what traditional media can
by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt
learn from social media

and this is also not a presentation on how social
media is going to save the day...

stuff that DOES save the day
1. relevance
2. interestingness
3. engagement

be relevant
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92wardsenatorfe/3126055165/

relevance is how well media organizations deliver
what matters to their readership.

“The reports of my death have been greatly
exaggerated.”
Mark Twain

Did you know 4.0?
(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

How People Get Their News
90.0
67.5
40% get
their news
45.0 online
22.5
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Television Newspaper Internet
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1066/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source

Respondents Aged 18-29 - 2006-2007-2008
68
62
59
59
59% get
their news
online!
34
32
29 28
23
18
16
13
5 6
3 4
1 0
Television Internet Newspapers Radio Magazines Other

Up until journalism became a profession rather
than a trade...(p)ublishers paid attention to
readers needs and wants, and hired and trained
editors and reporters accordingly...
Howard Owens, "Maybe it's Journalism Itself That is the Problem"
http://www.howardowens.com/2008/maybe-its-journalism-itself-that-is-the-problem/

The Public’s Opinion of the Media
70
63
59
29
27
21
14
8 9
Get Facts Straight Admit Mistakes Professional
Yes No Don’t Know
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1341/press-accuracy-rating-hits-two-decade-low

The goal is to find some meaningful measure of
reader satisfaction and fashion a new journalism
that meets reader needs...
Make your focus your audience. Try to figure
out what readers want, not just what you
think they want.
Howard Owens, "Reporters and editors should develop a reader satisfaction index"
http://www.howardowens.com/2008/reporters-and-editors-should-develop-a-reader-satisfaction-index/

and are you giving them what they want?

Media Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009
16
15
11
5 5
Health Care Economic Crisis North Korea US Auto Industry Sonia Sotomayor
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

Blogger Top News Stories August 3-9, 2009
24
19
11
8
7
College Lawsuit Freed Journalists Radiohead Song Newspaper Troubles Obama Admin.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

and on Twitter?
7%
7%
9% 35%
19%
Twitter Outage
23% Iran
ITV Sells Site
John Hughes Dies
News Corp Charges 4 Content
Other
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1313/social-media-talks-about-social-media

the good news.

where people find
3%
their news online.
28%
52%
10%
News Sites
7% Twitter
Email Newsletters
Aggregators
Blogs (by reporters/analysts)
http://www.fortexgroup.com/best-practice-surveys/40-study-on-how-people-get-their-news-online

top news sites - august 9, 2009
Site Monthly Visitors Inbound Links
CNN.com 25,900,000 27,246,000
news.yahoo.com 18,800,000 15,857,000
digg.com 12,300,000 544,422,000
nytimes.com 12,200,000 33,792,000
USAtoday.com 9,800,000 13,197,000
BBC.co.uk 2,400,000 27,243,000
reuters.com 12,400,000 19,180,000
washingtonpost.com 6,900,000 16,717,000
news.google.com 5,700,000 19,066,000
huffingtonpost.com 11,100,000 8,013,000
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites

so...how do you become more relevant?

1. have your ear to the ground

For any beat...there is a listing of topical tweeters:
sciencepond.com
facecaker.com
followformation.com
wefollow.com
geofollow.com legalbirds.com

2. be part of the community you cover

being part of the community
a) talk to your readers
b) get out to events
c) find out what your current readers respond to and do more
of that (not the same subject, but the same kind of story)

3. learn from feedback (the data is there!)

nytimes.com
news.yahoo.com cnn.com

“the most– e-mailed and most-blogged stories in
the paper, as well as the most-used search terms...
(is) a rough gauge of reader behavior, to be sure,
but as it turns out, a fairly consistent one.”
Michael Hirschorn, "The Pleasure Principle" The Atlantic Monthly Dec 07
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/newspaper

bloggers won their audiences by figuring out what
is relevant to their readers and then producing
more of it...there are no barriers - customer call in
centers or walls - between a blogger and his/her
audience so the learning is faster and more agile.

be
http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelldavies/375432858/

“Stop being important and start being interesting.”
Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic Monthly

it’s not about you, the awards, how awesome you
are, your page views, etc...it’s about...

being interesting doesn’t mean chasing
ambulances and sensational headlines...it means
that you bring value to your reader’s lives...

