I've been to literally half a dozen seminars in the past few months about social media. Everybody is excited about it. Government and business communicators are excited about it because it's an inexpensive, often free, way to get information to their clients and citizens.
Since the elections there's been a seminar every week on how the candidates used social media.
People who are entrenched in social media are very excited about it because it's creating new ways to do their jobs, and in some cases, actually creating jobs. Bloggers, Facebook users, Tweeters are all feeling a part of a social information revolution.
Only the established press is not excited. I recently attended several lectures at the Virginia Press Association headquarters in Glen Allen. I got in through the backdoor. I maintain a membership in the Virginia Press Women and that group was invited to this VPA event to fill chairs. In the two social media tracks I attended, the presenters were excited about how newspapers can embrace this technology and make it their own.
Like: find your cities' most influential, popular bloggers and link to them on your newspaper's website.
Some of the editors and reporters from small towns across the state said they had no idea how to find such bloggers, or even if they existed. The rest were downright hostile. Bloggers traffic in rumors and untruths, according to the press. Why do they want to link to bloggers?
One presenter showed how reporters who also blog are doing amazing jobs covering sports. Sports is a weekend game. No one wants to wait until the Monday morning paper to read about the game or comment back. The sports reporters who are online are instantly reporting. This often means staying up late after the game is over to converse with readers, or writing and posting on Sunday.
On Sunday.
You can feel the room ice up with Virginia-resistance.
Some of these sports bloggers have become their own self-employed news hubs, divorcing their papers and setting up advertiser-supported websites to report on their beats.
As evidence that bloggers are liars, one Richmond rep mentioned bloggers and Tweeters had gotten the Ukrop's grocery store chain sale story all wrong, that they fanned a rumor that turned out to be false. Did it? The core of the story is true. The supermarket chain was faltering and might very well take a good offer. (It's 2012 now, and that's exactly what happened. Social media had the freedom to speculate on it first because the grocery store, a major advertiser, had cooled the story to the daily paper to not influence the sale.)
The moderator brought up several types of stories -- like how to buy and finance your own home without a realtor -- and asked how many papers were doing those kind of stories? In these perilous financial times when no newspaper wants to lose more advertising, do advertisers control the type of stories written?
There was no shouting of nay, nay or blasphemy! blasphemy! Everybody there knew it was true.
Another lecture was about how to make money from social media. It's hard to get ad salesmen excited about selling digital button ads at $100 or less. Some innovators have found ways to automate it. But here was the future of ad selling: Twitter!
The Austin Statesman will run certain types of ads -- those that offer discounts, coupons or magic word incentives -- on its Twitter feed for two Tweets a day for $150.
But what's going to keep a person with a healthy following from undercutting you? Tweeting your ad twice a day for $50? Or just doing it for free. You'll be craiglisted in weeks. In fact, I pointed out, in Richmond we already have @rvabargains doing that and @styleoffers is trying to get off the ground.
Ice.
2 comments:
Social media's advantages are becoming more evident- less expensive, faster, and more interactive than any traditional media.
I don't dispute any of your thoughts but the disadvantages will gradually become more evident-
more reactive than reflective, less researched, 'herd' mentality, and this big one- dependent on availability and freedom of technology and telecommunications.
From what I have seen the mentality of the larger Virginia newspapers is to wait for a big even to occur (typically a tragedy), and report that it happended.
Hello. That is why we have TV. Newspapers are becoming more and more like TV without the moving video.
They have really boxed themselves in with all their "happy news" and style reporting, because it doesn't give them a competitive advantage with amateurs who can publish the same quality product on the internet.
What newspapers used to be good at is news gathering and research, but no more.
As an example,Bill Mckelway of the Richmond Times wrote an article about alleged embezzlement at the Virginia Birth-related Neurological Injury Compensation Program, where an employee has been charged with embezzling more than $800,000.00
Some review of the legality of the Board of Directors decisions and oversight might have been in order by McKelway. The minutes of that Board's meetings since 2003 do not appear to be in compliance with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
McKelway was at some of their meetings and had access to all their minutes, but just as in the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, the Board gets a pass from the media.
Inf act, numerous meetins were attended by Assistant Attorney Generals, but the critical attendance section of the minutes is still inaccurate, and could cast a cloud on the decisions of the Board. McKelway missed all of this.
The issue of the role and the real responsibility of Citizen Boards is something that the newspaper would have to educated the public abou; but the Times will only educate you how to prepare your home for sale, or deep fry your Thanksgiving turkey, or plan your vacation. Funny, the Times Dispatch has become a sort of regionalized version of Better Homes and Gardens or Southern Living.
The publishers scratch their heads and wonder why circulation is down.
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