Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Who wants yesterday’s girl?
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Nobody in the world.

Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones wrote this about his ex-girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton in the 1960’s – but today it seems consumers on a wider scale don’t even want today’s ‘paper’.  Much has been written about falling readership and the rise of new media, micro-bloggers and so on.  Sharp decreases in ad revenue, job losses and tangible changes in media consumption have also left The Independent Newspaper in the UK asking (in a very funky, interactive way) “What next for newspapers?’.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers thinks we should stop talking about the death of newspapers and start talking about the rise of news brands. To paraphrase their report, they believe trusted news brands will still hold sway, however the delivery mechanism and interaction with content will be radically different.  Of course, this is already happening.

The New York Times is one such ‘traditional’ media outlet grappling with the change.  Their Facebook (460,000 fans and an immense amount of content), Twitter (1.4m followers on the main channel alone with many other individual channels), and blog section (with 70-80 RSS feeds in specific areas of interest) give consumers options to access the media on their own terms – more opportunities for more people to interact more often.  Fantastic.  I am personally subscribed to a number of their online touchpoints, without needing to pick up a copy of the paper from a Manhattan street vendor.

This process of change raises two questions though – who manages this new space, and should all this stuff be free?

The first question of management – NY Times’ appointed Social Media Editor was recently criticised for not being fully immersed in the social media space.  Mashable wondered why Jennifer Preston, despite her job title, hadn’t tweeted in over a month (and then the day after the report was posted, why her frequency of posting went through the roof).  Her response was that she was in the process of ‘listening’ and working out how she can best bring value to the conversation and most effectively guide her journalists.

Mashable make a valid point.  Full credit to the NY Times for identifying the need to change and having a red hot go at it – but how can you be a social media editor and not fully utilise all the tools, participate in the conversation, and learn from inevitable mistakes when starting out?

I imagine an extensive amount of human and technical resource goes into managing the output and content of their social communities, without these consumers helping to pay the bills for their offices, computers, photographers, editors, and quality investigative reporters through newspaper sales and subscriptions (outside of online ad revenues).  And while the paper also ‘profits’ from increased user engagement, time spent with brand, and on a number of other metrics,  the second question arises – should it continue to be free?

NY Times are reconsidering the overall structure of their business model, recently asking subscribers if they would be willing to pay for online content.  The Wall Street Journal is already charging US$1.99/week for access to online premium content.  The possibility exists for New York Times to charge $US5 a month to access news/blog/multimedia content online.  They have already dabbled in this area – ending a 2 year experiment in 2007 that generated US$10m annually from premium subscriptions – which at its peak attracted 200,000 users.

The broader issue is that NY Times is only one publication – and that this trend can be multiplied across the hundreds and thousands of local and national newspapers globally.  Should all content be free?  Or should we move to a subscription model?  Should this be for all content, or premium content only?  How much is a fair price? And would you consider paying for all news sites?  eg. you would pay US$5 a month for the New York Times content, but not a cent for the Banbury Cake newspaper?

The danger of course (which is a frightening thought) is that after all the journalists have disappeared, future news services may be reduced to Today Tonight reports on extending your life by 20 years, celebrity gossip rubbish and popular content on major online portals funded by display advertising.  Is this where we want to be?  Or should we all pitch in and save credible journalism?

Want to make sure your digital agency can ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to managing social media for your brand?  Why not try the innovative approach Turkish Airlines have recently used for their global digital media pitch.  The brief was simple:  Selected agencies were sent only three paragraphs about the pitch and a list of keywords, with the pitch process lasting 15 days.  The keywords related to information scattered about the ’social media space’ that they would require to get more detail about pitch and brand objectives.  The first two snippets of information were sent out through Tumblr and Twitter.

Interestingly, two of the agencies pitching for the business have been keeping a diary of their journey through the pitch – Voden and 41-29.  Makes for very interesting reading as they discover new pieces of the puzzle!

Keep your eyes out tonight for the start of The Ashes cricket on SBS.  VB will be debuting their 2 minute branding campaign ad before the first ball, with their irreverent take on the types of ‘blokes’ we should be celebrating as a nation – ‘The Regulars’.  Pup Clarke, Molly Meldrum and other famous Aussie ‘blokes’ feature in the ad.  Outside of the AFL/NRL Grand Finals, it’s probably as close as we’ll get to a ‘Superbowl half time ad‘ this year.

VB are doing a great job with their site, with online content mirroring the campaign, and plenty of fun gadgets to engage the average beer drinking Aussie.  It’s hard to follow up ‘A Hard Earned Thirst’ which has gained the brand so much mileage through the years – but this isn’t a bad follow up.

C’mon Aussie, C’mon!

For those who love a casual read of the weekend newspaper supplements, you would have seen that Sunday Life has recently seen a ‘change’ both in appearance and content.

On June 28th, Sunday Life relaunched itself which saw a  slightly larger matte stock ‘look’ and has moved away from the traditional broad lifestyle read to now target the busy 28+ women who want intelligent coverage of issues that impact their lives. The magazine is now designed to appeal to smart women looking for enjoyment and relaxation as well as good practical tips on everything from cooking & healthy eating to shopping, fashion, fitness and wellbeing.

Although it’s early days, so far the change has been well received amongst readers.

