State of the Media

There's Media, then there's media, part 4

 We come now to a discussion of earned media, which we will attack in two parts.  Today were going to look at search results as earned media.

 We've touched on this in earlier discussions.  Not all search results are earned media, especially if you've paid for placement, but they can be considered earned if you've put the effort into making your content accessible through proper SEO practices.  

 One of the main ingredients in proper earned media is effort.  Earned media takes more effort to get than paid or owned media, but is an order of magnitude more valuable than the others because people tend to trust it.  As I've said earlier, the aspects of search that can be paid for (keywords, SEO gaming and outright pay for placement) have lessened the value, but if done right, it can be very beneficial to your communications program.

 For now.

 A few months ago, Google announced that it was changing the way in approached search and while a few people have made pronouncements of doom, few people who have actual responsibility over search have expressed any concern.  Which tells me they are clueless or just ignoring the problem.

 In short, Google has realized that search as they created it has been gamed out of its value.  They are revamping the way they do it to diminish the importance of keywords in search and increasing the importance of what people do with information on the net.  That will include what they consume, what they buy, who they are friends with, who they share with and what they share.  In other words, social media is going to be the key.

 I don't want to get into whether this is good or bad.  It just is.  And combined with the next point in this post, it will take SEO search out of the realm of earned media almost completely. Now, point two.

 We've recently survived what could be the death of a free internet in the US over the PIPA and SOPA legislation that died in Congress last week, in no small part to the widespread online protests.  But even if those kind of laws never come back to haunt us, we still have the virtually unknown ACTA that has snuck in on us internationally.

 In short, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is currently before the Senate and EU for ratification and is essentially the same as the PIPA and SOPA laws... only we don't get a say in how it is enforced.  It gives international governments the right to shut down websites for the alleged theft of intellectual property.  That means all someone has to do is level a charge of theft against you.  That means trouble for a lot of sites that feature contributed articles.

 I've been involved in developing contributed articles for corporations for many years and realized how deep the problem was when an article I wrote for one corporation showed up in a major electronics trade publication under the byline of an executive of another corporation, who never worked for my client, 10 years later.  Doing an internet search I found the same article three times attributed to three different authors.  PIPA, SOPA and ACTA mean an end to that practice.  Companies will have to create original content for their sites or face having their websites shut down.

 A hallmark of a successful social media strategy is sharable content.  If you fill your sites with plagiarized material you not only face the possibility of being shut down, but you end up with a site that no one will share with others.  Original, interesting and focused material keeps you safe from copyright infringement but starts you on a path to creating real earned media.

 Stay tuned.

 

There's media and then, there's media , Part 3

Contributed articles became a very big deal during the Web 1.0 boom.  Suddenly, print and online publications had a huge need for new content.  Not only did publications start running news releases, verbatim, but they started asking companies to write opinion and analysis about their own industries.  Public Relations companies were flying high organizing the rush of opportunities.  Then the boom busted.  Publications started disappearing, mostly print but several online publications as well and both journalists and PR folks started looking for other means of income.

That did not, however, stop the demand for contributed articles.  The publishing world found that they could fill a lot of space, especially on line, with opinion, white papers, technical documents and presentations that they didn't have to pay for and could cut their newsroom budgets even more.  When webinars came around, they could actually charge companies to put their crappy power point presentations on the publication websites when they couldn't get them to buy advertising space.

Much of this material was managed by sales/marketing/pr departments and it is considered "earned media" because it doesn't directly sell products or services.  It isn't, though.  It's still owned media and edges into purchased media more often than not.  It is two steps up from advertising, one step up from press releases and it still doesn't reach into the realm of trustworthy media.

Moreover, it probably gets read/viewed less than press releases, according to many senior editors I talk to.  Most contributed articles get significant engagement, judging from the comments that follow publication online, but the publications say very vew people are actually reading them.  Those that do are mostly the author, the people that work for the author, the PR firm hired to place the article, the marketing department of the company the author works for, and the competitors who want the publication to run a rebuttal.

So to wrap up, before we get into truly trustworthy content, Websites, marketing material, press releases and contributed articles are all owned content, even if they make it to a third-party site.  They are viewed as slightly more trustworthy than advertising, but not by much.  To be trustworthy, content must be created by and published by a third party that is specifically engaged to be as objective as possible.  That will be the next post.

