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Information Research Through Finding
& Following Subject Matter Experts

 When researching a topic, Googling, using Linkedin Answers, searching Twitter, posting a tweet to your peeps, phoning contacts, or retaining an information broker are all good approaches. Another effective tool is mining Delicious bookmarks and, better yet, mining the Delicious user network.

Delicious (formerly Del.icio.us) is the leading online bookmarking service and used by many programmers, industry experts, journalists and thought leaders. They use Delicious for the same reasons you should: it’s a convenient way to keep track of web addresses and articles that you may need to reference in the future.

Unless you’re already a mover and a shaker who has personal relationships with such contacts, finding subject matter experts on Delicious may be a close as you can practically get to phoning an friend who is an authority in the particular conceptual area of your question. Delicious is also a social network, which provides the opportunity to identify emerging industry trends and issues early, before they become mainstream. The site allows you to create a personal “network” of other Delicious users whose bookmarks are of interest, and you can view their networks as well (FAQ on Delicious Networks).

Mining the Delicious user base of experts is simply a focused extension of exploring individual Delicious bookmarks:

1. Presuming you already have a well-populated Delicious account or you’ve done a search for bookmarks of interest, you can click on the number of people who have bookmarked a particular site to see those users’ pages. This number is located in the upper right corner of the individual bookmark’s information (#1). Alternatively, you can click on the original bookmarker of the site in the lower left corner of the bookmark’s information (#2).
   
2. Clicking the number will lead you to an intermediary page of all the users who have bookmarked a site. From here you can click on individual usernames in the lower left corner to reach this user’s full list of bookmarks.
3. If a particular user’s list is particularly well populated and fresh, you may want to add this user to your network by selecting “Add to my network” in the blue highlighted area at the top right of the page, directly under the search box.
4. If you’re fortunate, the user’s bookmark page will include the URL to their blog or Web site at the top of the page, and the page title might reflect the user’s actual name or company rather than just their Delicious account name. This can provide additional clues to the authority and value of following this user.
5. If the user has a network, or has subscribed to particular tags, this will also appear at the top of the page, providing additional research opportunities. These options are worth following if you have identified a thought leader or expert and want to understand what other users they find particularly valuable.
6. If the user has a network, this alone is somewhat of an indication that they are a Delicious power user. The list of users in their network appears in the right hand column, and flag icons give you an indication of mutual networking relationships. If you recognize names of subject matter experts, thought leaders, industry journalists, colleagues or competitors, these may be worth further investigation.

The overall goal of mining Delicious users and their networks in this way is to identify subject matter experts and add them to your own network. This process will also help you identify key tags to subscribe to using the subscription feature. Once you have a network, it becomes a resource to browse, but even more important, it is a way to narrow Delicious searches by selecting to search “My Network’s Bookmarks.” The result of mining Delicious in this way is targeted access to the same research and Web sites that experts are using within your areas of interest – making you a smarter and more valuable member of your business team.

Delicious’ approach to the social aspects of its tool could use some improvements. Some key enhancements that would improve the ability to mine the Delicious network of experts, and thus make a great tool even better include:
 

1. Improve user search – Currently you need to know a user name to find a delicious user (or be a really good guesser). This is inadequate. One should be able to search by real name and bring back a list of close matches along with corresponding user names. Plus, if I already know the user’s e-mail address, I should be able to use that key to find a user account, just like on Facebook.
2. Enhance user profile information and its display – Currently, Delicious will display the user’s URL on their bookmarks page. This could be enhanced by also displaying a short profile description such as appears on the top left corner of Twitter. This would help me confirm the username is the expert whom I’m seeking; provide personal background many people appreciate in social networks; and provide additional keywords that can be used to search for users of interest.
3. Provide a browseable user directory – A directory that one can browse by keyword or name would help identify users to add to your network. This directory could display the number of bookmarks and how fresh the posts are, the user’s real name and profile information, and information about how many people have included this person in their network. This latter element would, of course, provide some estimation of authority.
4. Promote Delicious badges on user sites — Delicious offers various badges for use on your web site or blog (for example: the network badge, Tagroll clouds ), but these are not particularly popular. An increased recognition of the value of Delicious networks would flow naturally from implementing a method for people to search for networks and ways to personalize the display of their profile information on their bookmark pages. This in turn would lead to more use of Delicious badges and listing of user names on user’s personal sites. Promoting the use of these badges, and perhaps few more badge options, might be worth consideration as well.
5. Develop a way to visualize the users associated with bookmarks, tags and networks – Converting Delicious networks into a visual form could help users research other users and networks of interest. The Del.icio.us Network Explorer is a Java application that lets one drill into a Delicious user account and see some connections. An enhanced version of this that functions like the Visual Thesaurus would be an ideal tool to help people explore Delicious as a true social network of experts – tracking bookmark originators, or most popular users common to a tags of interest. Such a tool might also help identify the “followers and following” aspects of Delicious users — such as which other users and networks that a particular expert may subscribe to. From a user perspective, the goal of this visual tool would be to help identify thought leaders of interest and expand one’s own network of experts in various topic areas.
6. Provide more statistics about users in a person’s network – Flag icons in the right column of a network page currently indicate new or mutual network “fans.” It would be helpful to know how many bookmarks a user has saved from a particular person in their network, and perhaps how many or how fresh those bookmarks are. This would help identify the most valuable or prolific users in a network.

