State of the Media

There's media and then there's media, Finale

In our last post in this series I stated that earned content isn't a sure thing no matter how much effort and cost you put into it.  That's because earned content -- news coverage that is beneficial to your cause, product or company -- has too many variable in the form of timing, resources within the news community and the interest of the general reading public.  Because of that confluence of variables, most companies don't approach public relations strategically but keep it in the tactical menu.  That's also why most PR efforts fail to impress the people that pay for them.

 That is not to say that earned media cannot be a strategic effort.

 Over the past decade, more and more companies have been pursuing a strategic earned media strategy by hiring laid-off editors and freelancers to run internal media efforts.   Some of the editors were not laid off but left because the money was just too good and others had been laid off for several months before the companies picked them up.  For example, Cadence, Xilinx and Altera have all hired editors that once worked at United Business Media and Reed publications.  This is a very good thing because these companies have recognized the skill and integrity of these journalists and want them to apply those attributes to their internal publications.  But there are two problems with these types of programs.

 First, most companies, however, cannot afford to make the expenditure of putting someone on salary and building an infrastructure around their work.  Second, the audience for the work is captive, existing behind the firewall with limited outreach. Furthermore, as much as the journalists creating the content are trustworthy, because the audience knows that this content is fully under control of the sponsoring company, it's trustworthiness is still suspect.   

 Remember that true earned content has to come from a third party.  Independent publications from media houses, like UBM, still carry the cachet of trust and therefore are more valuable. Even contributed material, like opinion pieces and press releases, can boost their integrity a bit by appearing in one of these third party publication... but they are not as trusted as the content created by an independent journalist.  That's still the holy grail for content... and it can be planned for and executed.

 For the past six months, Footwasher Media has been running a strategic earned media program for a public company.  In those six months we have created more than 60 pieces of content, with input from but independent of the sponsoring company, using the services of experienced and known journalists in the tech community.  That content has been shared with partnering media companies and published close to 200 times internationally.  The articles and videos have been viewed on the sponsor's site by more than 27,000 unique viewers (that's real people, not spider hits) and the partner publications have driven more than 4500 qualified leads to the sponsor.  The sponsor has stated that the content published has raised the visibility of the company among the international press to the degree that they have seen a serious increase in the number of unsolicited calls from the press in general.

 So how is it happening?  First, Footwasher Media has cultivated relationships with the press management over decades allowing a frank and open discussion of what is and isn't independent content.  We have dedicated ourselves to a standard of ethics that goes beyond lip-service and puts it in writing.  That creates a perception of trustworthiness in our relationship with them.  Second, our content is not behind a firewall, it's in the open and available to an audience larger than the  sales base of the sponsor.  Third, we work with the sponsor openly and honestly.  We tell them when something will or won't work in the program while remaining open to their suggestions.  We treat them as a source, first and foremost, not just, a source of income. Fourth, and finally, we act as a true intermediary in the discussion between the sponsor and the traditional press making sure both understand the needs of the other, not advocating for either.  Let's look at it graphically.

 In the previous post I showed the relationship of earned, social, owned and purchased media, along with the levels of cost, effort and trustworthiness.  In this chart I add strategic earned media to the mix, placing it between social and tactical earned.  A strategic effort takes a bit more effort that tactical and costs more, but it drives up the creation of tactical and reduces the cost and effort that goes into tactical.  As a result, social, owned and purchased all get dragged closer to and in some case into the trust zone.

 We live in a world that lacks both barriers and trust.  While the rest of the world watches and shares what the corporate world and press produce, most of the producers are still trying to put some level of control on it.  That is not going to change.  Someone has to stand up and tackle the problem from a different angle.  That's what we are doing.

 It is a different way of looking at the exchange and dissemination of information to the world.  That's what it takes: open, honest, transparent and independent communication.

 And it works.

 

Breaking: Alix Paultre leaves Advantage for the "dark side"

Just got off the phone with Alix Paultre who has left his editorial director position at Advantage Media (ECN) to take a marketing position at Globetek, a privately held player in the power supply industry.

What makes this an unusual move is that there is no downsizing at Advantage.  Globetek made a direct offer to Paultre, who cut his journalistic teeth on power supplies, "out of the blue," according to Paultre.  Chris Warner, current executive editor, will be taking over Paultre's duties for the time being.

Paultre said this opportunity gives him an opportunity to take what he has learned about the changing media landscape and practices and put them into practice in a growing company.  We can probably expect to see Alix's fingerprints on several social media outreaches for the company.

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

 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.

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,.

 

 

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).

Print is still relevant. No, really. It is.

Been having some interesting discussions with social media marketing/techdev types the past few weeks and I've come to realize that the SM industry is about as inbred as an industry can get.  That's not good.  Here's the background:

I am still very tied into the old media world through very deep relationships.  I have good friends that not only work for newspapers, they own them.  5 years ago these friends saw they businesses crumbling but they still thought there was a chance to turn it around and the SM was just a fad.  Today it is quite different.  They understand they were wrong now, but they still don't understand how to put it into the context of their audience... because the SM industry doesn't care about context.  They care about selling stuff... through relationships.  In other words, an industry built on Amway marketing philosophy.

