Perhaps you’re still wondering if your company or organization should be getting involved in new media. Have you started participating yourself (Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog, YouTube) to become personally familiar with it? It’s kind of hard to evaluate a medium you’re not familiar with.
I just saw some interesting new data on how Inc. 500 companies are making use of social media. Here’s a chart comparing their use in 2007 (green) with 2008 (blue). You can click on the image to see a bigger version of it.
Research Highlights:
* Four out of five companies in the Inc 500 rate social media technology as important or very important;
* 21% of the companies are podcasting and 39% blogging;
* The number of companies blogging and podcasting has doubled in the last year;
* The Inc. 500 are adopting new media technologies much quicker than Fortune 500 companies.
The research suggests that companies that are using social media & new media technologies are growing faster than other companies.
The research was done by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. You can download the study, which I recommend.
Via Podcasting News.
The blogosphere continues to grow and amaze people in marketing. I remember when I first talked about it and some of my friends thought I was crazy to think that anyone would really read blogs, much less consider them as “tools” of communications. Times have changed.
My favorite place to keep up with what’s going on in my new media world is eMarketer. They’ve got a new report out, “The Blogosphere: A Mass Movement From Grass Roots,” which has some interesting information. Here’s a couple of excerpts:
More importantly, by 2012, more than 145 million people—67% of the US Internet population—will be reading blogs at least once a month. That is up from a readership of 94 million in 2007, or 50% of Internet users.
“A big factor driving the increases is the niche orientation of the blogosphere,” says Mr. Verna.
Like podcasts, blogs tend to appeal to specific audiences. Accordingly, much of the demographic targeting that marketers work so hard to achieve in the mainstream media is already done for them.
“Furthermore,” adds Mr. Verna, “the rates at which blog readers notice and click on ads suggest that they are a well-primed audience.”
Where are you placing your advertising these days? Same old, Same old or . . . . . .
Just in time for a presentation I’m giving at the Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association meeting tomorrow (Blogging and podcasting for profit. Sponsored by Ewing Irrigation and PBI Gordon) is this report from Universal McCann titled, “Power to the People, Social Media Tracker Wave 3.” (pdf-24MB) They’ve done this study globally 3 times now so it’s got some interesting comparative data in it. Basically folks, new media is where it’s at in today’s online world no matter what country you’re in or what your occupation or age demographic. So for those of you who still wonder why you should know more about this, your questions will be answered. If you still wonder then let’s just say you have gotten off the Cluetrain. Here’s some interesting points and I urge you to download the report with the link above to read the whole thing.
- Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.
- All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves: Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3.
- 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content: 55% of users have uploaded photos, 22% of users have uploaded videos.
- Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to traditional media – 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog.
- Social media has strong impacts over brand’s reputation – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs.
Here’s the percentage of respondents who agreed with these statements:
- 56% Blogging is a good way to express yourself
- 36% I think more positively about companies that have blogs
- 33% I have a favorite blog that I read regularly
- 32% I trust bloggers opinions on products and services
- 31% Blogging is an important way to socialize with friends
There’s so much information in this report that I can’t even begin to point it all out. It’s all good. Just take some time, take a deep breath and say, “I will read it and I will try to “get it.”
Via Podcasting News
Here’s my buddies Steve Mays and George Kopp getting ready for a live Ustream.tv webcast from the Coffee Zone in Jefferson City, MO. I stopped by before they started then went home and watched it.
I’ve been testing the cameras I’ve got to see if I can get a better picture for my streams. Below you’ll find a test I did with my Dell Latitude and a Logitech RightSight webcam a few minutes ago. I think that a small camera is best so I’m going to get a webcam that works with my Mac and take that on the road to experiment with.
I don’t know what you think about live web streaming but I think there’s a lot of very cool applications for in in agricultural communications and I’m going to be trying it in the coming weeks.
I haven’t been doing much updating here lately due to the extensive amount of online event coverage projects we’re involved in. In just the last couple weeks that has included the National Agri-Marketing Association Convention, Alltech International Animal Health & Nutrition Symposium and National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Washington Watch program. During that time I was posting on multiple blogs daily and we started a new concept called Agwired Mobile and AgWired Live TV (using Ustream.tv). Additionally, we’re really incorporating Twitter into the AgWired community and you’ll find my most recent Tweets at the top of the AgWired site.