Some well known individuals that you may be interested in following by adding them to your Delicious network include (note: not all users have fresh bookmarks):

• Leo Laporte – Host of the nationally-syndicated Tech Guy radio show: http://delicious.com/twit
• Lee Hopkins – Australian communication consultant, blogger & FIR commentator: http://delicious.com/leehopkins
• Neville Hobson – Communication consultant, blogger & co-host of For Immediate Release: http://delicious.com/Nevon
• Shel Holtz – Communication consultant, author & co-host of For Immediate Release: http://delicious.com/shelholtz
• Steve Rubel – SVP at Edelman Digital: http://delicious.com/steverubel
• Ogilvy Digital Influence division: http://delicious.com/360DI
• Rohit Bhargava – Author and member of Ogilvy Digital Influence team: http://delicious.com/rbhargava
• Michael Auzenne – Co-host of Manager Tools podcast: http://delicious.com/mauzenne
• Lee Aasse – Mayo Clinic Social Media czar: http://delicious.com/LeeAase
• Greystone.net – Healthcare Web agency: http://delicious.com/greystonenet
• Warren Allan Johnson – Editor of Unsolicited Marketing Advice (yours truly): http://delicious.com/johnsonwarren

Other ways to identify Delicious users include:

• Recognize Delicious icon links included on their web sites, usually grouped with Twitter and Facebook links.
• Look for Delicious links on individual’s Google, Friendfeed or Linkedin profiles
• Search for posts on Twitter made via Delicious by doing a Twitter search for “icio.us.” Obviously, although somewhat unfortunately, this jumps directly to the bookmarked page without providing a hint of the actual Delicious username — unless it happens to be identical to the Twitter username.
•  Find Similar Users on del.icio.us – A Python script that searches for similar users. A user-friendly web application of this concept would be great.
• Bundling delicious networks into groups – How to group networks within Delicious
• 8 Tips for Better del.icio.us Bookmarking – Including a neat tip for using the via: tag to give credit your sources
• Becoming a Delicious Power User – Great tips to get the most out of Delicious
• Social Bookmarking in Plain English by Lee Lefever – a great introduction to the basics of online bookmarking

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Smaller organizations and non-profits often have a challenge in communicating their story to the media. Not only do they have limited staff and budgets, but today’s pool of journalists is smaller and busier. Enter Help a Reporter Out, a way of connecting journalists working on specific projects with subject matter experts in business or academia, appropriate public relations professionals, or other individuals able to provide testimonials or background information.

How it works

Journalists register with the site in order to post topics with which they are seeking assistance. “Helpers” register separately to receive e-mail s everal times a day summarizing current requests. This feed is also available via Twitter. Helpers respond either directly or through HARO to the media requests. The journalists follow-up as desired from the responses.

From a Public Relations perspective, success in using Help a Reporter Out is dependent on focused and professional PR skills, as well as being in the right place at the right time when a journalist inquiry is posted. Peter Shankman, founder of HARO, only has a few ground rules for the site, such as not Spamming journalists with off-topic pitches, not reposting the queries, and not harvesting the journalists’ e-mail addresses. Overall, Shankman explains, HARO works because it is based on principles of mutual trust and support — something we might add that has often been lacking in journalism-PR relations.

As Wired Magazine has point out, Help a Reporter Out is a deceptively simple approach to “crowdsourcing” within the journalism and public relations fields. Wired also provides some examples and user reactions to Help a Reporter Out in an effort to quantify the success of HARO — something that the service does not trumpet themselves. Similar services such as ProfNet and Media Kitty are available, although they have not achieved the same level of awareness, or follow a fee-based model (HARO is free).

In Marketing Warfare, Al Ries and Jack Trout discuss the use of unconventional tactics when outnumbered and outgunned by the competition. In such situations, tools like Help a Reporter Out have the potential to help balance the “discussion field” for smaller organizations and non-profits.

Additional Links

Help a Reporter on Twitter

The original Help a Report Out Facebook page

Top 10 Tips for PR Success Usin g HARO

Strategic Public Relations blog discusses Help a Reporter Out

Media Kitty on Twitter and Facebook

Peter Shackman’s Web site and Twitter account

Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them – Book by Peter Shackman

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How will you respond – or will you?

Every month or so, we hear of another company facing a public relations crisis. More and more often, these originate on the Internet or have a strong online component. Responding in the face of a crisis or criticism has long been a function of the public relations manager. Today, more than ever, PR staff must be equipped to analyze and react to online issues — or to offline issues using online tools.

To this end, the Air Force has developed an excellent flow chart that helps clarify the decision-making process when responding to public relations issues appearing on social media. The “Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment” (pictured below Link to PDF) identifies four types of online posts: Trolls, Rager, Misguided or Unhappy Customers.

Options for response that are identified by the Air Force include monitoring only, fix the facts, restoration, concurrence, or let it stand. In many ways, this algorithm applies logic similar to what PR staff has long used in responding to criticism in letters to the editor, editorials, or other media reports.

