokes to Win Audience Write about current affairs. Add in a little commentary (or a question). And, for the love of all that is holy, include a link. Those are three of the takeaways from some new data that Facebook just released on the use of its Subscribe feature — the social network’s way to let journalists and readers connect without broaching the knotty issue of “friending.” … • About a quarter of posts by journalists pose
a question to readers, a tactic earlier Facebook research substantially
increased engagement. The post also outlines some fuzzier numbers on how content types and styles can increase engagement: “Commentary and analysis on current events and breaking news receives 3x as many likes and 2x as many shares as the average post. Also, highlighting controversial stories on debatable subject matter can double the number of likes and shares the post receives. “Reader shout-outs can increase in feedback by as much as 4x. Also, asking for recommendations can lead to a 3x increase in comments. “In-depth analyses on global issues can yield a 1.5x increase in likes and 2.5x increase in shares. “Powerful photos can yield an increase of a 2x in engagement (likes, comments and shares). Also, behind-the-scenes photos resulted in up to a 4x increase in engagement (likes, comments, shares).” What else works? Being funny: “Humor in posts or a humorous picture can yield a 1.5x increase in likes and almost 5x increase in shares. Humor often shows the lighter and more personal side of the journalist, which is likely why it results in higher engagement.” For the rest of the article: http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/new-facebook-data-be-topical-ask-questions-and-tell-jokes-to-win-audience/ For a related article:
Study: Consumers View Social Marketing as
Invasive Marketers often tout social media as a channel that allows them to reach consumers with messages seamlessly tailored to their interests and social interactions. But nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they “hate” when a company targets them through their social networking profile, and 58% agree that social media marketing is invasive, according to a new study. At the same time, findings from Insight Strategy Group showed a majority of those surveyed (55%) believe social networking sites are the best way to give a company feedback and that posting about a product or service on a social site can have a strong impact on a brand. In short, people like being able to provide feedback to marketers via social media – but they don’t necessarily want to be followed by them. For the article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166313/study-consumers-view-social-marketing-as-invasive.html?edition=42560
The Biggest Misconception about Social Media
Branding Getting consumers to “visit our page.” That’s what American Express social chief Shari Forman said was the real biggie she constantly has to overcome inside her organization, and outside too. “Well, they’re not actually coming to visit your page,” she explains. “I don’t know if you know that, it all happens within the newsfeed.” “I’m not even going to visit my friend’s pages,” she adds, noting that “everything” anyone sees on Facebook is happening in the newsfeed on their own Facebook page. To read the article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166288/the-biggest-misconception-about-social-media-brand.html
Performance-Based Pay for Content Has Gone
Mainstream – Which Is Probably Good for Authors This week Forbes magazine again touted its success with the business model it calls Entrepreneurial Journalism, without so much as a titter (or a twitter) from the media. Forbes’ journalism model, pioneered (then dropped, then readopted) by Nick Denton at Gawker Media, was very recently considered a controversial and even a heretical approach for journalists. The value proposition, however, is deceptively simple and makes sense: Pay writers bonuses based on the audiences they can attract. The model makes sense to any MBA, because it directly aligns the value created by the author to the value realized by the advertiser. As long as your marginal revenue exceeds your marginal costs for every article, well, you can just feed the beast – and focus on scale. Writers, however, generally consider it anathema, due to three basic objections: 1. Risk. The biggest problem is that performance-based pay shifts nearly all of the risks on to the writer – many of which have been out of their control. … 2. Quality. The second issue, which flows from the first, is quality. When most of the value earned by the writer is based on performance, the writer is essentially making a bet with his content. The content may earn him a windfall, but it may just amount to pennies. The writer thus has an incentive to place as many cheap bets as possible. … 3. Stigma. That stigma added to the final hurdle about pay-for-performance: Many writers simply find it distasteful to have to promote themselves or, shudder, write for search engines. … These authors may need to change their minds and start building up their Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and especially G+ circles, because authors are rapidly becoming the primary driver of content distribution. Authors. Not keywords. Not quality. Not search relevance. Not domain rank, and not the publisher’s brand. … Smart publishers like Forbes are hoping their reputation and brand will continue to attract authors with audiences … But publishers may not want to breathe too easily. These authors with audiences are going to be much harder to retain. For the rest of the article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166691/performance-based-pay-for-content-has-gone-mainstr.html
Explore Alternatives to Traditional ABC
Print Reports ABC Interactive offers a suite of products for publishers to show how they reach audiences and present their brands beyond traditional print products. ABCi’s digital audits and reporting options supply publishers with verified information to show advertisers regardless of the platform. The chart below lays out the products and metrics that can be included on ABCi’s multimedia reports.
