Future of PR
Thursday, August 09, 2007
The world is changing, but the signs as to how are always there if you know where to look. If you want to find out where the media and PR industries are headed in the near future, one only needs to read between the lines on Silicon Alley Insider this week. - Newspapers are embracing blogs, but the online divisions are still not seeing revenue like their counterparts in print. The online division of the New York Times is bringing in 10% of the company's revenue.
- Yet online advertising budgets are expected to surpass that of newspapers in four years.
- Meanwhile, bloggers can make a decent living on their own thanks to a chunk of that advertising -- in the realm of six figures.
- And, in an effort to keep up, editors at the Times are asking reporters to cut down on article length. It's not just to save paper or for people's attention spans; it's also to compete with those very same bloggers in search engine results. Short stories can be just as influential as novels in PR (meaning PageRank), so it's better for editors to get two shorter pieces for the price of one.
What does it all mean? You can expect more editors and journalists leaving high profile publications to become independent bloggers. It's no coincidence that journalists Mark Frauenfelder, Jeff Jarvis, and Om Malik have been made into celebrities through their blogs. They are smart guys with devoted readers, and they figured out how to build their own brand and create new destinations online. Even those who stick to their day jobs are branching out, from Walt Mossberg on All Things Digital to David Pogue's musical vlogging at the Times. That begs multiple questions. Do you go to read a publication because of its reputation or because of its writers and editors? What is your loyalty to said publication? If your favorite columnist left the Times to go to the Post a few years ago, that might not have been enough to get you to switch your paid subscription -- but now it's easy to read both in your RSS feeds. This is just another indication that media consumption is going from one-to-many to many-to-many. How does that affect PR? Blogs are leveling the playing field with traditional media, so future PR professionals had better start learning their names now. Clients, too, need to realize it's not always about getting a cover story. A post on the blog of that publication's former editor can be just as effective in getting your message across, if not more. That blog post you once thought was quaint probably has a link to your website providing a clear call-to-action and increased online authority in search engine algorithms. Plus, the blog post is more likely to come up in search results than a corresponding online version of a print article, meaning it has longer shelf life. That doesn't even include the viral marketing opportunities in such a post! We see the future, but we understand it can be hard for some people to give up the past. Publications often have such vaunted histories that there is still a tendency to cherish the printed story above all, despite the fact that getting written up in influential blogs can often have equal or higher ROI. Labels: blog, media, pr, RSS, Silicon Alley
posted by Adam Edwards
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Blogging Features
Monday, July 10, 2006
While we happen to use Blogger for this site, in others we also use TypePad and they recently introduced Feedburner integration. This will be great for advertisers looking to know those ever-elusive RSS circulation numbers and shows a great strategy for Six Apart. They also started a partnership with Kanoodle ads, allow a tip jar via PayPal, and maintain an impressive widget gallery. Blogger still serves its purpose but the Pyra team, wherever they are, had better keep their eyes open.Labels: blog, Paypal, RSS, Typepad, widget
posted by Adam Edwards
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