If you decide to respond as part of an online crisis, author Rohit Bhargava provides five steps to apply:

• Identify the participants
• Evaluate the conversation
• Respond authentically
• Publish your point of view
• Monitor and respond to conversation

Of course, whether to respond or not is one of the critical questions a PR practitioner must answer as an issue develops. When and if to respond to an online issue or criticism is often challenging. Nathan Gilliatt put it well in a post on his site, The Net-Savvy Executive, when discussing blog criticism, “The short answer to almost every interesting question is, ‘it depends,’ and the question of how to deal with critical bloggers is no exception.”

Thinking out possible options in advance and making plans for addressing online issues, as the Air Force has done, is part of the role of a public relations manager — and one of the keys to success when a real crisis actually develops.

Additional Links

• The Air Force’s Rules of Engagement for Blogging on Global Nerdy (includes a nice listing of other blogs commenting on the tool)
• Blog post about the Air Force’s online media efforts lead by Capt. David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology at the Air Force Public Affairs Agency in the Pentagon — by Web Ink Now
• Ohio Library Council’s Connections Toolkit chapter on Responding to Criticism
• Responding to Negative Comments on Your Blog

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Tips on Constructing Underwriting Acknowledgements
For Public Radio & Television

Sponsoring a program on public radio or TV is just one part of a public relations or marketing strategy – the other part is getting public credit for your donation. In commercial radio and television, your investment typically provides you with time for what is appropriately called a “commercial” or advertisement. Public broadcasting announcements are different due to the non-profit nature of these stations — and regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission. For these reasons, nonprofit radio or TV stations provide their underwriters with a short announcement to identify – rather than promote – the sponsor. This is typically placed at the beginning or end of the program and fits the criteria of “brief, descriptive information on products and services.”

The station may offer to create this sponsorship announcement for you, but sometimes marketing or public relations staff are called upon to write this script to ensure the tag meets company branding standards and sponsorship goals. As with traditional electronic advertising, you will want to clearly state your brand, keep the message short and concise, and incorporate your company’s theme or positioning. These are some additional guidelines that will help you write an effective sponsorship tag without running into objections from the station or the FCC:

1. Length – 15 to 20 seconds is generally acceptable with most radio stations to meet the criteria of “no longer than necessary.” Nationally, PBS limits announcements to 15 seconds, although some 30 second premier sponsorships are available. The longer the announcement, the more likely it will be judged “commercial” in nature.
2. Names – The business or product name is acceptable.
3. Contact information – A phone number or web address is acceptable.
4. Location – Mention of the business location or the area served is acceptable.
5. Preamble – The preamble is phrasing such as “Brought to you by,” “Made possible by,” “The weather on WKRP is sponsored by,” “Funding for this program provided by,” or “Helping WKRP with the broadcast day.” Use of preambles is fairly traditional although not strictly required. The FCC has objected in some cases where such wording is omitted.
6. Logos, slogans and theme lines – These are generally acceptable if as long as the logo “identifies” and the slogan does not “promote.” The key here for slogans is that the phrase should not be comparative in nature or an appeal to purchase. The wording should be value-neutral. Well-established company slogans fair somewhat better under review.
7. Product mentions – Factual descriptions of up to three products or services, the use of the product, what the product is made from, or the form of delivery are generally acceptable. On television, products can be shown but their depiction is an issue since it should not convey product superiority or customer satisfaction (sometimes referred to as “no smiling). Products may not be displayed on children’s programming.
8. Dates – Days of operation are acceptable. Event dates and locations may be acceptable depending on the nature of the event.
9. Avoid – Wording that is qualitative, comparative, or that urges the listener to buy, call, visit, try, or compare. This means one should avoid superlatives, calls to action, and endorsements by customers or professional groups. Here are some examples hot words to avoid: efficient, excellent, best, premier, number one, quick, prompt, largest, leading, and bigger. Truth of the statement is not an issue; comparative and superlative wording is just off limits.
10. Avoid – Price information of any type. Words to avoid include: free, sale, economical, affordable, and so forth. Limited time offers, trials and special gifts are not acceptable.
11. You or Your – Although a favorite of marketers, use of the word “you” or “your” generally causes problems in sponsorship announcements. It may be possible to successfully rewrite the phrase without the word.

These guidelines are a compilation of basic standards and guidance provided by various stations, as well as how the FCC has acted in the past. You will want to consult your individual radio or television outlet for specific requirement that they may have. The station has the ultimate right to approve or reject your underwriting acknowledgement script.

Sponsoring a program on public radio or TV can be an effective way to position your organization with your target audience. Applying these guidelines, good electronic copywriting techniques and some common sense will help your organization make the most of the short on-air time that you receive for your donation. Of course, the smart public relations manager won’t stop here. Announcing your sponsorship to internal and external audiences and weaving it into your communication plans will more fully leverage your organization’s investment.

Additional Links

• FCC sponsorship identification rules, Sec. 73.1212
• Florida Public Television TV Sponsorship Guidelines
• FCC guidelines regarding underwriting credits on public television (Helpful 8-page PDF by WMHT PBS TV in Troy, NY)
• WWOZ Sponsorship Guidelines – WWOZ 90.7 FM
• PBS National Program Funding Standards and Practices
• PBS to Shorten Time Commitments for Sponsorships

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In jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, many communicators are forgetting communication basics.