There's media and then there's media, Part 2

 Last post we looked at "suspect content" that is distributed over owned and paid media.  It's suspect to the audience because it is highly controlled and partisan.  Today we look at the "trustworthy content" that is found in earned media.

 Social and earned media content is seen as truer because it is uncontrolled and has the perspective of the third party.  Whether it comes from a known journalist or from the comments on a Facebook post, the readers know, in the least, that the author is not on your payroll.  That provides a level of objectivity and even integrity that doesn't exist in an advertisement or corporate website.

 A lot of marketers will put the press release in the earned media content bucket, but they are completely wrong.  Now, I know Paul Miller at UBM will take issue with this, because UBM magazines and websites, as well as those at Hearst, Penton, Advantage, et al, publish a myriad of news releases on their pages.  Paul will claim that because they appear on their news engines it gives the information believability.  But then UBM also owns PR Newswire which is the "cash-cow" press-release distribution service the company owns. so he has to say that.  The viability of press releases is the cornerstone of most earned-media strategies in the corporate world.  But trust me, press releases do not equate with real earned media.

 Press releases are owned content, even when they appear in third-party print and online sites.  The content is determined and controlled by the source.  It's distribution is paid for by the source and no one believes the content except those already predisposed to believe it.  I've written a lot of press releases in my career and I have been tracking the readership for more than a decade.  I have discovered that almost all of all the true readers of press releases (excluding impressions caused by web-search spiders) consists of people employed by the company that issues the release, or employees and executives of the competition of those companies.  The percentage of journalists that read those releases off the wire is almost unmeasurable.  It's not that they don't want to read them.  They can't.  There are thousands of releases flooding through the wires every hour, so they are no help to the journalist trying to follow an industry or trend.  

 This is what creates earned media:

1. A journalist/blogger's assignment
2. A journalist/blogger's curiosity
3. A journalist/blogger's personal relationships
4. A journalist/blogger's field of vision and/or hearing

 That's it.  All four of those are intertwined.  There are some journalists I know that won't accept emails from sources they don't already know.  There are some that don't accept emails at all.  There are some that can only be reached through direct message through Twitter.  There are some that you can only contact by knowing where their favorite Starbuck's cafe is and hanging out there for a week.   They may go to tradeshows, but only stay in the sessions and avoid the show floor.  Some only go to the show floor and quickly walk through to see if anything grabs their attention and turn their badges around to make sure no one knows they are media.  They all have subjective filters they place in the way of information just to keep the flow to a dull roar.

 The press release that so many companies put so much concern and effort into is only for their reference once you have their attention.

 Getting earned media is not formulaic.  It is not free but it is less expensive than what owned and paid media costs.  But it takes an enormous amount of effort over a long period of time to attain ... unless you have an effective social media strategy.  What you probably think that means is not what what it really is.

 But before we get into that, we're going to talk about contributed articles.  That comes next.

 

There's media and then, there's media

 Happy New Year and welcome to our first series of the year.

 Anyone in marketing knows the three primary buckets of media: paid, owned (or controlled) and earned.  Many in marketing know that social (or shared) media is a hybrid of owned and earned. Over the past year since we launched our inaugural strategic media program, however, I've come to realize that, while many companies engage in the various forms of media, very few know they should interrelate and even fewer understand how they interrelate.  Let's see if we can fix that for some of you.

 Footwasher Media approaches media and content on a scale of trustworthy to suspect.  On the trustworthy side of the scale is earned, followed by social.  On the opposite end of the scale is owned and paid.  In this post we're going to focus on the latter.

 Owned is content you create and distribute directly.  That includes collateral material, trade show efforts and even your website.  Because it is wholly owned and managed by you it is the most controllable and measurable.  You may bring third parties into the creation of the content, but generally the real expense is in the building of the delivery mechanism in the form of web design, SEO and graphics.  You are the sole arbiter of the content and success is wholly dependent on your ability to attract an audience and get them to accept what you say as true.