It’s just a continuing development of the community we’ve developed and our way to be in the online conversation. If you’d like to get a perspective on what that means then you should check out this post on “From the X Degree.” via Teaching Online Journalism
You might want to say that we’re just “early adopters” and that somehow this means that since not everyone in America is doing this or consuming this then perhaps it’s not something your company or news organization should be doing. Tempting if you’re afraid of the future I guess. However, it is the future of journalism and how people will and are consuming news.
You could say “Wow” when you talk about 40 percent growth. So go ahead because that’s what a recent study by Arbitron-Edison Media Research study titled, “The Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms” found. Here’s some nuggets from the study:
- iPod/Portable MP3 player ownership continues dramatic growth. Nearly four in ten
(37 percent) own an iPod or other brand of portable MP3 player; up from 30 percent in
2007 and more than two and a half times the number in 2005 (14 percent). Nearly three-
quarters (73 percent) of those age 12-17 own a digital audio player.
- Audio podcasting usage continues to increase along side the proliferation of
iPod/MP3 player ownership. Eighteen percent have ever listened to an audio podcast;
up from 13 percent in 2007. Nine percent have listened to an audio podcast in the past
month (an estimated 23 million).
The study also found out how important mobile phones are to people today:
More than one in five (21 percent) consumers said radio has a big impact on their lives; ranking second only to mobile phones (33 percent) as the audio platform/device that has the biggest impact on people’s lives.
Why do we care about mobile phones? Can you say iPhone? And what about texting to that “audio” device eh?
I now have a copy of Clay Shirky’s book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” in my hot little hands. This book can help you better understand how and why new media communication tools are working. I’ll try to add some thoughts from the book as I read through it.
For starters, let’s look at a statement in chapter one, “. . . forming groups has gotten a lot easier. To put it in economic terms, the costs incurred by creating a new group or joining an existing one have fallen in recent years, and not just by a little bit. They have collapsed.”
Clay’s talking about groups. Any kind of group. Could be farmers. Could be farmers who love green tractors. Could be any group of people you can imagine. Until recently it wasn’t easy or inexpensive to belong to groups much less create and manage them. I suppose you could think of the listeners to a local radio station as a group. But how much does it cost to buy an FCC license and transmit your signal? More than you and I have. Been there, done that.
Today though, using new media tools like blogging or podcasting, which includes social networks like Facebook, I dare say most people can afford to create their own group and have global reach. This is allowing many more groups to exist. It also means companies are having to re-think how they get their message out since there are many new and different channels to do so. It also means they can’t apply the same measurement standards to the tactics they’re using. If they do then they’ll find themselves stuck in the same old, same old and wonder why others are getting ahead of them.
There was a great AP story out last week that focused on how food companies are targeting the writers of niche blogs. It helps illustrate how important this new proliferation of “groups” is becoming. Here’s an excerpt with my own highlighting added:
One blog with a couple of thousand daily readers may not have a huge impact, but marketers can easily reach several such blogs with little effort, said Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant based in Washington. “Companies are paying attention to the concept of lots and lots of tiny little markets. Added up, it’s significant,” Weil said.
The single-minded focus of blogs may be in some ways more valuable than traditional marketing since it’s easier to target an audience, said Daniel Taylor, a senior analyst of digital advertising and marketing for the Yankee Group.
These blogs usually spring from personal obsessions. Abi Jones, for example, started Heat-EatReview.com after nuking countless frozen meals for lunch at the office. Comparing notes with co-workers, she realized there were no resources for people interested in learning about the newest products in the freezer aisle.
Food blogs “may not have the mass reach, but it’s a more engaged, specific audience,” said Greg Zimprich, a spokesman for General Mills Inc. “Their readers are going to care a lot more about a product of ours.”
I know it’s not easy shifting the paradigm of the mass audience to one of multiple niche audiences but think about the value of your investment. I suggest that investing fewer dollars to reach the most motivated or engaged customers may have a greater return that spending huge amounts of money, most of which is reaching people who aren’t interested in your product or message.
I’ve had a Twitter account for almost exactly a year now but just started using it. At first I just didn’t see the point but that’s changed.
You can read a little bit about Twitter in an article on Fox Business.com.
Is Twitter the next big thing or a twempest in a tweepot? Twitter is a free “micro-blogging” service that allows users to send updates, or “tweets” — messages of up to 140 characters that answer the question “what are you doing now?” The updates are kept on the user’s profile page and distributed to friends via text messages, instant messaging, RSS feeds, and other applications.