Surveying the use of Twitter by organizations shows many, if not most, are using Twitter exclusively as a one-way communication tool. A prime example of this is when an organization’s Twitter strategy is limited to tweeting its news releases. Hello, guys, this is what an RSS feed is for!

The significance of Web 2.0 is that it’s social. That means the strength of the medium is in conversations, not one-way bursts. Company news releases, or happy talk factoids spaced throughout the day don’t add significant value to the social media universe and are generally unlikely to coalesce into conversations. This isn’t to say that an organization shouldn’t tweet its news releases, just that it should also have a more mature, robust Twitter strategy.

Another common Twitter tactic has been to develop Twitter “events,” especially those that capture media attention such as tweeting during surgery. The first organization to create such an event will certainly get some buzz in the Twitterverse as well as in traditional media outlets. But such an approach is not a really great strategy because it focuses on what the organization wants to talk about and not necessarily what consumers are interested in discussing.

The First Step is to Shut Up

The first step in a mature Twitter strategy should be to shut up and listen. Many organizations recognize the importance of brand and public relations monitoring, but it is easy to push the significance of these efforts aside in the rush to “do something.” Yet listening has value and is the first step toward a true two-way communication strategy.

Tools that can help with Twitter monitoring include Twilerts, TweetBeep, TweetScan and Monitter, or Twitter’s own tracking feature and search-related RSS feeds. At a minimum, organizations should set up basic alerts to monitor their brand name and keywords of significance to their industry or location.

Stop Thinking of Tweets as Sentences

Next, in order to stop monopolizing the conversation, communicators need to stop thinking of tweets as only sentences. One way to do this is to look for ways to ask “Twuestions.” In other words, tweet engaging questions that prompt a discussion (see TwiTip’s How to Ask Effective Questions on Twitter).

Or tweet a survey (like twtpoll, for example). Then think about tweets as useful links and tweet about the survey results — or combine your findings in a blog post worthy of tweeting about. Focusing on questions can help force the one way/two way communication issue, making tweets potentially more conversational. Focusing on links can add value and expand the conversation from 140 characters to something of more depth.

Another approach is to develop separate Twitter accounts or hashtags that will help your organization better focus on an narrower audience or topic. It is unlikely that people will see the value in following @BigConglomerate, but they might find value in following narrower conversations such as suggested by @greencleaningproducts, @coolsportscarmodel or @cholesterolcontrol. Healthcare non-profits may want to pursue a similar approach and segment their conversations on specific diseases or conditions. Of course this requires focus, and some parts of the organization may not get as much attention as those on the priority list – unless, of course, one can train and democratize those smaller units to become their own social media communicators. In general, multiplying the number of Twitter accounts has potential to increase the tweet-stream value as people perceive you are discussing topics of targeted interest to them.

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The cost of entry is low for Twitter, so marketing and public relations managers might be tempted to think that not much return is needed on their investment. But to be effective within this new medium will still require a focus on two-way communications. To benchmark Twitter’s effectiveness has to come back to metrics of engagement. One-way tweets don’t count as a conversation. And only conversations count as effective communication.

Additional Links

Twitter in Plain English by CommonCraft

Trouble with Twitter from Current TV

Quantcast Audience Profile of Twitter

Graph of Twitter Usage (A downer for those with Twitter obsession)

How Hospitals and Health Systems Should Not Use Twitter

Continue reading »]]> It is clear that newspapers across the country are in the midst of a crisis. Dozens have closed in the past two years, including some large, metropolitan dailies like the Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Cincinnati Post and Tucson Citizen. Others have threatened to close, sought bankruptcy protection, merged, or moved to partial week publication. A few have decided to cease print operations and serve their news only online. As a Time journalist eloquently said, it is “as if some creeping, flesh-eating virus had got hold of the newspaper industry.”

Causes of the Crisis

While the current crisis is clearly influenced by the rise of the Internet as a source of news, a decline in circulation, and a collapse of display and classified advertising, it is actually not an entirely new problem. In fact, newspapers have been experiencing a decline in total circulation for the past 30 years. And newspapers don’t have a good track record of adapting to technology, as evidenced by the press-radio war of the 1930s when print media attempted to limit radio’s access to news.

In addition, newspapers have not yet adapted to changing audience preferences. Walter Pincus (in Columbia Journalism Review) has pointed out that newspapers have squandered resources “that could have been used to give readers a wider selection of stories about what was going on and that may have directly affected their lives.” In the Internet world, this is called “content is king.” In other words, “any media venture is likely to fail through lack of appealing content, regardless of other design factors” (Wikipedia entry).

Many Solutions Silly

A number of solutions have been proposed to address the current newspaper crisis. Unfortunately, most do not make a lot of sense.

Publication cutbacks – Nearly a hundred papers are scaling back the number of days in which they print a newspaper (list of newspapers that have cut publication days). Saturdays and Mondays are the most frequent victims of these cutbacks, although many cuts are even more severe. Other newspapers, such as the Detroit Free Press are still printing weekday editions, but cutting back on home delivery days. Such an approach is expected to help the Free Press save 20 percent of its costs, according to an AP report, while hopefully maintaining most of its advertisers who already prefer other publication days.

