THINKing

Newspapers’ Online Revenues Now Declining

In our last post, we talked about newspapers’ decline. Today, the industry moved into ICU. Despite recent economic challenges, online ad revenues have remained fairly stable. According to TechCrunch, online ad revenues are now in the toilet, too,

Total print ads in the U.S. were down 16 percent in the second quarter to $8.8 billion. That makes nine consecutive quarters…Don’t look to online ad sales to save the industry. Online ads came to only $777 million in the second quarter, which was down 2.4 percent from the year before. That’s marks the first decline ever in digital revenues.

In other media news:

Update: MSNBC reports that  Us Magazine is losing subscribers because of a negative feature on Sarah Palin.

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Self Destruct Sequence Underway

A new Rasmussen poll bears ill for the mainstream media. It’s not bad enough that the MSM - newspapers in particular - already are struggling financially.  Tribune - under a load of debt - is selling another piece of its share of CareerBuilder to help lighten the load. Our local Charlotte Observer is making another round of cuts. This trend will continue for a a number of reasons, including that the media is seen by a large portion of the populace as showing its bias. Says Rasmussen,

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters now believe most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 49% believe reporters are trying to help Obama this year. Only 14% think they are trying to help McCain. In another survey, 55% said media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations.

Additionally, the Rasmussen poll indicates,

Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

Yet another reason US newspaper circulation and broadcast news viewership are in freefall.  US newspaper circulation dropped three percent last year. In 2007, broadcast network news operations lost another 2.5 million viewers. Cable is picking up some - but not all - of those viewers.

OK, I know it’s been 100 years since I was a reporter, but I believe the MSM media have become less objective and more partisan. Reporters more often seem to inject their personal views, turning news stories into opinion pieces. What do you think?

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Top 8 Links On The Business Value Of Twitter

A few months back THINKing took a look at the tactical business use of Twitter. There are naysayers who think that Twitter - and social media for that matter -has little business value. I disagree. It can be an excellent tool for customer service and employee communication.

Does it have value for every business?  No.

Each business must finds its own way of communicating with its various publics. Some will find social media to be the way. Other’s won’t.

The Blog Herald has a post on the business use of Twitter that you’ll want to check out.  It quotes two of my favorite bloggers, Chris Brogan and Valeria Maltoni. If you are in the social media space or in PR, you should read them.

Below are a few other posts on the business use of Twitter.

How Can I Use Twitter For Business?

How To Use Twitter For Business

22 Reasons To Use Twitter

Twitter For Business

How American Airlines Could Use Twitter

11 Reasons To Use Twitter For Business

So, are you using Twitter in your business?  Why or why not?

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Links - 8/29/2008

From Cision’s Navigator enewsletter Media Update Column:
General News Category
Lifestyle/Entertainment Category
Business/Financial Category

Summer Blues For News

The Secret To WOM Marketing

The Future Of Social Media

From THINKing’s Dusty Archives:
Tell Me A Story
Tell Me A Story About Me
Brand Euthanasia

Web News Aggregators

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100 Reporters Were Sitting At A Bar…

We’ve talked here often about the use of digital tools like Twitter for PR and media relations purposes. Digital colleague Joan Stewart alerted me about a post on PR and Social Media at Ronn Torossian’s blog,

Someone made a very wise comment about using Twitter and the value of passively reading comments and thoughts of reporters and writers. He said, “If you had the chance to sit at a bar and silently listen to 100 Reporters talking, would you? That’s Twitter.”

He is dead on. You get to find out what is on their minds and what kinds of stories they work on without having to bother them with an unneccessary phone call or email. Why should you worry about that, you’re asking? Reporters - like everyone else - hate spam and they consider this a form of it. As the Media Relations Blog points out in 11 Tips For Pitching Reporters,

Reporters STILL hate PR spam and irrelevant pitches. Such tactics are unlikely to generate coverage, it turns out. Shocking, I know.

Are you using social media like Twitter or tools like PitchEngine in your media relations efforts? Do tell.

