Znetlady: Modern Media

Think of Modern Media as a Product

One of my mantra’s to clients is to “look sideways” to find opportunity.

There is so much modern media that hasn’t made it to the drawing board (or has yet to be discovered) for most organizations.  Based on our modern media presentations and client discussions, many organizations are still in the stage of learning about blogs, podcasts mobile media, social networks and the rest (trust me on this).  You, like so many we talk to, might be seriously considering how to use these tools for your PR or marketing; or you might be one of those organizations that for a whole host of business reasons and hurdles can’t move forward any time soon with the “conversation model.”

Serving your audiences with modern media doesn’t have to be about putting yourself “out there.” Just look sideways and you can find audiences and serve them with modern media - or even create new services within your existing PR or marketing initiatives.  Yes, you can be modern without blogging or putting videos up on YouTube.

A few examples of using an iPod for something besides creating a corporate podcast might better illustrate what I mean by “looking sideways.”

• The recently opened 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky asks guest about their music preferences during the reservation process and a custom music selection is downloaded into each guests’ in-room iPod before they arrive.

• The Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, in partnership with Samsung Electronics and Talpa, recently installed kiosks called “Fuel for Travel” that lets travelers load up their MP3 devices with music, t.v. shows, movies, guides and audio books before boarding their flight.

• Nordiska Kompaniet in cooperation with Ridderheims (fine meat and delicatessen products distributor) has put the iFood terminal in Nordiska Kompaniet’s upscale food hall in Stockholm.  The terminals let visitors purchase and download audio recipes to their iPods.  They purchase the recipes – and of course all the ingredients – while in that all-important “frame of mind” moment.

All three of these put a modern medium to use to extend the brand, engage the modern customer, and  provide a valuable service/solution.  And, it can even be a new revenue stream. 

Try looking at new media as a product.  It might help your organization side-step the hurdles or fears of going ”conversational.” And, it just might wind up changing other perspectives too.

A Few Modern Media Statistics

Shifts to new media are happening before our eyes, yet [still, somehow] under our radar. Everybody loves numbers.  They give us permission to believe what we see. 

So here’s a sampling of statistics about new media I’ve run across in the last several weeks.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact links, but I have indicated where the statistics came from.

• 66% of American 18-34 year-olds can’t name the major TV networks. (Advertising Age)


• 89% of major brands plan to market via mobile phones by 2008. (Mobile Marketing Association)


• 77% of corporate executives think they should have a blogging policy. (Makovsky 2006 State of Corporate Blogging Survey)


• Baby Boomers read newspapers 1/3 less than their parents; Gen-xers read them 1/3 less than Boomers. (Pew Research Center)


• 45 million worldwide listened to podcasts in Q1 of 2006 at Liberated Syndication. (Liberated Syndication)


• Feedburner alone manages more podcasts than there are radio stations worldwide. (Feedburner)


• YouTube serves up 50 million video views per day and receives 50,000 uploads per day. (YouTube)


• In March of 2006 consumers viewed 3.7 billion video streams, slightly less than 100 minutes of video content per viewer per month.  The figure is up from 85 minutes in October of 2005. (Center for Media Research)


• Since February of 2006, teen e-mail is down 8%.  During same period MySpace grew from 3 million to 7.8 million (comScore Media Metrix)

What is a Blog? How Can I Use a Blog?

I am cross-posting this from my Modern Mediasphere blog

Blogs are the every-person’s publishing tool.  The simplest definition of a blog - or weblog - is a personal, topical web site that is frequently updated.  Corporate executives, journalists, marketers, freelancers, advertisers, politicians, and citizens of the world have taken to publishing blogs, moving them from personal journals to a modern influential media form.

Estimates of the current number of blogs might surprise you if you aren’t tuned into the blog-o-sphere. One hundred million worldwide and growing at a rate of about one new blog per second.  Creating a blog is fast, and is as easy as filling out a web form.  But what makes them so alluring – and powerful - is blogs’ social nature, their populist culture, and their immediacy.