I see applications for this that probably aren’t exactly what Twitter co-founder Evan Williams had in mind. Consider how you can quickly and easily distribute information from a meeting or an event without having to have your computer or even an internet connection. You can update your Twitter feed via your mobile phone for example. Get started and let your friends and customers know what you’re up to (that you want them to know of course).
I’m going to be visiting San Luis Obispo and the California Polytechnic State University to do a little new media training this week. Scott Vernon has set up a double session for faculty and students titled, “Exploring the New Media: Using Podcasts to Drive Your Message and Expand Your Reach.”
This is going to be fun. The idea is to “Create Innovative New Ways to Communicate to the Industry, the Public, Prospective Students, Current Students and others!” I’ll be showing how to create podcasts and how we’re seeing podcasts being used in agriculture. This is on behalf of the Agricultural Education and Communication Department.
I know that more and more companies and even those in traditional media are looking for new employees with the skills to create multimedia content for websites and podcasts. These skills were once taught piecemeal but the computer tools of today are changing everything. If your school or staff would benefit from a session on the use of new communications platforms then you know who to call (the Agriblogger and Farm Podcaster).
Here’s some interesting items you might want to check on:
1. From the folks at eMarketer: Heard the Latest About Podcasting? Engagement via headphones. Ever since podcasting was introduced, the question has been the same: Will anyone listen? The answer is definitely “Yes.”
2. A new media event listing.
As I was just catching up on my news feeds I thought I’d offer a few tidbits for you that caught my attention:
1. The Association for Downloadable Media reported on a study done in the UK about podcasting and listening to internet radio. Here’s a couple of findings regarding podcasting:
4.3 million people have downloaded a Podcast and 1.87 million listen to a Podcast each week.
The average Podcast user subscribes to 3.16 Podcasts and spends 53.6 minutes per week listening to them. Comedy and music are the two favourite genres.
iTunes is the software of choice, used by two thirds of Podcast users to subscribe to Podcasts, while almost a quarter simply download directly from the website via their browser. 80% listen to Podcasts on their home computer and 61% listen via a portable audio / mp3 player.
2. Paul Conley has a post about changing the mindset at a traditional media company regarding the internet. He uses this example to make a point why the corporate recruiter might be the best person to change.
One of them was asked “what would make you throw out a resume?” And she replied that she wouldn’t hire anyone with a resume that said “multimedia reporter.” She went on to say that she was looking for “newspaper people.” But then, a few minutes later, she mentioned that the reporters at her chain were now being trained to carry video cameras.
The other woman, when asked about how she looks through applications, said she doesn’t look at electronic resumes and won’t follow links to Web stories, multimedia packages or other online examples of work. The reason? She said she didn’t have the time, and preferred to look at things on paper.
I wouldn’t want to work for either of the companies these people recruit for!
3. If you’re a budding online journalist you might want to check out Wired Journalists. I’ve got a page started there. Here’s part of their mission statement:
WiredJournalists.com was created with self-motivated, eager-to-learn reporters, editors, executives, students and faculty in mind.
Our goal is to help journalists who have few resources on hand other than their own desire to make a difference and help journalism grow into its new 21st Century role.
Multitasking media is up according to a new SIMM study from BIGresearch.
“Technology is creating new media options faster than most people can assimilate and is causing more multitasking,” said Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch. “Unfortunately for marketers faced with the challenges of an uncertain economy and the need to increase marketing ROI, new media options are impacting how consumers use traditional media. Specifically, TV’s influence on consumers to purchase products declined, whereas new media options such as web radio, satellite radio, instant messaging and blogging all increased. Consumers seem to be seeking information from digital platforms while TV has traditionally been viewed as a brand building medium, which isn’t providing the requisite information,” said Drenik.
This does not mean all traditional media are declining in influence. Media that can target, be timely, and deliver value to consumers, such as coupons/direct mail, radio, yellow pages, newspapers and newspaper inserts all increased in influence to purchase as consumers are looking to stretch budgets in a slowing economy.
I think this list of key findings is fascinating:
- Regular simultaneous media consumption for online, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and direct mail is up from 1% to 35%, depending on the medium.