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Tell Me A Story About Me

Marketers know that a story is a good way to engage prospects. But too often the marketer wants to tell a self-serving story about the company instead of about how the company helps the prospect or customer. Chest-thumping puffery does not sell. Tell me about how you can make me more money, save me some time, provide me work/life balance and I’m listening and more likely to ring the register. Otherwise, save your time and money because I just tuned out.

Do you know why people buy your product? I often do customer interview projects for clients to help them uncover the reasons people buy from them. This is the best way that I have found to learn what motivates your customers.

But Author Geoff Ayling’s book Rapid Response Advertising provides an excellent list of 51 reasons why people buy. Let’s review a few and maybe you’ll see some that resonate with you:

1. To make more money

2. To save money – this is the most important reason to 14% of the population

3. To attract praise

4. To increase enjoyment

5. To possess things of beauty

6. To avoid criticism

7. To make their work easier

8. To speed up their work

9. To keep up with the Joneses

10. To feel opulent

11. To look younger

12. To become more efficient

13. To buy friendship

14. To avoid effort

15. To escape or avoid pain

16. To communicate better

17. To be in style

18. To avoid trouble

19. To protect their family

20. To express love

Why do you buy?

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Tell Me A Story

Since the dawn of time mankind has been a sucker for a story. We may be wearing synthetics now instead of skins, but that one truth has not changed. Whether you are communicating with employees, customers or the media, a story has the most power.

I read a piece in Bull Dog Reporter not too long ago quoting Wall Street Journal Reporter Don Clark on the power of narrative to break through the media wall. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Know what constitutes a front-page piece—tell a story. “We’re not just looking for announcements,” says Clark. “We’re looking for great story elements. That’s how we work. For example, your story should include a level of drama—like a guy so upset with his company stock that he flew a plane into a mountain. But drama is just one element.” Some others:

Narrative: “What people want to read now is some narrative and a story line. For example, we tell stories through characters and people—not products,” Clark shares. “A good illustration would be somebody saying their plan worked just like they thought it would. Well, that’s not a story. We want things that are unexpected. We want to hear the stumbles, the roadblocks and the bad luck—then the good news at the end. But PR people always start with the good news.”

Conflict: “Similarly, journalists are interested in conflict,” Clark says. “For example, companies suing each other has plenty of tension. A lot of people want to say they have no competition. But that’s a great way not to get written about.”

Now, how can you incorporate storytelling into your organization’s publicity efforts? Just like Stephen King does. Start with the hero in his everyday, believable world. Then, take him on a journey into an unbelievable world. The hero completes his journey, returning to the old world inextricably changed. You also need a universal theme or a unique point of view that propels the story forward, like “good triumphs over evil,” or “the small outfoxes the large opponent.”

Next, remember the idea is not to sell the audience something, it is to engage them.

So, what’s your story? Weave one of your own to break through the clutter.

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Brand Euthanasia

Was just reading an interesting piece at MediaPost about Kellogg trying to resuscitate a brand - Hydrox - that long had been on life support. Hydrox - developed by Sunshine Bakeries - was the original creme filled cookie. Oreo is the knock-off. But like IBM, whose mantra used to be “second with power”, Oreo out-marketed the cookie pioneer. Mergers and acquisitions turned Sunshine to Keebler and Keebler to Kellogg. Hydrox was shelved. It has an atrocious name - sounds like a bad tasting medicine. And it was competing as the distant #2 in the category against Oreo.

So why bring it back? A core of dedicated consumers, for one. Next, it was first made in 1908. Kellogg probably thought that a 100-year-old brand with a small, rabid group of fans could have some success. Will it be successful? Let’s review the brand revival guide from Jeff Himmel, who brought back such brands as Ovaltine and Lavoris.

1. Point of difference. Will consumers buy this product instead of another brand?
2. Unique selling proposition. Does the product tell a unique story?
3. Make the brand stand out.
4. Dominant share of advertising.
5. Frequency of advertising. Make sure the message about your product is repeated over and over to the public.
6. Listen to the consumer, and then listen again more carefully.
7. Produce creative advertising that strikes a chord with the consumer.
8. Control commercial p