In short, blogs are a channel that is totally remodeling the flow of information.

Blogs have a set of features that distinguish them from a traditional web page – but keep in mind these features are not about the technology.  These characteristics turn a simple web page into a social network, a lone voice into an influential one and a local conversation into a global one.

The four features, in particular, that distinguish blogs are:

Posts: A single blog entry is called a post.  Posts are often short, are conversational and time-stamped, displayed with the newest post on top. The time-stamps create a sense of proximity to the writer for the reader.

Syndication:   This is the “motion potion” of blogs.  Blogs are automatically syndicated through a feature called RSS - “Really Simple Syndication.” RSS is a tiny bit of code embedded in the blog that allows readers to subscribe to an automatic “feed” of all blog entries.  As soon as an author posts a blog entry, the post can be "pulled" by the subscriber.  Subscribers receive these posts through software integrated into their web browser or through a separate application called a “news reader.”  RSS also makes it possible for blog content to be distributed automatically onto other web sites or blogs.

Comments:  Each post invites readers to comment via a small web form immediately under the post.  Comments are published with the related blog post. Blog readers can read both the author’s posts and the comments of other readers.  The author is notified when a comment is posted to their blog.  Blog authors may comment back, or enter new posts.  Comments keep the conversation moving forward on that individual blog.

Trackbacks:  The conversation continues among blogs too.  Trackbacks interconnect blogs.  A trackback is a method for one blogger to publish a special type of post directly onto someone else’s blog. It works by entering a post on your own blog, then entering the URL of your post into the trackback feature of another blog.  Your trackback post, and the link to it, is published on that other blog.  Authors are notified when a trackback link is entered into their blog.   Trackbacks intertwine multiple blogs and conversations.

There are a few other common features that categorize and organize blog posts and link blogs or web pages together, but these are the four that have turned the flow of information from broadcast media to conversation commons.

What Does it Mean?

Blogs are at least as significant a development as the printing press was – and more so because of their interconnectedness and social network nature.  It means we – all of us – now hold the keys to the information kingdom.  We no longer rely on mass media for our news, information, or gossip.  It means anyone can publish a globally accessible channel in seconds. 

Blogs are disturbing every form of business communication. Blogs have already had a profound effect on mass media and consumer behaviors.  Traditional TV and print media outlets as well as individual journalists are creating blogs.  Consumers are blogging about everything from politics to mothering; using blogs as a complement to mass media and as a trusted source to check on mass media.  Even executives of Fortune 500 companies have started blogging to ensure their company’s story is told in the worldwide conversation and to personally engage constituents.

Blogs are a communications fact of life.  If you join in, the conversation is happening with you.  If you aren’t involved, it is happening without you and about you.   And, being in the dark is not a good competitive strategy.

What is it Good For?

Understanding the power of blogs requires that you blog.  It isn’t something to simply study.  Try Blogger, Typepad, Bloglines, Blogstream or one of the many other services, and have your blog up and running in less than 5 minutes for free or nearly free.      

In the meantime, here are just a few blogs selected from the 100 million or so.

• The writers of the hit TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, are blogging; talking directly to their fans and offering it as a gathering point for its fans.  It is a fascinating case study.

• General Motors’ Vice Chairman is blogging to engage customers, but also as a way not to leave the last word to mainstream media reports, according its author, Bob Lutz.

• PR agencies like Edelman, Ogilvy and Hill and Knowlton are blogging – mostly about the changing communications landscape.

• 101 Cookbooks, by Heidi Swanson, is a chronicle of a cookbook collection. She is a photographer and cookbook author whose website is a blog – a well-read one, with nearly 700 other sites linking to hers.  She has sponsors, markets her classes and her own recipes, and offers an opt-in newsletter.

• McDonalds' Open for Discussion blog focuses on the company's social responsibility initiatives.

• Charlene Li, a Forrester Research analyst, blogs about how technology is affecting content delivery, media and advertising.

