As Twitter becomes a bit noisy with its growing popularity (and celeb status) more users are looking for ways to segment the groups of people they are following / conversing with. While this can be done using PeopleBrowsr or Tweetdeck, destination sites like AthleteTweets,CelebrityTweet and newly-introduced JournalistTweets are also becoming popular.
Enter journalisttweets.com. Cision, a global provider of media monitoring, research, distribution, and evaluation services for the PR industry is positioning its free Web destination as a site for PR professionals which provides the inside scoop on developing news stories (WSJ‘snewsroom excluded), by streaming and sorting Twitter traffic from top journalists around the world. (Update: Got an email from Gregory Galant, CEO of Sawhorse Media, who noted that they launched a similar service - MuckRack.com – a month before JournalistTweets.com. Will have an update on their service in the near future.
This beta service delivers tweets from thousands of media sources in North America and the UK, organized by topic or region. It is also fully searchable by content and journalist name to quickly identify key influencers and issues. In addition, a “Top Tweeters” link displays tweets from frequent tweeters at media outlets.
I’ve given the service a quick run and I think it shows some promise. Although brands see better ROI delivering direct to consumer messages via Twitter, folks like myself – handling media relations for clients – have found Twitter to be a great tool for digital media relations.
I do like how JournalistTweets breaks journalists into different sectors (Business / Entertainment / Health / Technology). Actually, I think they should take it one step further. If they could start breaking it out by beats (i.e. consumer tech & gadgets) or even by outlet (i.e. New York Times) I’d be really interested in it. In fact, the latter is something that publications should turn into destination sites for themselves. I’m surprised that BusinessWeek, an advocate for the journalism usages of Twitter, hasn’t created a destination within Businessweek.com called “BWTweets”, which would track tweets from all of BusinessWeek’s editorial staff.
Anyways, I hope that Cision continues to consider adding these other features as I think it could be a good place to track the developments within newsrooms and find relevant media contacts (Cision 3.0 if you will). Of course, in the meantime the amount of journalists on the service needs to be added to (Cision does include a way for people using the service to suggest journalists to add) and they should work with the search functionality, which I was having some trouble with yesterday.
Nevertheless, a step in the right direction for PR services.
I triple dog dare you. Starbucks knows you can’t resist a competition.
Which is why today, Tuesday May 19th, they are challenging you to locate their new billboards in six major U.S. cities and be the first to tweet a photo of the ad.
Starbucks, like any other smart brand, is embracing the social media phenomenon that is Twitter. Twitter, the free micro blogging site, allows users to share their thoughts, musings, or in this case, sightings, with the online community.
There is no doubt that Twitter is the online manifestation of “word of mouth,” and Starbucks recognizes that word of mouth reviews are among the most powerful. Just ask any restaurant that has been slammed on the review site Yelp. In an interview with Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times, Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’ vice president for brand, content and online, says:
“The idea for the Starbucks photo contest came from watching what people already do on Facebook and Twitter . . . Each year, people race to post the first photos of Starbucks shops decorated in red for the holidays on Flickr, people vie to post photos that include multiple Starbucks stores in the same shot. It shows a level of connection to our brand that we wouldn’t have concocted on our own.”
Starbucks can quantify the connection to their brand by their 183,000 followers on Twitter and their 1.5 million fans on Facebook. The company plans to continue their social media efforts, with a new YouTube video series featuring coffee experts talking about what makes Starbucks coffee unique.
The company has been hugely successful with YouTube in the past. Its biggest success being the November 2008 election advertising campaign (which started on TV and spread across the Web) that offered free coffee to voters on November 4th (RaceTalk’s own Ben Haber covered the news).
“On the Saturday before the presidential election, Starbucks sponsored a single 60-second television commercial on “Saturday Night Live” advertising a coffee giveaway on Election Day. Starbucks then posted the video online. By Tuesday, it was the fourth-most-viewed video on YouTube, and people were mentioning Starbucks on Twitter every eight seconds.”
With new ad campaigns utilizing Twitter and YouTube, and a massive following on Facebook, Starbucks is hoping to ride the social media train all the way to the bank against a new, golden-arched rival.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock to miss its advertising barrage -McDonalds is now offering several varieties of coffee drinks and is putting their marketing dollars behind traditional television, print, radio and billboard ads (which Starbucks continues to leverage as well) to entice coffee fanatics to the home of the Big Mac instead.
