Open The Dialogue

Okay, here’s the first installment of what I hope to make a regular occurrence here at Open the Dialogue, and I’m officially calling it “How Not To Be Annoying On The Internet.” [Thanks, Chris!] Of course, HNTBAOTI as an acronym doesn’t exactly roll off your tongue, but whatever. We’ll be using Flickr Video to offer up sub-90 second videos / screencasts (and yes, that’s a GOOD limit to have), and the first volume is one of my personal favorites, turning off the nifty autoplay feature. It’s like turning off the keytones on your cellphone 30 seconds after purchasing a new phone, except…well, it’s just not on a cellphone.

In any case, without further ado, here we go.

Hope you enjoyed this installment, and we’ll hope to bring you more soon!

[ed: and before you ask, I did the screencast using SnapzProX on my iMac, and converted the file down to Web-ready using Apple's QuickTime Pro. The original file version wasn't working on upload but the converted, m4v file, did, so give that a whirl if you're unable to get .mov files working at first.]

The whole discussion of whether or not social media outlets can effectively be monetized isn’t at all surprising to me. For as long as there has been advertising on blogs and other platforms there’s been a conversation about what it’s value is to the audience, to the advertiser and to the publisher. What does seem to be surprising, to me at least, is that the root cause of this conversation often goes unspoken.

There’s so much hand-wringing over whether or not social media can be monetized because the online media world is the first time actual metrics were demanded to account for an ads success.

Traditional media touted its reach and sold ad inventory based on that reach. But online media had to wait to get paid for the most part until the ads it sold actually performed and then had to justify its methodology for counting visitors, clicks or whatever else it was providing to advertisers.

Even among the biggest, most savvy players, effectively making money on advertising against social media is a tricky proposition. Just look at Google’s problems selling inventory on MySpace’s search functionality, though that effort may be hampered by both the fact that Google caught that deal just as MySpace was beginning to lose it’s luster and the fact that it’s search function stinks (at least it always did for me).

Both Kami Huyse and David Armano have thoughts up on how advertising on social media channels is just as disruptive to the audience as on traditional channels and that’s true. That’s why, as Kami says, effective public relations efforts are more essential than ever. Part of that is through our efforts to position our clients as participants in the conversation, something that is as non-disruptive as possible and even has the potential (if they listen to our guidance and resist the urge to engage in outright marketing) to add value to that community’s conversation.

That’s especially likely true if they drop some of their guarded nature and engage in Jeremiah Owyang’s three “impossible” conversations in an open and honest manner. After all there are a lot of lessons to be learned from the people who have the most problems with your company. If you’re not listening to them and addressing their concerns then you’re effectively writing off them as customers, and that’s something not many companies can afford to do.

And if you or your clients are doing social media wrong or if there’s some sort of inconsistency in efforts there will always be someone there to call you on it.

Yes, social media can be distracting, but that distraction is worth it when you consider that it also creates this sort of ongoing industry conference that everyone can attend because you don’t have to travel and all you need is the ability to sign up at Wordpress.com. Social media turns the entire Internet into a help line, where colleagues can ping each other for advice, help noodling out an issue or just to make each other laugh, just like what often happens at conferences. We’re all attendees and we’re all presenters and all we can hope for is that we make the best impression possible because we respect the opinions of everyone who’s listening to us.

Social media also turns the entire Internet into one big recommendation engine that can drive us to movies, music or other media that we had overlooked, discounted or never heard of. While sites like Netflix, iTunes and others all use our behavior and perceived interests as part of an algorithm, the opinions of those people we respect will always carry more weight because we’re social animals, and we’ll never be able to say “That was an awesome find, thanks for pointing me to it” to a computer and have it say “Glad you liked it!” back to us.

Social media can. It allows for feedback. Feedback for our recommendations, feedback for our ideas, feedback for our opinions and feedback for all our other efforts. Therein lies its power. Not to provide new advertising outlets, but to give us all a voice. The best social media marketers know that and act accordingly.

Last week a report was released showing the extent to which reporters and traditional journalists felt their field was being impacted by bloggers, citizen journalists and other new media creators.

According to the survey that formed the report, 74 percent of journalists say new media outlets have “very” or “somewhat” effect on the speed of the reporting they do. So we can conclude from that, it seems, that journalists are feeling the eyeballs being trained on them and are speeding up their processes in order to make sure they get the story first.

But only 43 percent (and I say “only” lightly since that’s a pretty good-sized chunk of respondents) say that new media has had similar levels of impact on the quality of news coverage. 56 percent say little to no impact on quality has been felt.

The story ends with the author of the study saying journalists are at the very least turning to blogs for context and new ideas or angles for their own coverage, a topic I opined on before, bemoaning the fact that while they may get ideas and information on blogs, they rarely link out to or otherwise credit the bloggers.

Whatever impact journalists might feel blogs and new media in general is having, the tea leaves are aligning in such a way that it’s impossible to not see the tidal wave rolling around the bend.

