IN THIS ISSUE:

2010: THE YEAR SOCIAL MEDIA GOES MAINSTREAM
MAKING MONEY: ISN'T THAT OUR REAL MISSION?
TOOLS OF THE TRADE - 12SECONDS
MEDIA 2.0 101: CONTINUOUS NEWS IS A SOCIAL LOOP
USING HTML TO HELP THE USER EXPERIENCE
QUOTE OF THE WEEK

2010: THE YEAR SOCIAL MEDIA GOES MAINSTREAM
by Ken Elmore
I have heard all the comments before, "I don't get Twitter" or "why should I care what a friend I never liked in high school is doing with their life now on Facebook." Yes, there are many people and companies that just haven't figured it out.

Social Media is about being social, continuous online conversations that are carrying millions of voices around the world. Sharing thoughts, ideas, opinions and becoming a force in media marketing.

Twitter is estimated to have more than 10 million users globally, and Facebook, 350 million. With this kind of reach it should come as no surprise that long standing legacy organizations are finding social media as the newest pipeline that leads directly to their customers.Two prime examples have surfaced this week, The Grammy's and Super Bowl 44.

The Recording Academy, the organization that runs the Grammy's has traditionally looked at social media like most other companies. Not ready for prime time. But this year, the 53 year old academy shed its staid disposition and jumped head first into social marketing.

A website was created to host the social efforts, www.wereallfans.com. Mentions of Grammy nominees on social sites were scraped and brought to one location. YouTube channels were created, Twitter conversations emerged and suddenly the Grammy's were viral.

The social strategy was a huge marketing success for the Grammy's broadcast, at a time when awards shows are traditionally declining in viewers. The Grammy's posted a 35% increase in audience over 2009 and the largest audience in the last five years.

The social media site Mashable reports the campaign created:

• 125,760 Facebook Fans
• 48,776 Twitter Followers
• 1,505,838 combined views on YouTube for the "we're All Fans" campaign videos
• 2,050,699 combined views on Grammy.com for the "we're All Fans" campaign videos
• The Grammy's were a trending topic on Twitter for more than four days

Viewers were even allowed to pick one of the songs Bon Jovi would perform live on stage during the broadcast, "Living on a Prayer."

A textbook case of moving online users, on-air.

Evan Green, Chief Marketing Officer for the Recording Academy told Mashable, the toughest part was actually embracing social media in the first place, "the Academy has always tried to manage and keep very careful control over its message and brand. By embracing social media, that means giving up that control. Because while the Academy can connect directly with fans, fans can also connect back. That means accepting criticism and engaging in a discussion in a public way, something that just isn't the norm for the Academy."

The Super Bowl telecast is now getting into the social marketing game too. Budweiser, a traditional advertiser for the game, is breaking away from the pack and allowing online users to choose the commercials it will debut on-air on game day via Facebook. The largest reported Super Bowl advertiser, according to Ad Age, has already generated more than 210,000 fans.

These are excellent examples of legacy companies fully embracing social media and experiencing the benefits of joining in on the conversations that are taking place online.   <Link>

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MAKING MONEY: ISN'T THAT OUR REAL MISSION?
by Terry Heaton
As the years have passed since the disruption of the Web first hit local media, much still seems murky as we search the horizon and prepare for tomorrow. One thing that is crystal clear, however, to many of us who've been studying all this is that the salvation of local media companies won't be associated with the brands that have driven business in the past. It's not that WWWW-TV won't have value or that wwww.com won't make money. The problem is that these are mass media vehicles, and the mass is what's being disrupted. To those of you who are regular readers here, this is no bulletin.

One of the people who has been delivering this message for many years is Gordon Borrell, whose company has been studying the steady shift of local online revenue away from media brands and to those companies who enable commerce at the local level instead of simply serving advertising. On Monday, Borrell Associates holds its first big conference on the subject of making money locally. I'll be there with 399 others, and it promises to be a very important gathering, because the above message is what will be communicated.

Borrell told me that response to the conference has been overwhelming, despite the fact that it hasn't gotten much attention in the tech, journalism or general trade press. Low hype, big payoff is the hope.