Yet, there seems a danger in customers forgetting about you if your contact with them is not on a regular, consistent weekday basis. It’s one thing if a newspaper is weekly and I expect it on Wednesdays, but it’s another thing if it only comes out on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays while my weekday patterns of life run Monday through Friday.

Content payment or subscription changes – Rupert Murdoch has recently suggested that an newspapers are going to need to seriously reconsider the need to charge for online news content, something few papers except the Wall Street Journal currently do. Similarly, Walter Isaacson (in Time Magazine) has called for movement toward a subscriber micropayment system that incorporates ease-of-use features like iTunes or PayPal. But both approaches seem to be looking backward and akin to closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. It is also worth noting that subscription fees for newspapers generally only covered the cost of newsprint and have never been a key driver of revenue.

In contrast, Merlin Mann and John Gruber (at SxSW 2009) have explained why giving away content often makes good sense for bloggers, often in unexpected ways. It seems a similar logic could apply to newspapers’ online efforts, given sufficient time to discover new, perhaps unforeseen revenue options. Admittedly, much of the time for such discovery has already been squandered.

Non-profit status – Senator Benjamin Cardin (D, MD) has introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act into the U.S. Senate that would allow newspapers to become non-profit “educational” organizations. The arrangement would be similar to public television and prohibit papers from making endorsements. Advertising and subscriptions would be tax exempt instead of unrelated business income, as is typically the case with nonprofit organizations.

Overall, this concept seems to be an overreaction which bends the typical understanding of a non-profit, with little historical precedence. Furthermore, it fails to acknowledge that newspapers are still, by and large, profitable enterprises. In a less radical approach, Gov. Gregoire of Washington State has provided special tax breaks to his state’s ailing newspapers through 2015. Yet both these approaches follow a bail-out mentality rather than a path that would help newspapers adapt to changes in the environment.

Online-only approaches – A smaller group of newspapers has taken the drastic step of moving to becoming online-only publications. The Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Ann Arbor News are notable examples. While a bold step into the brave new world, online advertising may not yet be mature enough to support these ventures.

Others have also expressed skepticism. Walter Pincus (CJR) has stated that “serious people have proposed what in time will be considered absurd ideas – turn papers into nonprofit organizations; charge for each downloaded story; turn into Web-based publication; make Web aggregators, such as Google and Yahoo, pay for carrying newspaper stories.” With the possible exception of becoming online-only publications, these proposals generally seek easy solutions. Unfortunately, this is typically not the way most challenges are overcome.

The Need for Reinvention

There is no doubt that newspapers need to reinvent themselves, although how best to bridge from the past to the future is not entirely clear. The rational answer likely involves strategic creativity and risk taking, such as the effort that created USA Today some 25 years ago.

To that end, it seems clear that newspapers need to make a paradigm shift from printers of news to conveyers of information, at least for those that have not already recognized that further integration with the Internet is essential to survival. Hard work and technical savvy will also be prerequisites, but there will likely be no “easy” way out for newspapers.

Here are 12 practical yet strategic steps newspapers might take in pursuit of such a transformation:

1. Webize the Newspaper Name

Most newspapers have figured out the importance of having the Web address displayed on their pages, and even on the sacred home page. These web address also generally match the newspaper’s name (although surprisingly, some don’t). But the time has come for total commitment between print and online presence. At a minimum, the URL for the newspaper’s online presence should be the largest, boldest item in the masthead after the paper’s name. For maximum effect, the URL should become the paper’s name. So instead of Smithville Daily News, the masthead reads in big, bold type “SmithvilleNews.com.”

2. Print Content Should Always Jump to the Web

We propose at least 80 percent of articles in the printed version of a newspaper should end with a URL. Not just a listing the newspaper’s Web address, but providing a relevant call to action with as numeric details where feasible to add specificity:

• Comment on the School Board’s actions at smithvillenews.com/090423school
• View school auditor’s report at smithvillenews.com/090423schoolaudit
• View video from Sewer Committee consultant at smithvillenews.com/stinky-sewers-cause-complaints
• View and purchase any of 50 photos from Raiders vs Chemics game at smithvillenews/sports
• Post your opinion on Snodgrass Industry’s Plant Closing on our blog at smithvillenews.com/blog.
• Read the remainder of reporter Jill Schatinger’s story online at smithvillenews.com/pageone (5 paragraphs, 3 charts)

Conversely, online news must also find ways of cross-selling print editions where and when feasible.

3. Flip the Editorial Page

Instead of letters to the editors printed in the newspaper, the editorial pages should print the best of the previous day’s reader’s comments on stories or editorial postings, as reviewed by the editorial editor. Or perhaps the editor would sort out excerpts from posts into pro and con columns (but without the shouting as one gets on cable television shows).

Another possible approach might be for the editorial staff to interject their commentary into the stream of the conversation as it is reprinted from the web, rather than exclusively in a separate column at the top of the page. The editorial page could become a section that reports on editorial opinion, categorizing, analyzing refuting or supporting points of view in chunks (each attributed back to the poster’s username), rather than the traditional display of letters to the editor.

4. Recapture the Classifieds

The rise of Craig’s List, eBay, eBay Motors , Monster.com, and other such sites have marginalized the value of traditional classified advertising. The resulting collapse of classified advertising has been cited as one of the key factors in the financial difficulties faced by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe.

