Archive
26% of those 65 & older now use social networking sites
Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older has nearly doubled — from 22% to 42% over the past year.
While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Although email continues to be the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, many users now rely on social network platforms to help manage their daily communications — sharing links, photos, videos, news and status updates with a growing network of contacts.
Half (47%) of internet users ages 50-64 and one-in-four (26%) users ages 65 and older now use social networking sites.
Half of online adults ages 50-64 and one-in-four wired seniors now count themselves among the Facebooking and LinkedIn masses. That’s up from just 25% of online adults ages 50-64 and 13% of those ages 65 and older who reported social networking use one year ago in a survey conducted in April 2009.
Young adult internet users ages 18-29 continue to be the heaviest users of social networking sies like Facebook and LinkedIn, with 86% saying they use the sites. However, over the past year, their growth paled in comparison with the gains made by older users. Between April 2009 and May 2010, internet users ages 50-64 who said they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn grew 88% and those ages 65 and older grew 100% in their adoption of the sites, compared with a growth rate of 13% for those ages 18-29.
One-in-ten (11%) online adults ages 50-64 and one-in-twenty (5%) online adults ages 65 and older now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.
The use of Twitter and other services to share status updates has also grown among older users — most notably among those ages 50-64. While just 5% of users ages 50-64 had used Twitter or another status-update service in 2009, 11% now say they use these tools. On a typical day, 6% of online adults ages 50-64 make Twitter a part of their routine, up from the 1% who did so in 2009.
By comparison, social networking sites have gained a much larger foothold in the lives of older Americans over time. One-in-five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago. Likewise, 13% of online adults ages 65 and older log on to social networking sites, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009.
Email and online news are still more appealing to older users, but social media sites attract many repeat visitors.
While email may be falling out of favor with today’s teenagers, older adults still rely on it heavily as an essential tool for their daily communications. Overall, 92% of those ages 50-64 and 89% of those ages 65 and older send or read email and more than half of each group exchanges email messages on a typical day. Online news gathering also ranks highly in the daily media habits of older adults; 76% of internet users ages 50-64 get news online, and 42% do so on a typical day. Among internet users ages 65 and older, 62% look for news online and 34% do so on a typical day.
Social media properties — including networking and status-update sites — are newer additions to the daily digital diet of older adults. Yet, the “stickiness” of the sites is notable. To look at the data another way, among the pool of adults ages 50 and older who use social networking sites, 44% used them on the day prior to their being contacted for our survey.
The pool of Twitter and status update users ages 50 and older is too small to segment, but the behavior of this limited early adopter group does suggest a similar tendency towards regular use of the sites.
By comparison, less than half of online banking users ages 50 and older visited the sites on a typical day and less than one-in-five older users of online classified sites reported use of the sites “yesterday.”
Source: Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet & American Life Project
August 27, 2010
Continue reading the full report at pewinternet.org.
Government Agencies & Gov Persons on Twitter
I posted a list of media, reporters and editors who are on Twitter. Now, I am posting a list of Government persons and Government agencies on Twitter (& Government Blogs are next). I imagine that such lists could be used to build a new sort of media 2.0 list for any small business, media or PR professional in one place.
As a result, I came across this fabulous list which may be useful to media, PR, communication and public affairs proffessionals and I am reposting it to increase its circulation. It is a fabulous source. The list includes people and agencies of the U.S. government, organized according to the executive branch, legislative branch, and related sections.
The original source page changes from time to time so to keep up with those changes Click for RSS updates
Other resources include:
- Congresspedia for detailed information on members of Congress.
- Congressional140 provides a dynamically updating tweetstream of all of the Congress members twitter updates. Follow @congress140.
- GovTwit has a web directory and a Twitter account @GovTwit that encompasses U.S. federal, state, and local as well as International accounts.
- TweetCongress has a web directory and Twitter account @TweetCongress for a listing of members. Anyone can add new names there, too.
Notes:
- Any people listed, other than members of Congress, do not necessarily represent their agencies.
- If any people or agencies are unofficial feeds, they are marked as such.