Research Brief: According to a new Pew Research Center survey, 66% of the adult public believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor, an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009. Not only have perceptions of class conflict grown more prevalent, but these disputes are intense. According to the study, 30% of Americans say there are “very strong conflicts” between poor people and rich people, double the proportion that offered a similar view in July 2009 and the largest share expressing this opinion since the question was first asked in 1987. As a result, conflicts between rich and poor now rank ahead of three other potential sources of group tension: • Between immigrants and the native born While the survey results show a significant shift in public perceptions of class conflict in American life, says the report, they do not necessarily signal an increase in grievances toward the wealthy. Nor do these data suggest growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality. … Attitudes of Republicans and Democrats on this issue are mirror opposites of each other. Nearly six-in-ten Democrats say wealth is mainly due to family money or knowing the right people. An identical proportion of Republicans say wealth is mainly a consequence of hard work, ambition or having the necessary education to get ahead. Political independents fall in between. … In conclusion, the report notes that a recent Gallup survey found that a smaller share of the public believes that income inequality is a problem “that needs to be fixed” today than held that view in 1998 (45% vs. 52%). And when asked to rate the importance of various alternative federal policies, fewer than half (46%) say “reducing the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor” is “extremely” or “very” important. In contrast, 82% say policies that encourage economic growth should be high priorities. For the rest of the article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166509/depends-on-your-point-of-view.html
Millennials May Yet Save Our Economic Bacon Perhaps the most important driver of new consumer spending, and thus economic growth, will occur as young millennials decide to settle down, buy a house and start producing children. But as we have been told over and over again, millennials have been very slow out of the gate. Evidence suggests that too many of them are up to their eyeballs in student debt and a great many more are being grossly underpaid compared to their predecessors, if they have a job at all. And over 10 million of them are still living with their parents, which does not exactly encourage procreation. If our nation’s exceedingly slow economic growth is ever going to pick up, we need these millennials to start acting more like baby boomers. After all, they outnumber them – the 2010 Census found 85 million millennials and only 79 million baby boomers. And in any case, the nation certainly can’t depend on boomers to spend like they used to. As they edge ever closer to the magic age of 65, boomers are telling pollsters they’re scared witless they will run out of their skimpy savings long before their time on this earth is up. At the same time, many are also draining income and savings as they help support their slow-starting millennial kids. So, what are the prospects for millennials pulling our economy out of the doldrums? Well in 2015, just three years from now, millennials will all be adults and will be approximately 20 to 39 years old – prime child-bearing and home-buying years. The latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics tells us that in 2010 women in the age range 20 to 39 produced 88% of the four million children born in the US that year. Since the recession started, the total number of births has declined 7.3% from 4.3 million in 2007 to 4.0 million in 2010. If total births return to pre-recession levels over the next three years, it will only be because millions of millennials will feel financially secure enough to start a family. In the first year of a child’s life, busy parents and free-spending grandparents will probably spend an average of $15,000 to $20,000 on a vast array of stuff, particularly if the baby is either a first child or the first baby girl. Every 100,000 babies above the 2010 base of 4 million will add $1.5 to $2 billion in annual consumer spending. New mothers are the real job creators in this country. … The combination of millennials leaving their parent’s home, then producing what their parents want most – grandchildren – and simultaneously buying a home might just be the high-voltage heart paddle that brings the nation’s housing market back to life and the rest of the economy with it. For the rest of the article: http://adage.com/article/adagestat/millennials-save-economic-bacon/232365/?utm_source=mediaworks&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage For a related article: ___________
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