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Necessity and Invention

Last week the Times-Picayune, one of the most respected newspapers in the world, acted like it did not want to “go gently into that good night” and become a footnote in Wikipedia. We have come to expect spineless fatalism in the newspaper business (when they are not bribing policemen or making up stories out of whole cloth) so this move is a stunning display of thought leadership from a medium most people are sure is on the brink of extinction.

Now, everyone knows there are challenges with ink on paper as a business model: the production process is dirty (ink is toxic, paper-making is a foul operation, and a massive amount of energy is used to print and distribute newspapers); content is increasingly devoid of investigative journalism or other noble journalistic pursuits; and the business model is twenty years out of date. But it worth remembering that there is nothing inherently “wrong” with the medium as a way to deliver information. Paper has, in fact, several advantages: it doesn’t short-circuit if it gets a little wet; it’s surprisingly portable; and it doesn’t require an energy source to read it.

So what happens when publishers really look at the print medium seriously and creatively, the way they have educated themselves on tablet and mobile apps? Well, no one really knows. Here are a few thoughts on what might happen if print were truly embraced:

  • Frequency: Whatever happened to “Extra, Extra, Read all about it!” anyway? Why not push the current model further and reserve weekends for long investigative pieces and tiny visually oriented editions for the daily commute?
  • Themed editions (Olympics, elections, micro-community editions, regional business topics — commercial space business in Northern VA, entertainment innovation in L.A., green energy in Houston)
  • Specialty papers (canoeing guides on water-proof laminated pages; imagery heavy mini-magazines; heavy % recycled paper for “green” audiences.
  • Creative trim sizes (pocket-sized, coffee table sized).
  • Content based on primary information: creatively displayed facts, not opinions; hyper-local interactive pieces that can actually build community awareness.

Newspapers and print media aren’t dead yet. And the collapse of the business model for certain types of print products might be an opportunity to finally separate the medium from the model thus freeing publishers up to focus on crafting compelling content. It wouldn’t be the first time New Orleans showed the world what creativity is all about.

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posted by Shyamali Ghosh on May 31, 2012

Social Currency

Last Friday’s public stock offering by Facebook has led to a lot of speculation about the value of data. What often gets lost in the shuffle, however, is that the value of most data (and this is especially true of “big data”) is squandered by the inability of analysts to sift the gold from the mud in a timely manner.

For instance, let’s say your multinational employer has a few dozen Facebook sites for various popular products and you wanted to get customer reaction to a new product offering. Right now a talented marketing manager would post something on the site (at the right day and time, of course, based on response analysis stats) coordinate other social media around the theme of the post and wait for the social consensus to emerge. But how, really, is that done? Guessing at the consensus (i.e., “people seem to like it”) might have worked a year ago, but that doesn’t guarantee our young MBA’s job security in a world where the difference between 49% and 72% is something the senior managers insist on knowing.

For this reason there has been a flurry of activity among B2B players in the Facebook ecosystem. Austin-based Spredfast has a social marketing platform that is quickly being adopted by most of these major players. Another Austin player, PolyGraph Media also de-cloaks this week with its eye-popping tool for analyzing social discussions on major Facebook sites. These players are laying the foundation for the kind of true real-time analytical capacity required to accurately assess the ROI on social marketing investments and it’s not a moment too soon.

How much are these tools needed? The Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association study “Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data” points out that only 14% of social marketing investments are even measured against financial returns at all and 40% of social marketing efforts can’t even be analyzed in a timely manner. Don’t expect those numbers to stay that way, though. Help is on the way.

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posted by Shyamali Ghosh on May 20, 2012

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