Archive for February, 2012

Resource Links

In online media, there is a huge number of resources and information sites out there and it can be difficult to wade through them to find the most important for our uses. With that in mind, I want to point out a couple sites that are particularly useful and informative for us as broadcasters and news providers.

Allied Media Projects – Media strategies for a more just and creative world is a great resource for news providers with lots of examples and ideas.

Knight Foundation - Informed & Engaged Communities provides great information, case studies, and tools for journalism and media.

Tow-Knight Center For Entrepreneurial Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism has some amazing research and resource guides.

BuzzMachine blog by Jeff Jarvis is a thought provoking media/journalism blog that is worth checking out – food for thought if nothing else.

LocalMediaInsider – Intelligence for online publishers is a resource, link, and information filled site including a directory of media suppliers across a broad area of topics. It requires a subscription but you can sign up for a free trial to see if it’s good for you.

Information

Recently LocalMediaInsider attended the Association of Alternative Newsmedia 2012 Online Conference and wrote about some of the important take-aways. Here are some excerpts from what they discussed.

Five ways to increase “sharing” of your stories via Facebook and StumbleUpon

Here are a few tips from the expert:

1. Slides shows. What is it about a slide show that gets shared? It’s highly visually consumable.

2. Top 5 or ten lists ”always kill it,” Krawczyk  says.  Simple story break-downs such as “$30 best properties over $30 million” work better as a list.

3. Having a rich visual element at the top of the articles. “That’s what hooks them. (Sharing) is all about having a rich visual when you get to that page. The picture converts them. Just giving all stories a visual will help maximize sharing.

4. Subheads, summaries and other visual cues to what is in the article.  Again, information that is visually easy to digest is going to do better, even if that means the way the article pages are laid out. “That is the way the New Yorker builds their page; there is always a visual and a quick synapse of what you are going to read with out an ad” at the top of the web page.

5. Include a variety of share buttons. Of course, he recommends Stumbleupon, which he says results in an average 21% lift for media companies that use the button at the top of stories.

Ten tips to increase national online advertising buys

1. Work with standard IAB sizes. The three best sizes are the 160×600, 200×360 and 728 x 90.

2. Offer above the fold placement. “They always ask. Anything below the fold is not considered as valuable.”

3. If you do have ads below the fold, wrap content around them. “This is crucial, if the audience can’t see the ad or is glancing over it, your are going to make less money.”

4. Segment content. “Many alternative newspapers have only one or two segments. Advertisers are looking for very specific verticals DMA’s, so be able to shut out-of market traffic out of the buy. Investing in a good ad serving platform makes this simple.

5. Keep saying yes. “A lot of times when you get the initial RFP, they (agencies) are asking for the entire world. They haven’t told you really when or how much inventory they want. So if they ask, can you give added value, say yes. What we haven’t seen is the cpm, but if you keep saying yes yes, you will continue to be on the buy as they filter things out,” Larkin advised. “NO is a way to filter you off the buy.”

6. Offer rich media such as sliders, push-downs and corner peels on short term buys.

A number of national advertisers, including movie studios (who especially like skins), Puma, Nike American Express, Verizon and Sketchers are buying rich media on local sites (also called skins, wraps or exotics). “When you have these out of the box opportunities to engage the audience, the and are worth more and create content, for the advetiser.

“We don’t run a pencil bar on our own site at all the time but we are set up to do it. We use it for all key in house promotions and its and incredible way” to drive the message.

Be prepared to produce the exotics for the agencies, which is often the next request.

7. Offer “100% share of voice roadblocks.” This makes the advertiser the only one on the page.

8. Provide speedy reporting if asked. ” Across markets the reporting aspect is key.” Work with a third party such as DoubleClick that allow control over aspects such as day part, and full reporting.

9. Get into video, mobile and tablets. “We get RFP’s for video a lot, and we can’t always deliver on it, ” Larkin says. Tablets and mobile are still in their infancy for local buys, but set to take off, so be set up to take the orders when they come.

10. If you see a buy in another local market get on the phone. “It may not always work, but you have to make some noise.”

“Only eight basic revenue models for all businesses”

1. Unit sales
Simple sales of a product. Mortensen pointed out The Guardian in England sells about two or three EBooks a week, a top best-seller being the Royal Wedding book.  Coffee shops in the unused space downstairs might also fit the bill. We can also see  sales of photographs and certificate stores in this category, as long as it is sales of things the media company owns.

2. Advertising sales  

Local Media is familiar with this model. So is Google.

3. Franchise fees 

McDonaldesque franchises which “pay you to replicate your knowledge” are rare in the media world.  TimeOut, which only owns it’s London media, but franchises the rest TimeOut properties around the world is an example.

4.Utility fees

Pay-on-consumption, like a utility, such as PG.  Mortensen  points to sales of archival information as a possibility for this model. Flattr, a new company that monetizes publications archives is showing promising results in Germany, Mortesen says.

5. Subscription

The non-media version of this is a health club. Mortensen’s media example is the New York Times which is proving subscription sales is a viable model for sophisticated news franchises. A variety of small and mid-sized newspapers are also generating revenues from online subscriptions as part of an overall revenues strategy.

6. Transaction fees

A small cut of someonelses sale, such as Visa takes. Mortensen used the example of Spot.us, in which journalists get investments for specific stories. However,  sales of travel products and other kinds of direct onsite transactions are a huge business. Deals also fall in to the the transaction category.

7. Professional service fees

Increasingly local media companies are offering services in return for professional fees, more like a tax consultant.  He mentions the St. Louis beacon which provides training on Facebook and Twitter. More local media companies are forming inhouse ad agencies that sell services as well.

8. Licence fees

The right to access and use content as if it was their intellectual property.   A number of attempts have started up, such as PressPlus and Contnt3nt that allow media companies to correctly licence content more easily. The typical media use of licencing are rights to broadcast events.

“Journalism is just scratching the surface with revenue models,” Mortensen said.