Mar 7 2010

People still want news: on demand, tailored & interactive

YouAreTheNewsDespite all the moaning about dying print publications, people are still eager to absorb daily news. What they expect out of the experience has changed, though, according to a new Pew Research Center report. Now people want multi-platform news on demand, customized, and spreadable.

  • Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
  • Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
  • Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. From Understanding the Participatory News Consumer

    As part of your marketing efforts, you may be pushing news out to customers, using Facebook or Twitter to reach them. Your own site’s blog is also a key source of news (you have to link to something, unless you’ve mastered the 140-character press release). How can you make sure you’re accomodating the inclinations of today’s newsumer?

    Portable: Consider an iPhone app. Creating branded mobile content, on your own or with local partners, can get you in front of your customers when you have something interesting to say. Throwing in a little location-awareness and well-timed news on the go might even turn to sales conversions.

    Personalized: Opt-ins allow people to select only the type of news they need, so allow RSS & email updates on specifics (sales, new products, events). Allow gravatars, Twitter & Facebook login so user’s cute little faces can accompany their experience.

    Participatory: Remove barriers to interactivity. Let people comment, and for god’s sake don’t make them log in to do so. Integrate Facebook Connect, Tweetmeme, and whatever other social software makes sense for your audience. Quickly sharing and commenting is appreciated (nay, expected) by today’s consumers, and the viral possibilities when you release really nifty news are huge.

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    Jan 26 2010

    What should you do with your advertising budget in 2010?

    The spread of smartphones and location-aware mobile technology are opening up a (smaller) world of local marketing possibilities.

    The spread of smartphones and location-aware mobile technology is opening up a (smaller) world of local marketing possibilities.

    3 words: location, location, location. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

    You’re the CEO, Senior VP of Marketing, and Chief Janitor of your very own local small business. You typically place an ad in the yellow pages, stuff a few dayglo flyers in mailboxes, and have a brochure website with an infrequently-updated ‘news’ section (because frankly, you can’t think of a whole lot of news with which to fascinate the public). You’ve heard of this new-fangled socialized media thing, but near as you can tell it’s all retired ladies stalking their in-laws and teenagers sending untoward photos to each other. But you also hear it costs less than fluorescent photocopies.

    With major marketing superpowers like Pepsi skipping the superbowl and Coke basically declaring websites obsolete in order to refocus ad dollars on social media, Local Small Businessmen can safely assume the research is in, and traditional advertising isn’t. Social media is officially a great publicity channel. But what makes 2010 the year to dive in? Continue reading

    2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Social Media Marketing, Tips, Tricks, How-To's & Top 10's