So while it may be a level playing field on the advertising front, Starbucks clearly has a “social” leg up in the brewing coffee wars.
Silicon Valley has been buzzing about Wolfram Alpha (currently in Beta) as the next Google killer. But what is it? If you haven’t given the new search engine a try (I compare it to Ask.com on steroids) I recommend you do. Andy Jordan has a great video over at WSJ.com (also embedded above) illustrating how it worked for him and some Columbia students .
Charlie has made strides in engaging the health care industry in social media and next-generation communications and is one of few senior executives in the health care industry to keep a blog (LetsTalkHealthCare.org) on health care and health insurance issues, where he engages in ongoing dialogue with readers on a multitude of health care concerns.
Listen here as Larry and Charlie discuss the future of health plans.
Wall Street Journaldeputy managing editor Alix Freedman sent out a memo yesterday to all Wall Street Journal staffers which detailed new social media policies and guidelines for reporters and editors.
The list of guidelines includes some instructions that are meant to cover the Journal with possible legal / source confidentiality issues:
Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.
Others, that are meant to protect their content:
Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.
And some that seem just foolish:
Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
“This misses the chance to make their reporting collaborative. Of course, they should discuss how an article was made. Of course, they should talk about stories as they in progress. Net natives – as WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch calls them – understand this.”
Jeff continued on his point via twitter in a conversation with WSJ Deputy Managing Editor Alan Murray. Followed by a conversation (via Twitter again) with Tim O’Brien, the New York Times Sunday Business Editor. In following the conversation I get both sides of the argument. Jeff believes this is a strike against collaborative reporting (i.e. the wisdom of the crowds) and connecting with your readers. Tim and Alan see it as procedural and legal necessities. I tend to agree more with Jeff.
Yes, I understand that you need to cover yourself, but why do you need to enforce a policy that limits your reporters from sharing how a story was created? Did David Carr get in trouble with Times editors for detailing (within the newspaper) how his colleague Brian Stelter used Twitter to piece together a front page story on viewership of the Olympics? I’m guessing no. They probably applauded him. You see the Times social media policy is a little more open-ended and approving of “Twitter soliciting.” After-all this is an organization that promoted that they reached Steve Jobs for comment through Instant Messenger. The Journal on the other hand appears to be getting a bit too highbrow for its own good with its new guidelines.
Choosing the wisdom of a few over the wisdom of the crowds is certainly a risky proposition in today’s digital age. Especially when competing outlets like BusinessWeek are opening-up more by the day with crowd-sourcing efforts to build reader engagement, and ultimately more advertisers.
Here’s an excerpt from the memo (via Editor & Publisher) that details the Dow Jones and WSJ social media policies in full:
The use of social and business networking sites by reporters and editors of the Journal, Newswires and MarketWatch is becoming more commonplace. These ground rules should guide all news employees’ actions online, whether on Dow Jones sites or in social-networking, e-mail, personal blogs, or other sites outside Dow Jones.
* Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you’re acting on behalf of your Dow Jones publication or service. When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a reporter for the Journal, Newswires or MarketWatch and be tonally neutral in your questions.
* Base all comments posted in your role as a Dow Jones employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.
* Don’t recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work.
* Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.
* Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
* Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.
* Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage.
* Don’t engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.
* Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual on Dow Jones sites. Phrases such as “Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y…” are acceptable while counseling a reader “You should choose X…” is not. Giving generalized advice is the best approach.
* All postings on Dow Jones sites that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting.
* Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.
As I mentioned yesterday, a large drop in ad sales at MySpace means that social network ad sales will fall 3% this year. However, according to Blake Boznanski, an Ad Sales Executive at LinkedIn (who visited Racepoint’s San Francisco office yesterday), the “business relationship” social network is still very bullish about ad growth – less than a year after launching its own ad network for the site.