Newspaper chains or an industry sponsored consortium should use their resources and national presence to identify ways to compete, partner or buyout significant players in what may be understood as the micro-advertising marketplace. A process is needed where individuals or businesses could post short, text-based ads or modular display ads through the local newspaper’s web interface. These ads would then be populated to the newspaper’s local or national partner web sites, e-mail newsletters, print editions, and perhaps even traditional online text ad services like Google’s Adwords and Overture, or social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

This new genre of classified ads could also appear next to relevant content in print (not just in the back of the paper where nobody looks), as identified through keyword tagging in the ads and some sort of algorithm that understands the topic of the news article. Such an approach could bring new value to the otherwise exhausted classified concept, especially if space were devoted to explaining the easy steps for advertising and reporting the individual, local success stories.

5. Kill Impression-based Advertising and Embrace PPC

While print ad placements may still need to be sold on a traditional basis, newspapers should shift their online advertising strategies from the old paradigm of pay per impression to the more modern pay per click model. This may cause the demise of most banner ads, and we’ll all be glad to see them go. The pricing model is likely one of the few reasons such ads persist in the face of low click through rates and research showing widespread banner blindness.

A move to a PPC model for online display ads will also require a fundamental shift in advertising philosophy. Advertisers will have to think and work harder to get their message across. They will need to be more relevant to the consumer and partner with newspapers to find ways to tie their ads to relevant content through keywords – without destroying the editorial-advertising divide. Finally, advertisers and newspapers will need to find ways to provide value to the reader to earn their clicks, which in the end is a win-win for newspaper and reader alike. More informational, emotional and visual online advertising will likely result.

A PPC advertising model may initially result in lower income, but there should also be potential for increased volume due to this approach lowering the bar for smaller businesses to confidently enter the online advertising arena. Such democratization of advertising will likely have the added benefit of creating new, secondary industries focused on analytical services and tools.

6. Customize Content Delivery

StumbleUpon.com is a potential model for delivering news that is of the most interest to each individual newspaper subscriber. This customized content could be delivered through an e-mail newsletter format, or to a wireless, web-enabled book reading device. In fact, newspapers should be running, not walking, to the Kindle and Sony Reader Digital Book platforms.

In this approach to customized content delivery, the subscriber would give initial input about their areas of interest such as one does on StumbleUpon, which would be combined with the subscriber’s demographic information and content analysis algorithms that “learn” what the subscriber is most interested in through how they rate items positively or negatively through thumbs up or down icons, or through their click behavior.

7. Report on Online Activity

Newspapers could do a better job of reporting on what is happening on Internet in their print editions. By this we don’t mean more techie stories, but some type of summary display that gives the pulse of news or other online activities. For example, BuzzFeed covers memes and the viral Internet, Google zeitgeist reports search trends, and there are a number of tools that help track trends on Twitter. A good place to start would be reporting yesterday’s most popular activity on the newspaper’s Web site: what are people searching for, what topics received the most comments or blog posts, which advertisers are receiving the most clicks. A daily or weekly, data-driven content analysis of media coverage –newspaper, radio, Internet, cable and network – could create a new position for newspapers as the rational, data-driven analysts of current events and opinions (i.e. – database journalism).

8. Make Newspapers Clickable

Alltop.com aggregates news stories in categories (and by source) and displays the results as clickable headlines. The whole page is filled with clickable headlines. This concentrated approach to news is like a newspaper with hundreds of sections, quickly scanable, and more appealing than an RSS feed reader. If newspapers were clickable, this would be an appealing format to make papers more valuable. QR Codes have the potential to make newspapers clickable.

QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that are already popular in Japan. There you can take a camera phone photograph of such a code – on a handout, a mailer or even a billboard – and be transferred to a corresponding Web site on your web-enabled cell phone. Thus either camera phones or some new type of pen-like input device could be used as a bridge between printed headlines accompanied by such a code and Web-based reading devices like a tablet PC, e-book reader, iPhone, or a customized e-mail newsletter.

Interactivity is one of two attributes that newspapers currently lack, according to Andrew Davis, President of the American Press Institute (see Time Forum). The newspaper industry should aggressively pursue the implementation of QR codes and related technology which have the potential to make the printed word interactive.

9. Become the Celebration

Births, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and deaths are a significant part of local newspaper coverage. A few national Web sites like our365.com (for births) and legacy.com (for obituaries) are in this market space, but it seems there is a opportunity for a newspaper chain or consortium to develop an innovative Web concept that combines aspects of photo sharing, local directories, retail sponsorship and sales.

Of course, an online version of newspapers’ social pages sounds a lot like Facebook, which has itself been struggling to find a sustainable advertising model. This suggests that there may be an opportunity for collaboration where newspapers become the local on-ramp for social news and in turn funnel local, targeted and relevant advertising from small businesses back to Facebook or similar sites. In this way newspapers would become the intermediary between highly personalized online and local advertising revenue opportunities.