But that's not what social media is supposed to be about.  SM is about building community through shared information.  The health of that community is specifically tied to the validity of the information.  If your core of information is subjective gossip and self-promotion, you will have a very sick community.  If that community is based on objective information and common purpose, you have a healthy community.

That's where the headline comes in.  Our objective information core is still in print and old media.  When I hear people, whatever the age, sit down and talk about the state of the world, their opinion is still based or at least directly influenced by something they read in a newspaper or what someone they know told them about what they read in a newspaper.  Of course it is socially acceptable to say bad things about that source, or whether one actually agrees with the content.  But nonetheless, the core is still a newspaper and generally a local one.

But what happens if that information core goes away, like so many are? John Paton, the new CEO of MediaNews has said he is all in on digital for the future of newspapers, but at the same time MediaNews has been steadily shutting down local papers it buys and creating single entities for large metropolitan entries.  For, example, the respected Contra Costa Times is soon to be melded into a large entity covering everything from Walnut Creek to San Jose.  Good luck getting the news of your town's city council when that happens.  The community essense will be going away and with it an informed local electorate.

Even when a newspaper has only 10 percent of the local population reading it, that means 1 in 10 people you know are reading that paper and are influenced by it.  Ten percent of the electorate is nothing to sneeze at.  President Obama would kick his dog if it would boost his rating by 10 percent right now.  So why would a social media company turn up it's nose at the opportunity to reach 10,000 users every single freaking day?  I don't know either, but they are.

Communications is not an either/or process.  We have been hearing that social media will kill newspapers for a long time, but they are still there (and in fact are growing at 10 percent per annum outside of Europe and the US). TV was supposed to kill radio, but it is still there, too.  In fact, every form of communication since the dawn of media is still in use somewhere (What about stone carving, you ask? Anyone read --- in newspaper probably --- about the Martin Luther King Memorial).  There is a large as yet untapped market out there ready to be taken.  For the social media company that realizes that partnering with an old media company-- and making themselves relevant to their needs -- it will be the golden key to success.  All those that don't will end up following MySpace into irrelevancy.

It Starts

    The past couple of posts I've thrown out a few "what-ifs" regarding how we place a value on information and whether competing on control of the information is a productive effort
    Of course I was setting everything up for this post, which is something I've been hinting at for months as we've negotiated and discussed a bunch of stuff.  We're ready to let the cat out of the bag officially.  Starting this week Footwasher Media has begun a collaborative program working with Hearst Electronics Group on a “Collaborative Journalism”program with Premier Farnell as the sponsor.  We will develop and share original content developed by Hearst's electronic industry publications, Footwasher Media's www.newtechpress.net, and Premier Farnell's element14 website.  It is not a PR program.  It is not a marketing program.  We don't push products or services and we don't represent anyone. It's real journalism for technology audiences, with substantial content.
    The Collaborative Journalism approach, developed by Footwasher Media, combines the best practices of journalism ethics and social media engagement, developing content internally and in partnership with established, respected freelance journalists within the electronics world.  The content is published by the participants, often simultaneously.  The result is a collaborative process between vendors and the media  carrying the content, driving engagement with multiple audiences on a high degree of trust.
    Footwasher Media is creating new content that can be published in part or in whole by Hearst, at its discretion, across its various publication vehicles at no cost to the Hearst organization.
    Premier Farnell, as the primary sponsor of the effort, gets a seat at the editorial table and can offer its own original content, subject to discussion and review of the media prtners.  All content published under the program will adhere to a Statement of Ethics, following the guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists and an Collaboration Bill of Rights.  In exchange for this content, Hearst will acknowledge Footwasher Media as the source of all content they provide.
    We will cover broad portfolio of subject matter to cover, ranging from design services and tools, and components and systems, to engineering legislation and alternative energy leveraging element14's extensive reach into multiple subject areas.
    Hearst is the first media participant in the program and has been extremely helpful in building the concept over the past year.  Bill Barron, vice president and publishing director at Hearst Electronics Group, has been particularly supportive.  The only thing he doesn't like is that he knows it isn't an exclusive arrangement.  We are already in talks with other media centers to share appropriate content.  But he is the first and I am extremely grateful for the participation.
    Now let me be very specific here.  Premier Farnell get no special consideration in this arrangement.  They are financially supporting the effort with an eye to increasing their influence in their target market, which is the same reason any company makes an advertising buy.  They have just realized that simply buying advertising along side of all their competitors isn't enough.  They need to build trust and they need to provide a differentiator.  So they are willing to give away information to anyone who wants it and support the creation of good content.
    At the same time, we all recognize that getting everyone to change their paradigm to openness and collaboration without boundaries is a fool's errand.  Someone has to take the first step.  And we are taking it.
    Are we crazy?  Probably.  But we've been quietly posting new content for the past week, and the response with absolutely no promotion has been outstanding and far exceeding expectations.  It works.