It seems Kyle and Jackie O from Sydney’s 2DayFM have caused quite a stir in the Twittersphere.  AdNews reported yesterday they have been accused of buying a virtual rent-a-crowd, gaining 30,000 Twitter followers in under 18 hours, and artificially inflating their importance on the social network.  Looking at their current friend list, their 5 most recent followers have no profile picture, no followers and have never posted a tweet, which seems to add some credibility to the story.  Tech blogs have been recently reporting that 100,000 Twitter followers can be bought for as little as $3,500 from companies that specialise in building ‘artificial popularity’.

kyleandjackieo ’s response this morning to the article was:

Memo2SydConfidential.2day u ran an article suggesting we”bought”our followers.We said it wasnt true,u ran it anyway!Get ur facts str8 4 once

Whether the story is 100% accurate or not, the question must be asked: what is the true value of a ‘friend’ or ‘follower’?  Is it better to have 500 brand activists, lovers and enthusiasts?  Or 500,000 people who have a vague affinity with your brand but take no action, purchase none of your products, or attend none of your events?

The most important role of social media is adding value to the consumer; amplifying the ‘bought’ media messages and leveraging the ‘owned’ assets of the brand with more ways for more people to interact with your brand.  Regardless of how many unique browsers it drives to your website, comments or brand mentions it generates, or product units it sells, if the brand’s social media strategy is designed to add consumer value and align the energy and output of the organisation, then it has every chance of succeeding.

On the contrary, ‘buying’ followers or pushing people to visit your site/blog/Twitter (but then giving nothing) is like a man throwing money off a rooftop in a bid to buy friends – if there is no ongoing ‘value’ in being their friend or follower after the initial lure, why would I continue to associate with them?

Austereo have today announced that Triple M’sPete & Myf breakfast show will finish up on air Friday 31st July.

Unfortunately their ongoing decline in audience share just couldn’t be ignored.

An all new breakfast show will be announced later in the year. They are hoping to come up with something that is different to everything else on offer in Melbourne and one that is aligned with the Triple M brand.

Constantly thinking about new ways to attract web-savvy audience, TV networks are finally adopting online to promote their shows. Tomorrow, for the first time in Australia , From 12pm on July 3, 2009 until Midnight on the 5th of July, Ten will release the first 2 episodes of Rush – Series 2 – Online. This means that two weeks before the first episode of Rush plays on TV, It will be available online at the TEN Rush site. They also have a facebook page.

This is a massive shift from past years when TV networks protected their content and were inclined to put it up online. But why should they resist? Advertisers would love the extra exposure and the show will gain fans before the actual premier. I would love to see the show taking advantage of it’s key young talent and making some live updates on facebook/twitter/whatever. After all, Ten’s already doing it with So YOu Think You Can Dance twitter and enjoying more than 2700 followers. Will be good to find out how many people watch Rush online and if these people become the show’s most loyal audience.

Should you use social media tools? Should social media be used to enhance your sales and get more eyeballs? How about a “social media campaign”? The simple answer to all these questions is no. Earned media (aka social media) should be practiced all the time. It should have an annual plan. It should be treated as a customer service tool. Have you ever heard about a customer service campaign?  right. So what IS the way to go? Here’s FRANkVizeum’s three steps to earned media strategy. We call it “Immersion” and it’s about listening, learning and researching.

Step 1. Listen and learn – survey your most passionate lovers. Start with your employees and the people who open your newsletter. Ask them how they feel about you, what would they like to see and where are they spending time online. You can also ask what is the most frustrating thing about your industry. This will bring you GOLD.

Step 2. Create a SWAT analysis of your brand online. What’s your online profile? what are your competitors doing? what is the industry doing and what trends can you see emerging? You’ll be surprised what you’ll find when you search youtube, flickr and twitter for your competitors brands.

Step 3. Collate the data and brainstorm. Think about management. Do you have the resources to invest in this space? Imagine having a customer service/call center without people who answer calls. Silly right? so there’s no point  in creating a faceboook group without a community manager. Think about the value for your users not only about the traffic you’ll get.

What do you think about these steps? We hope to post a case study next month and keep you posted on our progress. Meanwhile here’s the latest about “social media” from other blogs:

Where Social Media Fits Into The Marketing Mix – Daniel Oyston

Social media? It’s not actually about selling anything… – Stephen Collins

Marketing: Answering the wrong question – Jonathan Crossfield

Self interest or principle? – Ben Shepherd

It has been a good seven months since we launched Nuffnang a blog marketing community into Australia.  Nuffnang’s Asia Pacific blogger network currently comprises over 100,000 bloggers. Nuffnang Australia has attracted over 700 top Australian bloggers to our community.

Our blog community gives us a strategic advantage in providing brands, social media agencies, media agencies, creative agencies, and PR agencies a one stop solution to connect with bloggers.  We have provided measurability to blog marketing campaigns where clients used to count Technorati and Google Blog search as their only tools to find the best bloggers for their campaigns.  We have demonstrated our ability to implement campaigns in a few days that previously used to take months. Some notable clients that have engaged Nuffnang Australia include ANZ bank, Village Roadshow, Seek Volunteer, and Destination Gippsland.

Building a blog marketing community takes time. We’ve travelled around Australia to organise blog meet ups. We’ve met bloggers that are attracting over 10,000 blog views a day – eclipsing many magazine readerships such as Harpers or Madison. We’re constantly surprised as each fantastic blogger leads us to another even bigger blogger. Our goal is to build a lasting and trusting relationship – ultimately we have built a community of over 700 members. As part of our next growth strategy, we will look at further improving our connections with our blogging community. There will be structural changes to Nuffnang’s touch points (more to come) to better the experience (because it matters!) and a drive to increase our community members.

Meanwhile, we have also been tracking great research coming from Forrester and leading social media strategist Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang. It’s interesting to see the trends in brands in the U.S. engaging bloggers in different ways… here is a comprehensive list of sponsored conversations by Jeremiah.

A Running List of Sponsored Conversations

Here is Forrester’s report on the 3 common ways to market with bloggers – something we’re already achieving successfully through Nuffnang.