- Channel surfing remains the #1 regular activity engaged in during TV commercials with 41.2% doing so followed by:
33.5% talk with others in the room or by phone
30.2% mentally tune out
5.5% regularly fully attend to commercials
- In SIMM 11, eating continues to be the #1 activity people engage in while using media followed by doing housework, doing laundry, cooking and talking on phone.
- Top simultaneous media used when reading a newspaper are: watch TV, listen to the radio and go online.
- For people listening to radio, other media simultaneously used are (top 3): engage in other activities, go online and read the newspaper.
Web radio usage is up in all dayparts.
- Cable is where most TV viewing takes place.
- Dayparts which had highest number of media types increase usage over SIMM 10 – 1:00 am to 6:00 am, Noon to 4:30 pm, 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm, 7:30 pm to 11:00 pm and 10:00 am to Noon.
- Top 3 In-Store Promotions for influence of purchasing a product: Product Samples, Shelf Coupons and Special Displays.
- Top 3 Media for triggering an online search: Magazines, Reading an article on the product and TV.
- Blogging increases in all dayparts.
The election results are in for the Association for Downloadable Media. ZimmComm New Media is a charter member of the organization and I hope to become involved with one of their committees to see where this goes. We certainly need leadership in helping establish some guidelines and consistency in how we measure what we do.
Executive Committee
* Chairman: Chris MacDonald, EVP Business Development and Operations Libsyn PRO Enterprise Platform and Founder, IndieFeed
* Vice Chairman: Susan Bratton, CEO, Personal Life Media
* Secretary: Matthew Snodgrass, VP Digital Marketing, Porter Novelli
* Treasurer: Duncan Perry, COO, Podcast.com, Treedia Labs
Board of Advisors
* CC Chapman, Podcaster and Partner, The Advance Guard
* Jonathan Cobb, Founder and CTO, Kiptronic
* John Furrier, Founder, Podtech
* Rob Greenlee, Podcast Programming Lead, Microsoft Zune
* John Havens, VP, Business Development, BlogTalkRadio
* Risto Koski, Business Manager, Multimedia/Nokia Music, Nokia
* Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3
* Mark McCrery, Founder and CEO, Podtrac
* Elisabeth McLaury Lewin, Publisher, PodcastingNews.com
* Kent Nichols, Principle, AskANinja.com
* Tim Street, Principle, French Maid TV
Committee Chairs
* Advertising Standards: Brian McMahon, CEO, National Podcasting System
* Education & Outreach: Rob Walch, VP, Podcaster Relations, Wizzard Media
* Committee Chair: Measurement: Angelo Mandato, CIO, RawVoice, Inc.
* Membership Committee: Bryan Moffett, Sponsorship Operations Manager, NPR Digital Media
* Terminology Standardization: David Rowley, VP Engineering, Kiptronic, Inc.
Subscribe to their blog using this link.
Here’s a new group that’s just being formed to address standards with downloadable media like podcasts. It’s the Association for Downloadable Media. The initial mission statement is:
To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards, research, education and advocacy to all those involved in portable media (Podcasts/ATOM/RSS media enclosures) across the Internet, iPods, MP3 players, mobile devices, P2P and other upcoming platforms.
Here’s an excerpt from their news release earlier today:
Industry leaders from the podcasting community announced today the formation of the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM). The goal of the ADM is to develop standardization of audience measurement and advertising for downloadable media. The ADM will focus primarily on the world of podcasting, downloadable media and portable content monetized by advertising and sponsorship. The ADM will create a landscape that facilitates the commercialization of this growing audience.
The purview of the ADM includes revenue generation from advertising and sponsorships of podcasts, vodcasts (aka vidcasts, video podcasts, or vlogs), and other audio/video digital content distributed via RSS, ATOM, peer-to-peer, mobile devices, downloads from Web sites and other platforms to come.
The organization has been formed to focus specifically on any content downloaded by consumers, and will work in collaboration with related industry organizations, publishers and agencies such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).
Great idea and I’ve already submitted my name to be one of the first to join as soon as membership is available.
Here’s a link to an interesting list of links on the subject of New Media. It’s on Poynter Online.
It’s done by Poynter Institute librarian Dave Shedden who’s also put together a timeline of New Media that goes back to 1969.
If you really want to learn more about this new media thing and get some different perspectives then take a little time to surf through some of his links.
I have absolutely no idea what Steve Mays (left) did to this poor tv cameraman to elicit this expression and I don’t want to know.
