FRANKthoughts

From Mashable’s article on How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans for a Seattle bag business .

“She said the company’s success on social media starts with their bags and that social media tools have given them more powerful ways to connect.” – Darcy Gray, vice president at Tom Bihn bags.

Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Who wants yesterday’s girl?
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Nobody in the world.

Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones wrote this about his ex-girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton in the 1960’s – but today it seems consumers on a wider scale don’t even want today’s ‘paper’.  Much has been written about falling readership and the rise of new media, micro-bloggers and so on.  Sharp decreases in ad revenue, job losses and tangible changes in media consumption have also left The Independent Newspaper in the UK asking (in a very funky, interactive way) “What next for newspapers?’.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers thinks we should stop talking about the death of newspapers and start talking about the rise of news brands. To paraphrase their report, they believe trusted news brands will still hold sway, however the delivery mechanism and interaction with content will be radically different.  Of course, this is already happening.

The New York Times is one such ‘traditional’ media outlet grappling with the change.  Their Facebook (460,000 fans and an immense amount of content), Twitter (1.4m followers on the main channel alone with many other individual channels), and blog section (with 70-80 RSS feeds in specific areas of interest) give consumers options to access the media on their own terms – more opportunities for more people to interact more often.  Fantastic.  I am personally subscribed to a number of their online touchpoints, without needing to pick up a copy of the paper from a Manhattan street vendor.

This process of change raises two questions though – who manages this new space, and should all this stuff be free?

The first question of management – NY Times’ appointed Social Media Editor was recently criticised for not being fully immersed in the social media space.  Mashable wondered why Jennifer Preston, despite her job title, hadn’t tweeted in over a month (and then the day after the report was posted, why her frequency of posting went through the roof).  Her response was that she was in the process of ‘listening’ and working out how she can best bring value to the conversation and most effectively guide her journalists.

Mashable make a valid point.  Full credit to the NY Times for identifying the need to change and having a red hot go at it – but how can you be a social media editor and not fully utilise all the tools, participate in the conversation, and learn from inevitable mistakes when starting out?

I imagine an extensive amount of human and technical resource goes into managing the output and content of their social communities, without these consumers helping to pay the bills for their offices, computers, photographers, editors, and quality investigative reporters through newspaper sales and subscriptions (outside of online ad revenues).  And while the paper also ‘profits’ from increased user engagement, time spent with brand, and on a number of other metrics,  the second question arises – should it continue to be free?

NY Times are reconsidering the overall structure of their business model, recently asking subscribers if they would be willing to pay for online content.  The Wall Street Journal is already charging US$1.99/week for access to online premium content.  The possibility exists for New York Times to charge $US5 a month to access news/blog/multimedia content online.  They have already dabbled in this area – ending a 2 year experiment in 2007 that generated US$10m annually from premium subscriptions – which at its peak attracted 200,000 users.

The broader issue is that NY Times is only one publication – and that this trend can be multiplied across the hundreds and thousands of local and national newspapers globally.  Should all content be free?  Or should we move to a subscription model?  Should this be for all content, or premium content only?  How much is a fair price? And would you consider paying for all news sites?  eg. you would pay US$5 a month for the New York Times content, but not a cent for the Banbury Cake newspaper?

The danger of course (which is a frightening thought) is that after all the journalists have disappeared, future news services may be reduced to Today Tonight reports on extending your life by 20 years, celebrity gossip rubbish and popular content on major online portals funded by display advertising.  Is this where we want to be?  Or should we all pitch in and save credible journalism?

An interesting article from Mashable! popped up earlier in the week which looked at how some brands are using Facebook to engage consumers.

Ben & Jerry’s, Adobe and the Fast & Furious movie release have all used the network in an effective manner recently as part of their overall brand strategy, the results of which are now being promoted on Facebook’s Marketing Solutions . The page is complete with case studies from the above brands, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers on how to get the best out of the site.

Adobe engaged design students with a ‘real or fake’ photography campaign using their Photoshop tool, to promote substantial discounts on their software that they were offering this target group. The campaign registered outstanding levels of interaction that eventually translated to sales.

By adding unique content about the new Fast & Furious movie to Vin Diesel’s fan page, the star added an additional 1million fans in a couple of weeks, helping the film register a strong box office result.

Ben & Jerry’s enabled users to share fun and personalised content with their friends about their favourite Ben & Jerry’s flavours, published in their news feed.

Since the rise in popularity of online social media, commentators have been speculating on how sites such as Twitter and Facebook will ‘monetise’ their growth in user base, like Google did with search engine marketing. Many brands have also struggled to come to terms with how they should position their brand on these networks.

With any social media play (and like the examples above), the primary objective must be to add value for the consumer; offering more opportunities for consumers to engage with the brand, where, when, and how they want to. This can only start from having a social media strategy that understands the consumer, the market the brand operates in, and how best they can add value to the consumer on an ongoing basis.