LinkedIn’s key differentiator is its demographic. More than a quarter of which are senior executives. Another quarter of which are “professional networkers” who rank high in social network influence. Compare this with the demographics of Facebook and the masses that visit its site. Sure, LinkedIn is around 1/7 the size of Facebook in terms of users, but I’d make the print analogy that LinkedIn is the Wall Street Journal to Facebook’s USA Today. Like the Journal, a large group of LinkedIn’s demographic have six-figure salaries and high purchasing power. In fact, LinkedIn is one of the top destinations on the Web for those with a college degree.
Some of the relatively new features, which LinkedIn has rolled out over the last year to allow marketers to target this demographic of prospective customers, includes: customized applications and appplication sponsorship, Q&A sponsorship, group sponsorship, partnership messages, poll programs and group sponsorships.
LinkedIn currently hosts apps from companies such as SlideShare, Google and Tripit and is open to collaborating on additional customized applications with additional advertisers / brands. In addition, there is an opportunity for marketers to sponsor third party apps and event apps. For instance, the application from Tripit, which lets you see where and when your LinkedIn network is traveling, has created sponsorship opportunities on the site for hotels and airlines. The same sponsorship opportunity exists for the 10,000 plus events that are now listed on LinkedIn.
Poll partnerships have also become a new way for brands to connect with LinkedIn’s demographic. The most widely known partnership being LinkedIn’s deal with CNBC, which has drawn huge engagement from the LinkedIn community. Under the agreement, CNBC has also become LinkedIn’s preferred business media provider and offers CNBC articles, blogs, financial data, and video content to LinkedIn’s user base – in exchange for the community-generated content (LinkedIn / CNBC polls) exclusively provided for CNBC.
Group pages are growing in popularity (nearly 300,000 of them) on LinkedIn and have added recent features that allow group managers to send an announcement via email to their group members. This, combined with applications and RSS feeds pushing content into these group / fan pages has created a rich / vibrant community to advertise within. Brands can sponsor a federation of user created groups or target users of specific groups throughout LinkedIn.
Another feature that is growing in popularity is featured question functionality that can be promoted throughout the LinkedIn community. Featured questions from executive leaders or “brand celebrities” allow brands to engage with the community, create dialogue and gain further insight. For instance, Garry Kelly, Southwest Airline’s CEO, recently used the question feature to ask how an airline can make people more productive and was greeted with numerous responses that he and the community could view.
As for its “basic” display and text ads, Boznanski noted that LinkedIn still handles all of its ad placements, unlike other social networks that have outsourced to other ad networks. This, he says, “allows LinkedIn to target better.” LinkedIn supports text-based ads and display ads (300×250, 150×600, 728×90 and video). It also only allows a limited amount of ads per page, giving advertisers a bigger “share of page.” All of this has led to speculation that LinkedIn has a CPM in the range of $75 for targeted / customized advertising. Comparatively, Facebook CPM rates for display ads on the destination site are rumored to be in the $0.50 – $1 range and advertising within social apps on Facebook are going for CPM’s as low as $0.12.
Although LinkedIn may have been assisted on its current growth pattern by the economic climate and people searching for jobs, Boznanski noted that LinkedIn’s steady growth began in advance of the recession and they expect it to continue beyond the end of the recession – as they look to expand their ad sales business and overall community growth.
Sales of Social Network Ads are Growing on Facebook but Declining Across the Industry as a Whole
I’ve mentioned in the past that social media spending is on the rise, despite marketing budgets being cut across industries during the recession. Aberdeen found in March that 63% of companies (defined as best-in-class) plan to increase their social media marketing budgets this year. Before that, Forrester reported that 95% of social media marketers will maintain or increase social media spending in the downturn.
However, while earned social media marketing spend is rising, it appears that paid social media marketing is on the decline. At least that is what eMarketer is predicting. Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer, notes today that:
“U.S. social network ad spending will fall 3% to $1.14 billion in 2009, from $1.18 billion in 2008. This is a significant turnaround from previous years. Spending grew an estimated 33% in 2008 and 129% in 2007″
eMarketer’s reasoning behind the forecast downgrade is focused on trouble at Owen Van Natta’s MySpace. eMarketer had predicted that marketers would spend $630 million to advertise on MySpace in 2009. However, following an earnings call by News Corp. (Mypace’s parent) on May 6th which covered ad revenue dropping 16 % in January – March 2009, eMarketer now projects that U.S. ad spending on MySpace will reach just $495 million this year, down 15% from the estimated $585 million MySpace generated in 2008.