I think it’s just part of the wackiness that’s become iPhone-Mania.
See a lot of coverage of this historic event in the news.
Here’s a video Steve did this morning which includes an interview with Mr. Number One In Line:
I’m sure Steve will have more posted on his site later.
This is outside the local AT&T store here in Jefferson City, MO. There were people lined up even here to get their iPhone before anyone else. I think the store kind of overdid it on the security thing. They were locked up tight with a police guard outside. At 6pm they let in the first nine people. You can 
see number one going in this photo. Then they locked it back up again.
One of the reporters outside said that a customer stopped by to pay her bill but they wouldn’t let her in. Now that’s crazy.
While I was standing there taking these pics a guy who looked like the store manage walked up in an AT&T logo shirt. Even he had trouble getting in. He wouldn’t do an interview either.
I stopped first at another local AT&T authorized dealer and they said Apple wouldn’t send them phones for today’s launch. Why?
I need to buy one for the winner of a drawing we held in our trade show booth at the National Agri-Marketing Association convention a few months ago. I’m not standing in any line to wait though.
So why should you care? Apple is going to revolutionize mobile content delivery. That means the information and way you communicate with your clients. Think about it.
I did go to the Apple Store just now and got this message saying I need to come back later. I guess that’s what I’ll do.
Hello from the Canadian Animal Health Institute annual meeting in Niagra-On-The-Lake, Ontario. I’m here to make a presentation to the group on blogging and podcasting as new media tools to reach out to customers and members.
At last night’s dinner one of the participants wanted to use my camera so I let her and she took a picture of the photographer (me). Her name is Fran Doig and her husband, Paul received one of the CAHI “Recognizing Its Leaders” awards last night. You can read more about this on AgWired.
I thought I’d post some of the resources I’m using here and later I might add the audio recording of my presentation too just in case you’re interested and only if I think I sound okay. So linked to here are the agenda for my presentation (Word doc), my Power Point slides (PPT file) and a little resources handout (Word doc).
I’ll also be giving away a few sets of ZimmComm retractable ear buds to some lucky winners too.
ZimmComm New Media hasn’t been idle these last few weeks. You can see some examples of how we’ve been out and about covering multiple events on our own blog sites using the following links.
A good example of event coverage is the past week’s activities in Indianapolis as we covered the activities of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council during race week of the Indy 500.
Another one is my trip to Lexington, KY to make a presentation on the use of blogging and podcasting for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ). This was covered on AgWired.
This week I’m off to the annual meeting of the Canadian Animal Health Institute to make a presentation on new media and to show examples like these. Their members are looking for new ways to reach out to their customers and the theme of their convention is “Harnessing Technology to Expand Markets.” I think what I’ll be presenting fits in just fine.
Please let me know if you’d like a presentation for your convention or company meeting or if you’re interested in consultation or event coverage of your event.
One of the people who you might want to read if you don’t is Seth Godin. He just recently wrote an interesting post on this topic of what he calls, “liveblogging.”
eMarketer.com has an interesting story about how business communications professionals are looking at incorporating Web 2.0 into their plans. This one says that “In fact, a global survey of internal and corporate communications professionals found that more than half use blogs, online video and RSS, or plan to do so in the next 12 months.”
The information comes from a Melcrum survey, Social Media and the Corporate Communicator. Here’s what their summary says about the future.
While only a third of communicators described social media as a priority right now, 41% reported that they were committed to two-way communication with employees/customers online, and 52% anticipated their social-media budgets increasing over the next 12 months.
When asked about the barriers for further adoption, 23% of respondents highlighted gaining executive support as a key challenge, along with 13% reporting IT constraints and restrictions.
Robin Crumby concluded that “It seems likely that social media is here to stay and the key challenge for corporations is likely to be how they integrate these new technologies into their existing media mix.”
When someone has done something right there’s no reason to re-invent the wheel. When it comes to a simple explanation of RSS this video should be a big help. It was produced by Commoncraft.
If after watching the video you still don’t understand then let me know and maybe I can try to further clarify. RSS is what drives blogs and podcasts from a distribution standpoint so it’s a pretty important mechanism.
Perhaps you’re still wondering if your company or organization should be getting involved in new media. Have you started participating yourself (Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog, YouTube) to become personally familiar with it? It’s kind of hard to evaluate a medium you’re not familiar with.