In a similar way, concerts, plays, lectures and sporting events also get hometown press attention. Eventful.com and Ticketmaster are key online players in this market space. While some newspapers are “reverse publishing” event calendars from their websites in weekend media & event-focused print editions (Example: Bay City Times’s Let’s Go Section discussed at :33), a better option is likely to find a way to partner with Web ventures that already have a wide national presence, commenting or voting capabilities, social networking aspects, and other linkages that already give it high value in the eyes of the consumer. For example, it might be possible to publish print listings of eventful.com events and collect a fee from that website for measurable increases in web traffic or ticket sales that can be attributed back to the newspaper promotion. Today’s Internet-based economies will require newspaper’s acceptance of less control over the means of production and more innovative collaboration.

Such an approach to event publishing could also overcome a common reader complaint: that newspapers cover interesting events after the fact, but don’t do a good job of advance notice of community activities, presumably because they consider pre-event publicity “advertising,” not news.

10. Consider Hyperlocalization

Hyperlocalization is the concept of focusing on community news. While the Web is outstanding for delivering national and international news and information, it still can’t compete with newspapers for breadth and depth of local coverage (see PBS Frontline: “Should newspapers go hyperlocal?”). Unfortunately, some early examples of hyperlocal approaches such as backfence.com and LoudounExtra.com have been less than successful. Nevertheless, the strategy may yet have merit if and when the correct formula is applied.

Ethnic newspapers are another example of focusing on an audience subsegment. While not unaffected by the recession, many ethnic newspapers are growing (example: El Diario La Prensa), and such papers are surprisingly popular (NYT article), making them worthy of further study by an industry that needs to better focus on their readers.

11. Partner (or Compete) with the Post Office

Newspapers are unique in that they operate a home delivery network. While the United States Postal Service has exclusive legal rights to deliver first and third-class mail, newspapers have a potential opportunity to provide an alternative way for advertisers to reach their target audiences. Furthermore, lobbying for readjustment of the changes made to the second class postage rate structure in 2007, which favored media conglomerates over smaller publications, could help papers take further advantage of postal delivery options.

12. Take a Contrarian Position

If all else fails (or even if it doesn’t), newspapers could consider a “Good News Page,” that compiles user-submitted, positive stories from around town for exclusive publication in their print editions. Of course the axiom is that “Bad News Sells” (Pew Research supporting this), but perhaps it is time for print media to find a way to establish a unique, contrarian media position that could attract hometown advertisers interested in good public relations as well as an audience of eyeballs who would appreciate this material in an otherwise discouraging world of news.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The crisis faced by newspapers across the country should be of concern to all marketers since printed newspapers and their accompanying Web sites are still valuable vehicles needed to effectively reach the marketer’s target audiences. Furthermore, marketers within the newspaper industry have a role to play in helping reinvent newspapers for the future – a role that will serve their own careers as well as helping shape the newspaper industry for decades to come.

Additional and Related Links

• America’s Press-Radio War of the 1930s: A Case Study in Battles between Old and New Media (PDF)
• Motown Madness: Home Delivery Cut – Why Detroit Newspapers’ Approach Will Fail
• Washington State Papers Paid Dearly for Tax Cut Estimated to Save Only 15 Reporters’ Jobs
• Guy Kawasaki (co-founder of Alltop.com) on Obstacles to Innovation (Kawaski on Twitter)
• BBC Report on QR Codes (video)
• Newspaper Death Watch blog
• Journalist Jeff Jarvis on the Future of Newspapers (video) (bio & blog)
• How Newspapers & Magazines Can Benefit from 2D-codes like QR-Code, BeeTagg Code and Datamatrix (video) (Swedish)
• Maybe Google Needs Newspapers
• Make Your Own Newspaper Circulation Trend Gauge

Continue reading »]]> In a word, clients.

These videos give us a view of the world from the graphic artist’s perspective. Sorta like the animals at the zoo looking out at the funny homo sapiens with their noses pressed up against the glass. Remember, humor is funny because it is truth delivered in a well-timed fashion.

Designing the Stop Sign

Microsoft Redesigns the iPod Package

Continue reading »]]> Misspellings of brand names, mislocation of buildings on a campus, or just plain incorrect data on GPS systems can be frustrating.

The two main map makers for GPS devices are Tele Atlas (www.teleatlas.com) and Navteq (www.navteq.com). Both offer ways to submit updates to their maps via their Web sites.

Map Feedback for Tele Atlas
http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/
Teleatlas’ Map Insight™ application walks a user through the process of submitting a correction. The company states that “by leveraging user perspectives, our data will become even fresher and more valuable to consumers, developers, and enterprises alike.”

Give Map Feedback for NAVTEQ
http://mapreporter.navteq.com/
NAVTEQ Map Reporter™ provides a method to submit a correction, catogorize it by type and make additional comments. The company states that it makes “every effort to ensure that our map data is as fresh, accurate, and up-to-date as possible by employing full-time staff in more than 130 offices around the world.”

Both systems provide a view of their map that you can zoom in on until you find the point of interest. You can then “thumbtack” the location (a thumbtack icon in Teleatlas, a more obscure target circle icon in NAVTEQ) before submitting the item with your e-mail address. NAVTEQ provides a way for registered users to track the status of their submission.

Making Corrections to Other Map Systems

In addition, Garmin (who uses NAVTEQ data) provides a (complex, hard-to-use) map error feedback form on the Garmin web site. Magellan points users to NAVTEQ’s map feedback. Tom Tom promotes a “real time” map correction feature that you can enable on your device, although the video demo only shows a road construction/detour example. TomTom has turned over millions of correction suggestions from the system to Tele Atlas (Read article on GPSReview.net).