DELIGHT
Jacek Utko
http://www.utko.com/
“I came to London, and I've seen performance by Cirque du
Soleil. And I had a revelation. I thought, "These guys took some
creepy, run down entertainment, and put it to the highest
possible level of performance art." I thought "Oh my God,
maybe I can do the same with these boring newspapers." And I
did.”
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html

Utko’s Redesign Process
1. Strategy: what is our goal?
2. Content: which content serves the readers better?
3. Design: does the design flow with the content & strategy? what’s the reader
experience?
4. Testing: how do readers use this? react? is it meeting the reader’s needs?
5. Workflow: how can the organization, itself, change to produce better
products?
6. Branding: how can we tie this together across platforms?
7. Execution: how can we ensure continuous quality?
http://www.utko.com/index.php?id=22

SIMPLIFY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/3362224306/
Nate Silver - fivethirtyeight
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
“The uncanny, poll-wrangling, stats-freaking Nate Silver
took it upon himself to demonstrate that some level of
governable, rational reality could be brought to bear on
the confusing world of competing tracking polls, and
along the way all but cemented the geek-chic trajectory
of this election season.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/24/2008-the-year-in-media-hi_n_153362.html

if you can succeed in making your readers feel
smarter, more in control, sexier, excited and
more interesting themselves, you will win.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slack12/352361865/
be
ing

engagement is about creating a deeper level of
interaction between yourself and your readers as
well as between your readers and other readers.

1. sharing

2. discussing

3. portability

4. connecting/getting social

5. mixing the media

at the end of the day, it is the blending of social
media and traditional media that will produce the
future of media...this is not an ‘or’ situation, it’s
an ‘and’ situation...

the big question is...even with all of this...

WILL
TRADITIONAL
MEDIA
SURVIVE?

is it too late?

people don’t like paying for digital stuff
“Economically, the print media are in the
business of marking up paper. We can all
imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and
saying "this will sell a lot of papers!" Cross out that
final S and you're describing their business model.”
Paul Graham on Post-Medium Publishing
http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html

advertising models are mostly flawed
Sales teams are expensive, there is the issue
of the balance of being objective while
making advertisers happy (multiple conflicts
with this)...

non-profit models? hyperlocal? niche markets?
maybe? feels like these models would work for
some, but not for all. great examples emerging
that can test this out.

http://www.bayareanewsproject.org/

“Our community has 25,000 members. 1%
produces content and a 1,000 are very active.
Among the active, you have what we call "guests".
They are bloggers and columnists that are paid on
a revenue sharing basis. Amateurs send 400 to
500 contributions and write 6,000 comments a
day.”
Benoît Raphaël, Editor & Chief, Le Post
interview at:
http://mediacafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/le-post-successful-and-innovative-news.html

http://current.com/

http://current.com/

the answer doesn’t lie in social media itself, but
rather what we our customers and their needs as
the adoption of social networks increases...

thanks! these people gave me LOADS of ideas...
• Rachel Weidinger - @rachelannyes
• Burt Herman - @burtherman
• Will Straw, PhD - http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw.html
• Alex Ikonnikov - @alexikonn
• Jay Seidel - Professor, Fullerton College
• Adam McNamara - @adammcnamara
• Heather Flyte - http://www.hbflyte.com/
• Kellan Elliott-McCrea - @kellan
• Chris O’Brien - @sjcobrien
• If I forgot you...tell me! And I’m sorry!

Order
Whuffie
today!
http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com

licensing:
share/remix/spread ... but don’t forget to attribute.
http://slideshare.net/missrogue

photos/screenshots
• most of those gorgeous photos are from istockphoto.com unless indicated on
the photo as a link to a Flickr creative commons shot
• screenshots were snapped on Skitch (plasq.com)
• please do not re-post the photos as it will be a violation of their copyright/left.
however, have at the screenshots where you will!

contact me:
Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt
horsepigcow@gmail.com
@missrogue
montreal, quebec, canada
514-679-2951
http://www.horsepigcow.com