Brave New World

You’d think a TV station would be worth more then $0, wouldn’t you? Apparently not.
Laurel Papworth posted yesterday about reading in NZ Herald on Sunday “This week the Seven Network confirmed it had cut the value of its 47 per cent holding in the Seven Media Group from A$793.9 million to zero, following Packer’s similar valuation of PBL Media when he dumped his residual holding of his family’s former Nine Network flagship. The Ten network is also struggling, and on Thursday Fairfax halted trading in its shares as it considered raising funds following the announcement of an A$365.2 million net loss for the final six months of 2008.” (Greg Ansley)

Laurel’s piece goes on to quote more traditional media woes from The New York Times, and this quote in a piece titled End Time from The Atlantic:
“Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. The thinking goes that the existing brands—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal—will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting.

But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?”

I have been in the comfortingly long wind down camp in relation to the future of industrial media mostly because of the stupid sums of money involved, I could not believe it would just go away. But it just might.
Are we in the transition from platform based media to brand based media?

My favourite example of brand based media is Triple J – it was a radio station, now it is a radio station, TV show, magazine, web-site, live events, vodcasts, podcasts, blog, and yes, they are on Twitter. Triple J is a platform agnostic media brand with a tightly defined niche. This is the future of media.

The idea of the focus being on the medium instead of the media made sense until now. Today though we see the end result of trying to tie your audience to your medium and be as broad as possible – flaccid, lifeless content that means nothing to no-one (there are of course exceptions but I think you’d agree the bulk is garbage). Broadcast, that is trying to get as broad an audience to your platform as possible no longer works.

Ok, so you’re thinking about employing Social Media for your business, what does this mean?

Narrow focus – if you have three distinct buyers for your product/service then you will need three distinct social media approaches. Maybe not all at once, however one size fits all marketing will do you a disservice. If you try to make your marketing mean everything to everyone it will end up meaning nothing to no-one.

The numbers wont be as big – broadcast media style numbers of the last 70 years are history. But that’s ok. An actively engaged audience base that cares about what you add to their day is worth far more than a larger mostly disinterested inactive group. Chandon Craft has a small audience that reads their blog every single day and is an active customer base.

It’s a Media Meritocracy – yes one of my favourite themes, as a business you now have an unprecedented ability to connect with your customer base, not to shove your message down their throat but to really forge a relationship. Your market is not getting what it wants from mainstream broadcast media, this is your opportunity.

I don’t believe that newspapers and TV stations are going to disappear, but I do think they are going to have to evolve, and part of that evolution will be in creating focused channels that roll out across a number of media with the content brand being the star not the channel itself. Channel 10 is dipping its toes in the water with their 24hrHD sport channel – to my mind still too broad. When it’s 24 car racing (for example) on TV being added to by all other media formats then I think they’ll be onto something.

The big creatures didn’t survive the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, it was the small and adaptable that went on to repopulate the earth.

(Image by: Infomofo)

Social Media is unique.

Read enough Blogs and articles about Social Media and you will come across a coterie of commentators that take umbrage at the term ‘Social Media’ – they argue it’s just media, that adding Social is part of a plot for trend jumpers to cash in on a self created fad.

I think they are wrong.

Having come from a background as a TVC Director my experience has made it very clear that Social Media is a creature unto itself for one very simple reason;
Anyone can take part.
Anyone can create, publish, and distribute media like never before in history.
Anyone can comment on those creations and start a dialogue.

The only dialogue I used to have with media was yelling at the television, mostly during sport, or ‘A Current Affair’.
Apart from that I made ads that could only be made and shown by people with very deep pockets.

This fundamental shift in access warrants the definition of this form of media as distinct from what we have been used to. Whilst there are many common characteristics with ‘heritage’ media the differences are not trivial. I’ve covered this before with Media Meritocracy and I do tend to bang on about it because I think it is what is the most exciting thing about this form of media – it’s about what you’ve got to say, not what who can afford to be heard.

(Photo by Ahmed Rabea)

World Wide Rave – not a dance party.

I freely admit that some of the things I have said that people think are smart (hey it happens) have indeed come from David Meerman Scott – but I always attribute so that’s ok. He has written several books about marketing using the internet, and, when I get around to setting up a book section you’ll be able to order them here through Amazon and pay me a few cents!

I was fortunate enough to be given an autographed copy of David’s book ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR‘ by a friend who had the pleasure of hearing David speak and meeting him. Part of the very nice personal inscription he wrote really struck me at the time – ‘On the web you are what you publish’. To me this really encapsulated the power of what Social Media and the Web can be for smart SME’s – it is their opportunity to really compete against large companies in a Media Meritocracy.

He has just released another free e-book ‘Lose control of your marketing‘, and he has a new book coming out this year called World Wide Rave.

Why do I mention this?

Because David writes really useful actionable stuff around Social Media, he provides great case studies of how people are using the web and social media, and he gets you thinking very deeply about what you can do.
And, if you look carefully on the World Wide Rave blog you’ll see a handsome man with a Husky.

Why you will waste money on SEO this year.

SEO is the buzz word du jour amongst business people I speak to in Australia right now. Given the current economic situation SEO has been bumped way up the list of priorities for people as they work to wring every last bit of benefit from every single dollar that goes out the door. For most of you it will be a waste of time.

Why?

Because once you’ve had your copy written to maximise key words yet still read like a human being, paid for a bucket of links, got your page rank up to 6 or above, submitted to directories, optimised url’s and everything else your SEO expert asks you to do you will turn around and see that so has everyone else. In 2009 it’s the price of entry

So what can we do?!

Don’t panic.
Take a deep breath.
It’s pretty simple.

Add value by creating content worth consuming.
Content that shows off why someone would want to buy from you (no, not advertising -though it does have its place).
Content that engages or forms the basis of a community.

We are now in the age of Media Meritocracy and you have access to better, cheaper, easier to use tools and people for content creation than at any time in history. Oh, and by the way, all this stuff done well and in concert with your other SEO stuff will send you through the roof.

SEO is important. But stopping at just SEO is like launching a new car on the market and stopping at giving it four wheels.

(Image by: 3dom)

Media Meritocracy

Why should your business get involved in Social Media in 2009?
Media Meritocracy.

Getting on TV, radio, and in-print in any substantial way is expensive which has meant that gaining a share of attention has been a game of who spends wins. Now, this year, 2009, you can be your own publisher and broadcaster. You can run ‘Channel You’ 24/7. All for a lot less than any significant media spend would have cost.

What is going to matter now is the quality of your content, are you adding value? Have you given a potential viewer/reader a reason to stick around? Or are you trying to stuff your marketing message down their throat (or your tongue as Chris Brogan put it in his amusing analogy)?

Big companies with large budgets do not have a monopoly on good ideas, on content, in fact they can’t compete with you if you are creating unique compelling content that is true to who you are and what you do. How can they? They’re not you.

I think we are entering the era of Media Meritocracy where the size of your budget will not be important as the size of your brain.

(image by joestump)