• Major broadcast and print media, like CBS, NBC, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal to name a few are using blogs as a way to provide additional content. 

• Overheard in New York.  Two New Yorkers have gathered bits of overhead conversations and published them on a blog.  They now have thousands of submissions – and have just published a print book of selected conversations.

Find more at Google Blog Search or Technorati Blog Finder.

So, what are blogs good for?  Almost any type of communication.  The trick here is that this is two-way communication, not a controlled website.  Blogs are both the talking part and the listening part.  Blogs are good for taking part in the marketplace conversation, the political conversation or your industry conversation. 

Here are a few ideas to get you going:

• Publish your newsletter online as a blog.  The syndication feature will build readership, and provide your readers a way to join in.

• Establish your expertise by publishing a blog on a topic you are passionate about.

• Publish industry thought leadership articles to a blog.  Search engines like blogs and this is a way to increase search engine visibility and distribution.  You don’t have to wait for or pitch them to the industry rags.

• Use blogs internally to keep everyone apprised of ongoing projects.

• Create an “ideas” blog on which team members can create an archive of best practices or good ideas.

• Create a citizens blog around a community issue.

• Create a non-public blog to communicate with a client or contractor on the progress of a project – it is easier to organize than email and creates a chronological, time-stamped archive.

• Create a “blog event” by inviting guest experts to post on a specific topic during a particular week or month.

• Create a photo blog on which you publish pictures of a special event, for ongoing team building, an archival history of a project, or a  “behind-the-scenes” peek.

• Use a blog as a pointer to topical resources for your clients or internal teams.

• Market yourself!

From here, it is up to you.  The conversation about how to communicate with audiences has changed.  Audiences find you.  Be where they are - the blogosphere is one of those "places."

Forrester Research: Social Computing Report

Grab the opportunities.

Forrester Research says we are in an “era of social computing” in a report released last month titled, Social Computing: How Networks Erode Institutional Power and What To Do About It, by  Chris Charron, Jaap Favier and Charlene Li.  The thesis of the report is that today institutions - corporations, media, governing bodies, etc. – have less influence over us and individuals have more. 

A quote from the report via Steve Rubel:

“Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies. To thrive in an era of Social Computing, companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become part of a living fabric of brand loyalists.”

Yes. And no.

The “yes” part is what companies have to do to thrive in today’s business environment:  weave in communities, socialize their marketing, and equalize communications rather than sermonize.

The “no” part is individuals have always had more influence on us than institutions, it just wasn’t as visible to us as business people, and the individual’s reach wasn’t wide. 

The significance for business today is that we can hear the influence, see it, follow it, measure it.  And, individuals have access to lots and lots more individuals they can influence due to their ability to communicate and publish via networks.

The significance of social computing is business opportunities, innovation opportunities, marketing opportunities.

Without networks business was largely working in a vacuum, making products and spending enormous amounts of money creating markets for them.  Now, we make products and services that answer market needs and cost less because we have access to markets and to their behaviors.

Access your markets by letting them access you.  “Social computing” are the tools.  Grab the opportunities.

I encourage reading the report, or at least the executive summary if you don’t want to spend the $299 for the full report. In it Forrester pulls together trends in behaviors that have been evolving over the last 15 years and that are now reaching critical mass.

New Media Training Launched

It has been a little quiet here on my blog in recent weeks.  I have missed posting, but we’ve been working diligently on creating a training program for marketing and communications pros on using new media tools.  We are calling it the Modern Mediasphere™ Training Series

These are actual hands-on classes in how to use tools like blogs, tags, social networking, RSS and more.  I found after asking “what is it?” most professionals can see the opportunities. They just don’t have the time to dig around and discover how to use the tools.  So, we are offering classes to bring people up to speed quickly by guiding them through the tools and giving them tips on getting the most from them.

We are offering the training in 11 cities in the U.S.  If you want more information start here.  Yes, we are still offering our seminars, as well.

Now that we’ve launched our training program, I will be back to more regular postings.  Thanks for staying tuned!