While other social networks (such as Facebook) are forecasted to increase their ad revenues this year, their expected gains won’t be enough to offset the industry losses associated with MySpace. Facebook is expected to increase its U.S. ad revenues 9.5% in 2009, to $230 million.
So why is paid social media marketing spend declining, while earned social media marketing spend is increasing? In short, marketers are having a hard time with leveraging advertising to converse with consumers online.
“Brands are now becoming conversation factors where academics, celebrities, experts and key opinion formers discuss functional, emotional and, more interestingly, social concerns, and of course, the conversation is no longer one way or 30 seconds.”
Paid social media marketing continues to be one way in most regards and the click-throughs (or lack there of) illustrate the relatively low ROI that current (not very targeted) campaigns are producing. On the other hand, earned social media marketing within social networks, which can take on many forms (i.e: content creation, content aggregation, brand ambassador activation, securing brand mentions, etc), creates an ongoing, multi-person conversation, which brands can continually influence and engage individuals within.
The ROI on these earned conversations and the online stories / blog posts that may grow out of them, are very powerful. According to a poll conducted by Forrester in December of last year, consumers are more likely to trust information they get through social networking profiles of people they know than information provided in print magazines. In addition, compared with banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links, online articles that include brand mentions were most likely to lead US Internet users to read—and act according to a poll conducted by ARAnet in April.
A joint earned and paid media approach to marketing within social networks will be the best practice of the future, but it appears that marketers are turning more of their current attention to earned / non-paid media to reach consumers during their 3 hours + (average per month) on Facebook – as social network providers scramble to produce better advertising functionality and targeting capabilities.
The Boston Globe has been a regular in the news lately, as financial problems lead to a $20 million concession demand from their owner, the New York Times Company. Boston Globe staff reporter Sean P. Murphy took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss a few topics including the concession demand, the current state of the Globe, and what the future may hold for the paper.
RaceTalk: While I knew the Boston Globe was having some financial problems, I was shocked to see the headline “Times Co. threatens to shut Globe; seeks $20m in cuts from unions” on April 4th. What was your initial reaction when you learned about the Times’ concession demands?
Sean Murphy: I didn’t believe it could ever happen, and that it was [actually] a bargaining tactic. As a mater of fact, it was a Friday afternoon and I was writing on deadline so my concentration was on my story, and that was probably a good thing. It seems unimaginable that things should get this bad so quickly and I’m very much still very optimistic that things will go on.
RaceTalk: Meeting the Times’ $20 million concession demand obviously seemed like a very difficult process. What are union and management relations like following that process?
SM: The representatives that the New York Times Co. sent to Boston took a very hard line with the union negotiators. It’s not a warm and fuzzy relationship, it usually isn’t at the best of times. But these people dug in, and there is no animosity, everyone knows there’s a job going on here and everyone is doing their job. But, at the same time, there are few breaks of humor or displays of any warmth at all.
RaceTalk: I think it’d be pretty much impossible to find someone that doesn’t value what the Boston Globe brings to New England, but it would seem that many of these people aren’t subscribing to the Globe because the content is available online. Going forward, do you think it’s more important to charge online readers or put new online advertising models in place?
SM: Well, I haven’t really given that a lot of thought. I’ve taken my job really seriously as a journalist and an investigative reporter. I’ve covered things like casinos, the Big Dig, no-show employees and now public penchants, so I haven’t really thought about that. I’m flattered to think that I have more readers then ever because of the availability of my stories online, and I know that some stories have 200 or more comments posted, which is flattering. I do get emails from people all over the country like ex-Massachusetts residents or family. So I think if I’m pressed for an answer that I’d have to say yes, we have to charge some kind of micro-payment online. People have approached me and said that they’re willing to pay and so am I. When I consume some really valuable, documented and well-edited journalism, I know that I have to pay for that.
RaceTalk: Has becoming an online-only outlet been discussed at all, or is the focus on maintaining the print edition?
SM: Well I think it’s a duel approach. The circulation price has gone up. There are people who are 50 and over who need to have that Globe newspaper on their front doorstep to start their day and I am one of them. At the same time we know that people under 50, my children included, won’t read it except online. There’s a strong desire to keep both going through the next transition period, 10-15 years. There are some people that really love to have a newspaper in their hands. It may be that it becomes a luxury item and is very expensive, but those that insist on it will get it. We hope that people begin paying for it online and that we pick-up more advertising revenue online as well.