We'll have nearly 400 people, which is phenomenal for a conference that's never existed before. I think it's more a testament to "local" being the new black than it is anything else. You have companies like Yodle.com getting another $10 million in funding this week, Yelp getting up to $100 million from Elevation Partners last week, and ReachLocal recently announcing its Initial Public Offering. We've focused exclusively on "local," and we've pretty much ignored the hypey new things by dubbing it "The Business of Making Money Conference." I think that's really struck a chord with media executives who are drowning in swarms of money-losing opportunities in the digital space.

One explanation of the money-losing opportunities is that many of them are associated with bolting the new onto the old, and that means clinging to what our brands represent, rather than exploring genuine new business opportunities in the local space. Borrell pulls no punches is talking about this as he talks about his hopes for attendees.

The big takeaways, I hope, will be that we've been paying attention to the wrong things. That gee-whiz stuff that we've all been reading about — the press releases that companies issue every time they launch something new, and then all the bloggers go, "Ahhhhh. Better watch out for this!" — really amount to nothing but digital flatulence. There are real innovators out there, and they're too busy doing things that generate lots of money to issue press releases and then get invited to speak at conferences. We need to be paying attention to online products that resonate with advertisers and have staying power, not things that are shiny examples of new journalism and brand protection that have no hope of even paying for themselves.

Strong, but true words, and I share his hope that people will come away inspired to reach beyond their brands and discover new ways to generate revenue. Local media companies have a significant advantage over the companies Borrell mentioned above, because we have roots in the local advertising market and sales feet on-the-street. We need to exploit that advantage, and that's what the conference is really all about.

I'll be there with my shiny new Sony Webbie conducting interviews for a special report next week.    <Link>

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TOOLS OF THE TRADE - 12SECONDS
by Ken Elmore
What is the average length of a soundbite in a newscast? Ten, fifteen seconds? A good reporter will keep his interviews tight and to the point, and engaging.

These are the same attributes that struck me about the free online service 12seconds - www.12seconds.tv. 12seconds is a video micro-blogging site, similar to Twitter, but with video, and yes only for 12 seconds.

Here's how it works, shoot video from a mobile phone or webcam and upload it immediately to your 12seconds page. From there the video can be viewed, shared, linked and embedded to anywhere in the world, including your Facebook and Twitter fans.

Even better, your fans can share video with you too.

See where I am going with this? The uses of this simple app are encouraging. Here are a few that immediately came to mind.

Start a contest with viewers on one of your social media pages. Have them send in videos that can play back in your morning or afternoon newscasts. Have a question of the day, and have fun with it.

• What did you think of the Grammy's last night?
• What is the perfect Valentine gift?
• Should we send a man to the moon?
• Can you believe what Simon said on Idol?
• Saints or Colts?

What about reporters or eyewitnesses in the field. The ability to instantly send 12 seconds of audio and video back to the newsroom, with a mobile phone. Here's an example of the annual Gasparilla Pirate Invasion I shot in Tampa this weekend.

This takes social media to a whole new level in my opinion. Face to face interaction with your fans and viewers, building a stronger bond and brand for your organization.

Your 12seconds video can be embedded into your Continuous News page, blog or webpage and shared on social networks.

So does it work? Amy Wood, multimedia journalist and anchor at WSPA-TV (CBS) in Greenville/Spartanburg, SC thinks so. She's had great success on her blog and station website. "I have used it for three types of things, as video teases during newscasts, I've recorded short video for blog elements and out when at community events I will use it to shoot video and use later. Its always short enough to be sent by email and super simple to use for just about any phone."

12seconds also recently launched two additional features:

• 12mail - An Iphone app for sending video, audio and still pictures.
• 12seconds Rooms - Users can interact in their own online rooms. Comedian Bill Cosby has one of the first rooms created, and he uses it to share messages with his fans.

Give it a try, and let me know what you think. It'll only take about 12 seconds of your time.   <Link>

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MEDIA 2.0 101: CONTINUOUS NEWS IS A SOCIAL LOOP
by Terry Heaton
The next step for a newsroom participating in the "news as a process" business is to include the audience in the process of gathering and reporting events as they're occurring. This may seem obvious, but Continuous News is a continuous loop that includes consumers on a scale with which traditional media companies are unfamiliar.

Traditional media is a one-to-many paradigm, and this influences our use of social media. We "get" that Twitter, for example, is a great notification system, so a part of its appeal to us is its one-to-many side. We want to get a message "out," and Twitter is very good at that. It's the feedback loop that we fumble with, and this is even true in the Continuous News model. To begin today's lesson, let's back up a bit.

