what traditional media can learn from social media

by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt

and this is also not a presentation on how social media is going to save the day...

1. relevance

2. interestingness

3. engagement

stuff that DOES save the day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92wardsenatorfe/3126055165/

be relevant

relevance is how well media organizations deliver what matters to their readership.

“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Mark Twain

Did you know 4.0?(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

0

22.5

45.0

67.5

90.0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

How People Get Their News

Television Newspaper Internet

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1066/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source

40% get their news

online

35 6

1 0

4

1613

18

29

23

2832

34

59

62

68

59

Respondents Aged 18-29 - 2006-2007-2008

Television Internet Newspapers Radio Magazines Other

59% gettheir news

online!

Up until journalism became a profession rather than a trade...(p)ublishers paid attention to readers needs and wants, and hired and trained editors and reporters accordingly...

Howard Owens, "Maybe it's Journalism Itself That is the Problem"http://www.howardowens.com/2008/maybe-its-journalism-itself-that-is-the-problem/

Get Facts Straight Admit Mistakes Professional

1498

27

70

6359

21

29

The Public’s Opinion of the Media

Yes No Don’t Know

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1341/press-accuracy-rating-hits-two-decade-low

The goal is to find some meaningful measure of reader satisfaction and fashion a new journalism that meets reader needs...

Make your focus your audience. Try to figure out what readers want, not just what you think they want.

Howard Owens, "Reporters and editors should develop a reader satisfaction index"http://www.howardowens.com/2008/reporters-and-editors-should-develop-a-reader-satisfaction-index/

and are you giving them what they want?

Health Care Economic Crisis North Korea US Auto Industry Sonia Sotomayor

55

11

1516

Media Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

College Lawsuit Freed Journalists Radiohead Song Newspaper Troubles Obama Admin.

78

11

19

24

Blogger Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

7%

7%

9%

19%

23%

35%

Twitter OutageIranITV Sells SiteJohn Hughes DiesNews Corp Charges 4 ContentOther

and on Twitter?

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

the good news.

3%

28%

10%

7%

52%

News SitesTwitterEmail NewslettersAggregatorsBlogs (by reporters/analysts)

where people findtheir news online.

http://www.fortexgroup.com/best-practice-surveys/40-study-on-how-people-get-their-news-online

top news sites - august 9, 2009

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites

Site Monthly Visitors Inbound Links

CNN.com 25,900,000 27,246,000

news.yahoo.com 18,800,000 15,857,000

digg.com 12,300,000 544,422,000

nytimes.com 12,200,000 33,792,000

USAtoday.com 9,800,000 13,197,000

BBC.co.uk 2,400,000 27,243,000

reuters.com 12,400,000 19,180,000

washingtonpost.com 6,900,000 16,717,000

news.google.com 5,700,000 19,066,000

huffingtonpost.com 11,100,000 8,013,000

so...how do you become more relevant?

1. have your ear to the ground

For any beat...there is a listing of topical tweeters:

sciencepond.com

facecaker.com

followformation.com

wefollow.com

geofollow.com legalbirds.com

2. be part of the community you cover

being part of the community

a) talk to your readers

b) get out to events

c) find out what your current readers respond to and do more of that (not the same subject, but the same kind of story)

3. learn from feedback (the data is there!)

cnn.comnytimes.com

news.yahoo.com

“the most– e-mailed and most-blogged stories in the paper, as well as the most-used search terms...(is) a rough gauge of reader behavior, to be sure, but as it turns out, a fairly consistent one.”

Michael Hirschorn, "The Pleasure Principle" The Atlantic Monthly Dec 07http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/newspaper

bloggers won their audiences by figuring out what is relevant to their readers and then producing more of it...there are no barriers - customer call in centers or walls - between a blogger and his/her audience so the learning is faster and more agile.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelldavies/375432858/

be

“Stop being important and start being interesting.”

Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic Monthly

it’s not about you, the awards, how awesome you are, your page views, etc...it’s about...

being interesting doesn’t mean chasing ambulances and sensational headlines...it means that you bring value to your reader’s lives...

Jacek Utkohttp://www.utko.com/

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html

“I came to London, and I've seen performance by Cirque du Soleil. And I had a revelation. I thought, "These guys took some creepy, run down entertainment, and put it to the highest possible level of performance art." I thought "Oh my God, maybe I can do the same with these boring newspapers." And I did.”

DELIGHT

Utko’s Redesign Process

1. Strategy: what is our goal?

2. Content: which content serves the readers better?

3. Design: does the design flow with the content & strategy? what’s the reader experience?

4. Testing: how do readers use this? react? is it meeting the reader’s needs?

5. Workflow: how can the organization, itself, change to produce better products?

6. Branding: how can we tie this together across platforms?

7. Execution: how can we ensure continuous quality?

http://www.utko.com/index.php?id=22

SIMPLIFY

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

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Nate Silver - fivethirtyeight

“The uncanny, poll-wrangling, stats-freaking Nate Silver took it upon himself to demonstrate that some level of governable, rational reality could be brought to bear on the confusing world of competing tracking polls, and along the way all but cemented the geek-chic trajectory of this election season.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/24/2008-the-year-in-media-hi_n_153362.html

if you can succeed in making your readers feel smarter, more in control, sexier, excited and more interesting themselves, you will win.

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be ing

engagement is about creating a deeper level of interaction between yourself and your readers as well as between your readers and other readers.

1. sharing

2. discussing

3. portability

4. connecting/getting social

5. mixing the media

at the end of the day, it is the blending of social media and traditional media that will produce the future of media...this is not an ‘or’ situation, it’s an ‘and’ situation...

the big question is...even with all of this...

WILLTRADITIONALMEDIASURVIVE?

is it too late?

people don’t like paying for digital stuff

“Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying "this will sell a lot of papers!" Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model.”

Paul Graham on Post-Medium Publishinghttp://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html

advertising models are mostly flawed

Sales teams are expensive, there is the issueof the balance of being objective whilemaking advertisers happy (multiple conflictswith this)...

non-profit models? hyperlocal? niche markets?

maybe? feels like these models would work forsome, but not for all. great examples emergingthat can test this out.

http://www.bayareanewsproject.org/

“Our community has 25,000 members. 1% produces content and a 1,000 are very active. Among the active, you have what we call "guests". They are bloggers and columnists that are paid on a revenue sharing basis. Amateurs send 400 to 500 contributions and write 6,000 comments a day.”Benoît Raphaël, Editor & Chief, Le Postinterview at: http://mediacafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/le-post-successful-and-innovative-news.html

http://current.com/

http://current.com/

the answer doesn’t lie in social media itself, but rather what we our customers and their needs as the adoption of social networks increases...

thanks! these people gave me LOADS of ideas...

• Rachel Weidinger - @rachelannyes

• Burt Herman - @burtherman

• Will Straw, PhD - http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw.html

• Alex Ikonnikov - @alexikonn

• Jay Seidel - Professor, Fullerton College

• Adam McNamara - @adammcnamara

• Heather Flyte - http://www.hbflyte.com/

• Kellan Elliott-McCrea - @kellan

• Chris O’Brien - @sjcobrien

• If I forgot you...tell me! And I’m sorry!

Order Whuffietoday!

http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com

licensing:

share/remix/spread ... but don’t forget to attribute.

http://slideshare.net/missrogue

photos/screenshots

• most of those gorgeous photos are from istockphoto.com unless indicated on the photo as a link to a Flickr creative commons shot

• screenshots were snapped on Skitch (plasq.com)

• please do not re-post the photos as it will be a violation of their copyright/left. however, have at the screenshots where you will!

contact me:

Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunthorsepigcow@gmail.com@missroguemontreal, quebec, canada514-679-2951

http://www.horsepigcow.com