RaceTalk: Investigative reporting, such as your story on pensions from Sunday’s paper, is probably the most important part of the Globe. What would happen in Massachusetts without these types of checks and balances?
SM: The inmates would be running the asylum, that’s one way to put it. I think that there would be a longer leash for politicians and other who may want to bend the rules in their favor. I’ve written stories after surveying the U.S. Marshall and the State Secretary of Transportation, and in both cases they have lost their jobs. I also think there is a deterrent affect as well. People that read these things certainly don’t want the Globe following them around and might clean up their act a little bit. So I think it’s very important to check state and local government and it’s a very important monitor of state politics and state government as well.
RaceTalk: President Obama recently said “a government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media of all sorts is not an option for the United States of America.” Has there been any internal discussion about a potential bailout for newspapers?
SM: Honestly I don’t know. There are other proposals like becoming not-for profit, being endowed like a University and living off the earnings of the endowment. We’re clearly in a period of possible and likely innovation. Thomas Jefferson said that with the choice between a government with no newspapers or newspapers with no a government, he’d take newspapers with no government. So it’s obviously a very valued component of our society.
RaceTalk: The Wall Street Journal recently launched Kindle newspaper subscriptions. Do you think something like the Kindle can help provide some financial stability to the newspaper industry in the future?
SM: As a matter of fact I do. I’m hoping that technology, which has cost us so much heartache in terms of effort, the Internet, and the migration of readers and advertisers away from newspapers, becomes a great beneficiary to us. People can gravitate to the Kindle and other devices to find really well-reported content that they can read and take to the bank. I think we’re in a difficult shakeout period and that could happen soon.
RaceTalk: I hate to ask this question, but how much time do you think it will be until the Times Co. demands more cuts?
SM: Well they certainly appear poised to make more cuts, even after the concessions made. But I do find slimmer of hope in the idea of a moving economy.
While Ainsley did not have any specific answers or solutions, he did hint at some changes that people should expect, including higher newspaper costs and future layoffs. Here are some of his thoughts from the story:
The Globe will continue to reduce its workforce in the near future but does not have any specific layoffs planned.
Ainsley says the Globe is more than just a business , and is a huge community responsibility that he takes very seriously.
Ainsley would not comment about whether the Globe is for sale, but the New York Times has reported that the Times Company is looking to sell the paper.
Globe employees have been asked to make considerable financial and personal sacrifices
The Globe’s business model is shifting away from an almost complete dependence on advertising for revenues to one that will have readers pay more (the Globe will soon be announced increased subscription prices).
The Globe is studying ways to charge readers of its online affiliate, Boston.com, but they have not determined how this might work.
By now you’ve heard that Manny Ramirez has been suspended 50 games for testing positive to a banned MLB substance. Everyone has weighed in, and many people, including ESPN’s Jason Stark, have called for a better explanation then the carefully crafted statement Manny put out yesterday.
Luckily for Manny, so many MLB players have be caught using steroids that he (and his super agent Scott Boras) can look at how each one managed the storm and figure out the best way to begin Manny’s healing process. Here are three steps Manny could take (put probably won’t) to re-connect with fans and ask for forgiveness:
1. Be honest: Lying about steroid use is not a smart move because many, many people digging for new information and details. Roger Clemens has thoroughly proved that denial won’t win the heart of fans. Instead Manny should admit what he did, say it was wrong, and ask for forgiveness.
2. Take advantage of social media: While I think this has a zero percent chance of happening, Manny would be greatly benefited to connect with fans directly through social media. By joining Twitter, Manny could interact with fans, show his wacky personality and avoid the media all together (which we all know he does anyway). It would also keep him busy for the next 2 months…
3. Become an example: Manny should do his part to let kids know that steroid use isn’t smart or healthy. By doing this he would be admitting fault and encouraging kids not to cheat and compromise their health to get ahead. While I don’t think this will happen either (you may remember Manny skipping a Red Sox team trip to Walter Reed Medical Center) it would certainly help his reputation.