 Paid media is generally advertising or pay-for-play media, paid for by you but distributed by a third party, generally a media engine, like a magazine, news website or email service.  It is much more expensive than what you would put into owned content, but if it fails to produce expected results it is easier to blame the delivery medium and the creative agencies you engage.

 Both of these forms of content are highly suspect by your audience/customers for the very reason that they know it is one sided.  You are trying to get them to buy your product or service and you are fudging the data to your benefit, even when you completely believe that the data you are offering is legitimate.

 Of the two, paid content is the most suspect and unlikely to convince someone already doubtful of your argument.  Paid content is most successful when targeted at customers that have already made up their minds to send money your way.  It reinforces and justifies their decision creating the opportunity for a repeat sale... unless you really screwed up.  

 Owned content is also suspect but it is much more passive than paid content.  A magazine or banner ad on a third-party website is intrusive, but a potential or current customer chooses to come to your website or show booth because they want to know more.  They are already inclined toward deciding for you by this choice.  Whether they make the commitment, again, will be based on the persuasiveness of your argument.

 In our next post, we'll look at trustworthy content.

Microsoft pulls the plug on CES. Tradeshows take another hit

via blogs.technet.com

Microsofts announcement that 2011 will be the last CES the support, financially, adds another brick in my foundational argument against large trade shows. The cost per lead of CES and similar events is just not worth it any more.

Companies can find greater value in smaller, more focused venues.

Just sayin'

Communication and media strategies... and me

Been away for a while, deeply submerged in our new collaborative business model, re-engaging with my journalism roots, and gaining new clarity on tthe intricacies of modern media strategies. Today I'm going to be speaking to a group of European entrepreneurs on how to develop communication strategies in the US market and what I've come up with will be the basis of a new series that I will crank out over the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you'd like to see what I've been up to for the past three months, click on over to New Tech Press, the Element14 news page, Electronic Products, Chip Design, ECN, Embedded Computing... Footwasher Media is all over the place now.

Sylvie Barak Joins EE Times

Just got the OK to say that United Business Media has hired Sylvie Barak as the West Coast Online Reporter.  Who says being a social media maven isn't a good career move?

What? Never heard of her? That's probably because you are still on the trailing edge of social media.  Barak made her bones as a reporter for the Israeli Army news service and moved steadily through other online sites, including the UK's The Inquirer.  With her move into EE Times, she's not going to have as broad a subject pallette to work from but the good news is what she produces might actually convince the stodgy electronics industry to boost their marketing budgets to include effective social media programs.

Yeah, it's a long shot, but hope springs eterna,.

 

 

95% Of Facebook Wall Posts Not Answered By Brands

via www.allfacebook.com

If you are a company using social media, do you ever wonder why you don't seem to be getting any results? Maybe it's because you are doing it wrong?

How often do you even look at whether anyone is engaging in your site? How often do you respond to posts. do you even take the time to find out who, exactly, is looking at your content?

Social media works, but not in a vacuum. And, yes, I am saying most companies suck at social media.

Ron Wilson leaves UBM for corporate gig

The well-respected tech journalist Ron Wilson has left United Business Media, just a short time after being named content director for Test and Measurement World, and is rumored to be heading for a similar position in a semi company.

The past 24 months have been something of a roller coaster for Ron. He served as the editorial director at EDN when Canon Publishing took over the former Reed Elsevier publication, then as Canon was acquired by United Business Media last September, finding himself back at UBM that he left several years ago.  

Ron's career path now matches that of several former EE Times editors including Mike Santarini (now with Xilinx) and Richard Goering (Cadence).

Solyndra's field of dreams proves costly to the rest of us

The glass-and-metal building that Solyndra LLC began erecting alongside Interstate 880 in Fremont in September 2009 was something the Silicon Valley area hadn't seen in years: a new factory.

via www.sfgate.com

I find it interesting that Solyndra's leadership largely came from the semiconductor industry that widely uses what I have, in the past, called Field of Dreams marketing (as it states in this article from Bloomberg). In this case, those that ultimately ended up holding the bag are from the US taxpayer rolls.
You can get away with substandard marketing when you are in the business of selling to your peers, it seems, but when you actually have to reach out beyond your own circle, the results can be disasterous.