News is evolving away from what I've called "finished products" for several years. To be sure, we'll always have newscasts on TV, some version of a "daily record" in print (after all, we need that first writing of history), and websites that offer completed stories, whether they are blogs, like Duncan Riley's wonderful Inquisitr or online newspapers, such as the Huffington Post. What the news is evolving "to" is a continuous stream of elements that need no finished packaging, as is practiced by the gossip site TMZ.com. You can laugh all you want about the content of TMZ, but they are masters of the concept of continuous news.

Social media is also driving the news business to the continuous stream. This is a new form of news, which, I suppose, is why it's so hard for media companies to explore. We keep defaulting to finished stories and everything that goes with that, and we're missing the opportunities of professional life in the stream.

One thing we must all learn about the stream is that it's not exclusive, because our contributions are just that — our contributions. They're part of a vast linear timeline that is here and now. We don't wait for anything; our deadline is always "now." So if we are but contributing to a much bigger stream than our own, what are our responsibilities to others participating in the stream? This is a critical question, as it relates to our future relevancy as professional journalists in the ongoing stream of consciousness that is the Web. We may even have to interact one day with, OMG, our competitors!

One problem we have with this feedback loop is that we don't control it, and this is counterintuitive. We may not control it, but we can influence it. For example, let's say a television station airs a segment in one of its finished product newscasts that shines a light on the best local tweets of the day on that particular story or issue. We certainly can use such — and we should — but how many of us go the extra mile and notify those people that we're using their creations? What happens when we do that? Lots of things:

• We acknowledge that the stream is bigger than just us.
• We give credit to those who participate, thereby encouraging others to do so.
• They get a chance to notify their friends about "being on TV."
• Our Twitter street creds grow exponentially.
• Our "finished" presentation is better served, and we're better off for it.

The same holds true for comments on our sites. Merely acknowledging their presence is big, but connecting back with them is even bigger. Interaction begets interaction. If we have none, we must look in the mirror. The stream is alive with people — our people — each of whom has a place in the infrastructure that is Continuous News, and we're smart if we lead that all that participation by example.

When big events take place, do we create hashtags that everybody can use? Do we engage those on Twitter through the use of hashtags or through replies or direct messages? The people formerly known as the audience are waiting to be invited in, but not just to become our pawns (let's face it — that's what they mostly are have been to us).

In the stream, we're all equal. Let's not forget it.

Continuous News is a work-in-progress. We're all learning as we go along. The AR&D clients who practice the concept are, we believe, far ahead of their competitors who don't. "News as a process" is a lot different than finished product news, and that includes the way it's monetized. The sooner we learn how to drop commercial messages into the stream, the better off our bottom lines will be served. Our clients are figuring all this out as they go along.

Others in the business are waiting for somebody to figure it out first. What they don't realize is that by the time "the book" is complete on Continuous News, it'll be too late for them.   <Link>

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USING HTML TO HELP THE USER EXPERIENCE
by Terry Heaton
Take a look at this screen grab showing my iGoogle page, and specifically links to stories in the New York Times widget.

This is the "title" attribute, something I see very few media company sites using. If you want to encourage people to click on links (are you paying attention advertisers?), then use the title tag to help users make that decision.

The title attribute is meant to provide additional information about an element, which is displayed as a tool-tip by most graphical browsers. The title attribute can be used to describe any HTML element except for base, basefont, head, html, meta, param, script, and title.

An excellent use for the title attribute is to provide descriptive text within a link to let the users know where the link will direct them if they click on it. When the user places their mouse over the link, it will display a small tool-tip displaying the title text that you've provided. This is exactly what the Times is doing, and I think it should be best practices for all media company websites. I also think it should be mandatory in unbundled or place-based distribution applications.

Of course, it means more work for those entering data, but much of working on the Web is simple, blue-collar stuff. The end result, however, is a much better connection with users and the Web itself.

From what I gather, title tags don't assist with Search Engine Optimization, but that shouldn't be the only reason we fill our sites with helpful data.   <Link>

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK We need to get past this idea of saving, because the status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. Not just in print of course, but in your industry too. Seth Godin, in a tough love post about saving the newspaper business. Education is next.