(Mixed metaphor skillz: I haz dem)

Consider that political blogger James Pindell is leaving the Boston Globe for ThePoliticker, a new national network of such blogs. At the site a series of state-specific blogs will be brought together to form national coverage of the political arena.

Or that The New York Times of all papers is now openly soliciting for user-submitted photos of polling places during the primaries.

Or that magazine publishers are increasing the number of online features like social networking, games, and videos they roll out each year that not only make the sites more sticky but also allow for some creation of content by the visitor.

Or that this election cycle is featuring an incredible amount of new-media/old-media partnerships as each outlet looks to tap the other’s audience.

In an interview with New York Times “Bits” blogger Saul Hansell, he makes the case that blogging is not so very different from traditional journalism, at least not in the tools themselves. It’s the person wielding the tools and how they’re used that make some blogs – or even individual posts on a blog – what they are. Hansell acknowledges that the journalism world has changed to some extent because of the ubiquity of online publishing tools but that the worth of the outlet is determined more by the content than it is by the platform that content is published through.

Former Newsweek CEO Rick Smith, on the other hand, isn’t thrilled with how so many people with such easy access to publishing tools has devalued the news his magazine and others traffic in. Smith says that so much of the media people are now consuming is made up of opinion and not facts that the reporting is losing importance to readers – and the advertisers who want to be attached to breaking news.

I find more agreement with Hansell’s comments then I do with anything else. It’s always the content and the intent of the writer that trumps everything else. If someone puts out good stuff – be it audio, video or text – it will gain an audience and be taken seriously. If the content they’re producing is found to provide better context, be more relevant or in some other way more deeply and meaningfully connect with the audience then it will win the battle for eyeballs.

Instead of complaining over the injustice of consumer-generated content taking readers away from the reporting an established outlet does, it would be better for those editors to look at what they might not be providing to the audience and seek to address that shortcoming. Change. Adapt. Improve.

But still let your readers and other experts participate in the conversation. Allow comments on story and look to see who’s linking to you. Despite all the resources a newspaper or magazine might have (at least those resources that have survived the most recent round of budget cuts) there’s still going to be someone out there with a different take on any given story. They might live in the neighborhood you’re covering and know what their Alderman has just said on an issue. They might work in the industry and know that X was a direct result of W.

Traditional media no longer exists in a vacuum. They have to compete harder than ever for readers and advertisers. But there’s too much “Well we’re better” being proclaimed and not enough “Well we’re better” being practiced. The determination of your quality – whether it be media, consumer-packaged goods or anything else – comes from the number of people who shell out their money for what it is you’re producing.

(Afterward: I had this all written when I saw this pop-up – “How to get a job in journalism.” Lots of good stuff in there for the aspirational.)

In downtown Wheaton, IL – not too far from where I both grew up and where I currently live – there’s a little store called The Popcorn Shoppe. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s little. The store is deep from the sidewalk but across it’s about five feet. Long, but narrow.

At the Popcorn Shoppe you can get a variety of candy, as well as popcorn. Bins are set up along one wall with everything from pre-packaged candy like miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to open candy like gummy worms that’s priced by the half-pound. So you go in, squeeze through the other customers, use the little shovels that are in each bin to grab a little of a whole bunch of stuff then do more squeezing to make it to the cash register and maybe pick up a bag of popcorn while you’re there. It’s a quaint, fun little place, but one of those places only the locals really know about.

The Popcorn Shoppe sprung to mind when a meme started yesterday about how many of us are, apparently, drunk on the Web 2.0 juice, a concoction stirred and served up on virtual street corners by many of those currently decrying the situation.

When I think about the variety of Web 2.0 applications, features and tools available in October of 2007 it can sometimes seem overwhelming, much like the wall of the store. I look at them and can’t imagine using all of them but I know that there are a few that I definitely want to pick up and use. Others seem like a good idea at the time but when I try them out I’m disappointed and regret the time/money I spent on something that didn’t live up to my expectations.

For those of us who work in online public relations it’s important that we evaluate the tools that debut seemingly every day not only for ourselves but also for how they might benefit our clients. Not everything is going to be for everyone and we need to not be so enraptured by the shiny object the just flitted in front of our eyes that we lose all perspective. ‘What does this do?” “What need does this meet?” “What gap does this fill?” “How does this increase connections/engagement?” These are just a sampling of questions we need to be asking ourselves whenever the latest thing debuts.

These questions can often only be answered by trying them out. TechCrunch’s descriptions and write-ups only go so far. You have to dig in and see what sticks. Once you do that you gain perspective and then can rationally and more accurately opine on the topic to both the public and, for PR practitioners, your clients.

Ooh, never noticed this either – Lost Remote sez you can embed a widget from TIME magazine with a quote of the day in your own site if you want to. Wow, a widget with a credible source behind it. Go figure.