Google Maps provides “edit” option you can use while viewing a map (View video showing how) as well as a way to submit Google Map corrections as part of Google Maps Help section (Note that Google Mobile uses TeleAtlas map data. Web-based Maps uses NavTeq map data). Mapquest provides an “report data errors” option on their contact page, while Yahoo Maps are built upon NAVTEQ data.

If you’ve had success or frustration with using these or other methods of correcting GPS data from a marketing or PR perspective, please use the comment link below to share your experience.

Continue reading »]]> The new top level domain .tel is uniquely positioned to change the face of yellow page directory advertising. It may also have significant impact on search engine optimization and will likely better serve mobile devices than the .mobi top level domain has heretofore done.

For background, the Internet has numerous “top level domains” or TLDs such as .com, .net, .edu, .gov and so forth. Telnic’s introduction of .tel is the most recent addition to the domain line up, but is significantly different than previous TLDs. This is because .tel isn’t tied to traditional HTML web pages, but rather is only a repository for data that is stored at the DNS, or domain name system, level.
Once your register and configure your company’s .tel domain name (using a standardized backend tool provided by Telnic), you may load information like phone and fax numbers, web site, Facebook page, GPS coordinates and so forth into the .tel system. There it is available for retrieval – although retrieval by whom and how is yet to be fully realized.

For now, anyone can type the .tel domain into their browser to receive a standardized display of the contact information that you entered for your company. This will likely be an immediate application for phone-based mobile devices and more convenient method for finding phone numbers and for GPS identification of locations and than a .mobi page, which is essentially just a stripped-down version of your web page for cell phones. The real future for .tel is likely hidden within the potential for the aggregating of .tel information by search engines like Google or other yet-to-be-developed online applications (Others are more skeptical about the potential for SEO benefits).

.TEL Impact on Traditional & Online Yellow Pages

Yellow page advertising is another service that could potentially be in .tel’s crosshairs. Obnoxiously overpriced and notoriously confusing, yellow page advertising is a bane to most marketing and public relations managers. In addition, online “yellow page” web sites are frequently inaccurate and difficult to correct.

Enter .tel domains, which allow a company to control the accuracy, level of detail and keywords associated with their contact information. Updates can be made immediately instead of waiting up to a year for the next directory to be issued, and everyone has the most recent version instead of a 3-year-old spaghetti-splattered tome that Mikey is using as a booster seat. Plus, as life moves to the Internet, it is reasonable to assume that thick directories will give way to the more portable web-enable cell phone or the kitchen-based family computer.

As some have pointed out, it will take a critical mass of business adopters to make .tel a success –and a true threat to the yellow page status quo. In the first month, business adoption appears brisk although press coverage is still modest. As of this post, major firms such as Microsoft, IBM, Intel, GM, Bank of America and Exxon do not currently have live .tel domains. On the other hand, Apple, Cisco, Amazon, Toyota and the White House do.

New .tel addresses have the advantage of being relatively inexpensive since domain registration is the only cost; there is no web page or web server involved. Furthermore, MySpace will be promoting .tel domains to its members, potentially tapping into individual and social networks as a strategy to bootstrap broad acceptance and implementation of the domain (this is the approach registrar Domain Monster is taking with it’s video below).

The jury is still out on the brand new .tel domain, but marketing and public relations professionals would do well to take steps to protect their brand names, configure basic contact information on their .tel domains and be watchfully waiting for further opportunities within the .TEL marketplace.

Video Information about .TEL Domain

1. Bloomberg News interviews Telnic CEO Khashayar Mabdavi about how the new domain could “spell the end of the old style directory services.”

2. Telnic’s official demo for business explains the domain’s potential in a 4 minute video overview.

3. This humorous promotional video for Domain Monster suggests how .tel videos can be used for social networking. You can even follow the ben.tel URL from the spot to learn more about UK actress Laura Haddock.

Additional Links

• Telnic example of a large business with nested levels of contact information within a .tel address.
• .TEL discussion on BBC television (Video).
• List of domain name registrars through whom you can register .tel domains
• Telnic launches iPhone application
• The .Tel Search Engine Factor
• Yellow page consultant list - Reduce your traditional YP expenses (These consultants specifically have hospital or healthcare experience).

Continue reading »]]> “The Future of PR” is the subject of a video compiled by the Council of PR Firms with commentary from various noteable principals and practitioners within the field. Although not a structured presentation, the video does touch on some of the major forces influencing the direction of public relations today, the majority of which are influenced by the growth of new and social media tools available to practitioners, their clients and the public.

Points that he speakers touch on include:

• Social media’s effect on journalism
• Media fragmentation
• Changes in value relationships between clients and PR firms
• Need for client education due to new and social media growth
• Talent recruitment
• Diversity
• Increased need for authenticity
• The speed with which PR tools are developing and changing
• A need to refocus on the basics principles of PR in light of the rise of new media and tools

Additional Links

PR Industry Leaders Put Their Feet in Their Mouths at Critical Issues Forum
The Future of Public Relations
Students: The Council of PR Firms asks, “What is the most dangerous idea in PR today?”
Dangers Equal Opportunity for Smart Marketers, PR Firms