Seattle Times Social Media PlanSocial Media Technologies & Implementation Certificate

Social Media in BusinessBill Higbee Laura Williams Hayat Nierenberg Linda Jacobson

June 7, 2011

“The old newspaper model is dying… It’s a collision of two worlds and this new world wants to crack it all open.”

Bruce Hedlam, Media Desk Editor – New York Times

AgendaSeattle Times Social Media Plan – OGSTMethodology for Analysis & RecommendationsFacebookMobile Social MediaNext StepsSummary and Parting ThoughtsBack Up & Supporting Documentation

Seattle Times Social Media Plan

Tactics

Facebook: Compare against industry / regional leaders for best practices and innovative activities

Mobile Solutions: Compare against industry / regional leaders for best practices and innovative activities

Strategies

Conduct a comparative score-card against the competition and provide recommendations for improvement

Optimize current social media usage to generate more traffic while not suffering engagement

GoalsObtain 10% of internet presence traffic from Social Media

Objectives

Achieve Seattle Times revenue, profitability, and growth goals while embracing the internet’s impact to the newspaper industry

Methodology for Analysis & Recommendations

You’re already established in Social Media Therefore, to improve, benchmark against industry leaders to see where need to

improve (e.g. Take Rate at XX% vs Industry leaders at YY%) Evaluate industry leaders for best practices. We recommend evaluating these

folks… Washington Post Huffington Post NY Times LA Times Etc

We recommend utilizing this methodology for: Facebook Twitter Youtube Mobile Social Media

And for our class project, we did it for Facebook and Mobile Social Media…

Facebook IntergrationAnalysis of Newspapers and Their Utilization of Facebook

I love your paper! Now I want to Like you, too… But how?

•Links to Seattle Times social media sites are nearly impossible to find.

•It’s easy to spot how to follow the New York Times on different social media sources.

?

The Bivings Group of the Facebook presence of the 100 newspapers in the US with the largest print circulation.

How well are U.S. Newspapers

Using Facebook?

… And the Seattle Times?6,207 Fans 6 likes per Facebook post 4.4 average number of

comments per linkWell below the average

Competitors Best PracticesNewspaper Social Fact Highlights Best Practices

Washington Post Top of List – Effective audience engagement

Averages 41 likes and 55 comments for every post on it’s fan page wall

• Two custom tabs (Capital Hill & Stories) Editors use • HootSuite to schedule posts

The Chicago Tribune Ranked 9th in the US in terms of circulation, but is #2 for Facebook engagement

• Custom Welcome landing page• Specific FB newspaper sub sections pages. • Active Discussion tab

The Arizona Republic

The Arizona republic is ranked 3rd on this list despite having a 40% lower circulation than the first-ranked Washington Post.

Collaboration with AZcentral.com

San Jose Mercury News

8th in circulation within the US, but 5th on this list due to its consistently active Facebook fans.

• The fan page will feature simple status updates (sans links) • Variety in fan communication (Ask the readers questions or just wish them a good morning).

Newspaper Success Strategies for Facebook

RecommendationsMake it easy to find!

Accessible from Seattle Times homepageProvide a listing of all fan pages associated with the Seattle

TimesKeep up the current pace of postings

Topics should be discussable; leave breaking news to other Social Media streams

Audit the information on the pageRemove dead links or pages that have not been tended to

News Apps for Mobile Phones

Mobile News App Analysis

“Mobile Web users expect you to be there. Empower them with information, and they’ll talk about how great your company is. Don’t, and they’ll tell their friends you don’t have a clue.”

Josh Bernoff & Ted Schader, empowered

The Good NewsConsumption of News via mobile apps, especially local news, is growing.•Nearly half of Americans are using their cellphones and tablet computers to get local news and information•The Millennial age group (born between 1977 and 1994) are particularly strong app users: they are almost twice as likely as the average adult to have read a magazine via an app and 73% more likely to have read a newspaper via an app in the last 30 days.

Local App Users are not more interested in news but they use technology more avidly

Brand Building OpportunityMobile News apps and in-depth enterprise or

investigative-reporting packages build the Seattle Times brand by demonstrating innovation, progressiveness and leadership

Apps are a great way to “hook” target audience and cross-promote, drive audience to other Seattle Times ‘destinations’ and connect with Facebook, Twitter, Web site.

Best PracticesExamples of best practices

LA Times Hollywood Star Walk, Festival of BooksNew York Times The Scoop: NYC App for iPhone (A guide to

New York City from the staff of The New York Times featuring their favorite restaurants, bars, events and experiences), The New York Times Crosswords, The New York Times Sudoku, Learning English With The New York Times

The Philadelphia Inquirer Phrequency for iPhone and Android (Philly-centric music, food, art, style, and nightlife)

The Seattle Times Husky Football

The Bad NewsLittle interest in paying for news apps, about one percent

are paying for news apps For Newspapers 33% of people subscribe, another 5% pay

for news delivered behind a pay wall.While there’s little interest in paying for news apps, there

is interest in paying for desired content served up in a well-designed interface (quote by Derek Belt) “I love free stuff, but this is the kind of content I want and will

pay for. Are you listening, newspaper executives? I would pay for this. I would pay monthly. And I would pay a lot more than $2.99.”

RecommendationsPush the envelope, leverage new technology and create

innovative, progressive ways to interact with the news via mobile apps or Web sites (such as News.Me, The Daily)People are using their phone to check weather, sports

scores, to find local restaurants, business, coupons, traffic conditions or public transportation, local community info

Promote your niche apps (such as Husky Football and Husky Basketball)Make them discoverable

Next StepsAdd if you want

Summary & Parting ThoughtsQuote here? What?

Key Takeaways for Seattle TimesDedicate time to social media

Audit what you haveDetermine where you want to goDevelop a plan

Dedicate Resources to Social MediaTo complete the plan

Be patient – this is not going away, it’s important… Your new job is to be nimble, flexible, open, to be able to

move in various ways… move where the audience is. This is going to keep happening, Facebook will go away, Mobile will go away… How do you stay current?

Summary & Parting Thoughts Continuously evaluate the competition for opportunities to improve – most notably,

Washington Post, etc, etc, as they are industry leaders Utilize Social Media to Push the news to where people are vs only using it to Pull them to

you Consider which type of news fits the specific medium (for example, the aforementioned

Facebook “good news” recommendation) Push Social Media internally… Get your staff (all employees) to be regular Social Media

Users. Train them (brown bags, etc). Promote to them. Get in the game Show Hootsuite example from Washington Post+

Conduct an audit of Social Media resources If find open links (areas without content) then pull them until they are utilized (e.g. Polls/Quizes

and XYZ…) Integrate Social Media into an overall, cohesive Marketing Plan.

Show research from Mala presentation showing % that use SM as part of overall plan vs those that don’t

This might also help with resource constraints as it’ll be viewed as “part of Seattle Times” rather than “this new fad…”

ReferencesBackup and Supporting Documentation

Source: http://www.bivingsreport.com/2010/2010-best-us-newspaper-facebook-fan-pages/

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Local-mobile-news/Part-1/Local-news-apps.aspx