- If you notice anyone or anything missing, you are welcome to edit yourself; else please send a tweet to @ariherzog
Executive Branch (including Cabinet, departments, and agencies)
- President Barack Obama (campaign)
- First Lady Michelle Obama (unofficial)
- Vice President Joe Biden
- The White House
- The White House: Office of National Drug Control Policy
- Centers for Disease Control: CDC Emergency and Preparedness
- Corporation for National and Community Service
- Corporation for National and Community Service: AmeriCorps (broadcast only)
- Corporation for National and Community Service: AmeriCorps Alumni (not taxpayer-funded)
- Corporation for National and Community Service: Learn and Serve America
- Corporation for National and Community Service: National Conference on Volunteering and Service
- Corporation for National and Community Service: National Service Learning Clearinghouse
- Corporation for National and Community Service: Resources
- Corporation for National and Community Service: Senior Corps
- Department of Agriculture: Animal Welfare Information Center
- Department of Agriculture: Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)
- Department of Agriculture: Food Safety Information Center
- Department of Commerce: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: National Marine Sanctuary
- Department of Commerce: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Ocean Service
- Department of Defense: Joint Staff
- Department of Defense: Maxine Teller, Public Affairs
- Department of Defense: Mark Drapeau, Research Fellow, National Defense University
- Department of Defense: Pentagon Channel
- Department of Defense: Stars and Stripes
- Department of Defense: Army & Air Force Exchange Service
- Department of Defense: U.S. Joint Forces Command
- Department of Defense: U.S. European Command (via Ed Buclatin, Captain, US Navy, Director of Public Affairs)
- Department of Defense: U.S. Pacific Command
- Department of Defense: U.S. Southern Command
- Department of Defense: U.S. Central Command
- Department of Defense: Department of Air Force: Air Force Public Affairs Agency
- Department of Defense: Department of Air Force: USAF Band
- Department of Defense: Department of Air Force: Alan Black, Public Affairs
- Department of Defense: Department of Air Force: Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nev.
- Department of Defense: Department of Army: US Army
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: US Navy
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: US Fleet Forces IA
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: US Pacific Fleet
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Naval Air Forces
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Naval Surface Forces
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: US 7th Fleet
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Navy Personnel Command
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Public Affairs
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: National Naval Aviation Museum
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Hampton Roads Naval Museum
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Navy Office of Information New York
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division: ?, public affairs
- Deparmtent of Defense: Department of Navy: Naval War College
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Navy Exchange
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Submarine Group 2
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Navy Experimental Diving Unit
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Constitution
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Nimitz
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Carl Vinson
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS George Washington
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS John C. Stennis
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Harry S. Truman
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Ronald Reagan
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Bonhomme Richard
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Chafee
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: USS Wayne E. Meyer
- Department of Defense: Department of Navy: Navy Fleet & Family Support
- Department of Defense: U.S. Coast Guard (unofficial)
- Department of Education: Department of Education
- Department of Energy: Argonne National Laboratory
- Department of Energy: Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Department of Health & Human Services: AIDS.gov
- Department of Health & Human Services: Food & Drug Administration: FDA Recalls
- Department of Health & Human Services: Healthcare 411
- Department of Health & Human Services: National Institutes of Health: NIH Communications Office
- Department of Health & Human Services: Office of Population Affairs
- Department of Health & Human Services: Office on Women’s Health
- Department of Homeland Security: Federal Emergency Management Agency: FEMA In Focus
- Department of Homeland Security: Leadership Journal
- Department of Homeland Security: Transportation Security Administration blog team
- Department of Homeland Security: US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Department of Housing and Urban Development: Departmental Web Team
- Department of Housing and Urban Development: Office of Public Affairs
- Department of the Interior: National Park Service: Brooks Camp at Katmai National Park
- Department of the Interior: National Park Service: National Center for Preservation Technology & Training
- Department of the Interior: National Park Service: Yosemite National Park and Yosemite Nature Notes
- Department of State: America.gov
- Department of State: America.gov blogger Michelle Brooks
- Department of State: America.gov Print
- Department of State: Co. Nx. Webchats
- Department of State: Country-specific Information, travel department
- Department of State: Dipnote, official blog feed
- Department of State: Exchange Connect
- Department of State: Global Partnership Center: Jim Thompson, acting director
- Department of State: US Consulate, Munich
- Department of State: US Embassy, Bangkok
- Department of State: US Embassy, Belgrade
- Department of State: US Embassy, Brussels
- Department of State: US Embassy, Kabul
- Department of State: US Embassy, London
- Department of State: US Embassy, Maputo
- Department of State: US Embassy, Ottawa
- Department of State: US Embassy, San Jose
- Department of State: US Embassy, Zambia
- Department of State: US Mission, Geneva
- Department of State: US Mission, New Zealand
- Department of State: US Mission, Vienna
- Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
- Environmental Protection Agency: EPA
- Environmental Protection Agency: Greenversations blog
- Environmental Protection Agency: Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: FERC (unofficial feed, not endorsed by FERC)
- General Services Administration: Federal Citizen Information Center
- General Services Administration: Office of Citizen Services and Communications: GovGab
- General Services Administration: Office of Citizen Services and Communications: GobiernoUSA.gov
- General Services Administration: Office of Citizen Services and Communications: USA.gov
- General Services Administration: Public Buildings Service: Industry Relations
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Astrobiology Institute
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: CoLab, advising and consulting on NASA collaboration
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Desert RATS
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Earth Observatory, echoed at Natural Hazard
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: GLAST
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Hubble Space Telescope
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jason-1 project
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Kepler
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Lunar Atmosphere & Dust Environment Explorer
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Lunar Crater Observation & Sensing Satellite
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NanoSail-D mission, first solar sail created for nanosatellites
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NASA EDGE
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: PharmaSat
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: PreSat
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Public Affairs
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Solar Dynamics Observatory
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: HiRISE
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Emma Antunes, web manager
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Erika Vick, Strategic Communications Specialist
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Ames Research Center: Public Affairs Office
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Ames Research Center: Kimberly Ennico, payload scientist
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Goddard Space Flight Center: Linda Cureton, chief information officer
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Goddard Space Flight Center: Ravi Sharma, engineer
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Innovative Partnerships Program: Doug Comstock, director
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Cassini, flying around Saturn
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Earth Vital Signs
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Mars Exploration Rover
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: News, unofficial feed, not endorsed by JPL
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Phoenix Mars Lander
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Langley Research Center: Bil Kleb, computational aerothermodynamist
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Marshall Space Flight Center: Daniel Kanigan, public affairs
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency: Chris Rasmussen, social software knowledge manager/trainer
- National Museum of Health and Medicine (at Walter Reed Army Medical Center): MedicalMuseum & Tim Clarke (public affairs)
- National Science Foundation: NSF
- Office of Personnel Management: OPM
- Securities and Exchange Commission: SEC Investor Education
- Small Business Administration: twitter.com/sbagov
- Smithsonian Institution
- Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of Air & Space
- Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of Natural History
- Smithsonian Institution: National Zoo
- Smithsonian Institution: Resident Associates
- Social Security Administration: Lee Alviar, public affairs specialist in Dallas
- U.S. Agency for International Development (broadcast only)
- U.S. Geological Survey: USGS
- U.S. Geological Survey News: USGSNews
- U.S. Geological Survey Podcasts: USGSPodcasts
- U.S. Geological Survey: Earthquake & Tsunami Warning
- U.S. Geological Survey: Dave Govoni, e-research strategist, paleontologist
- U.S. Intelligence Community: Andrea Baker
- U.S. Intelligence Community: Heather Cox
- U.S. Intelligence Community: John Hale
- U.S. Peace Corps: PeaceCorps (FYI: National Peace Corps Association)
- U.S. Small Business Administration: Business.Gov
Legislative Branch: U.S. Senate
- Votes from the Senate floor
- Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS) (unofficial)
- Tom Coburn (R-OK)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- James DeMint (R-SC)
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
- Richard Durbin (D-IL) (unofficial)
- John Ensign (R-NV)
- Russ Feingold (D-WI)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (unofficial)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Kay Hagan (D-NC)
- Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
- James Inhofe (R-OK)
- Mel Martinez (R-FL)
- John McCain (R-AZ), presidential candidate in 2008
- Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
- Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
- Jeff Merkley (D-OR) (unofficial)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Bill Nelson (D-FL)
- Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), former NH Governor
- Arlen Specter (D-PA)
- John Thune (R-SD)
- Mark Udall (D-CO)
- Tom Udall (D-NM)
- David Vitter (R-LA)
- Mark Warner (D-VA)
- Roger Wicker (R-MS)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
Legislative Branch: House of Representatives
- Votes from the House floor
- House Committee on Armed Services (Republicans)
- House Committee on Oversight and Government (Republicans)
- House Committee on Science and Technology (unofficial)
- House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
- House Committee on Ways and Means
- House Committee on Ways and Means (Republicans)
- House Republican Conference Committee
- House Republican Policy Committee
- Office of the Law Revision Counsel
- Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
- Steve Austria (R-OH)
- Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)
- Gresham Barrett (R-SC)
- John Barrow (D-GA)
- Joe Barton (R-TX)
- Bob Beauprez (R-CO)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
- Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
- Roy Blunt (R-MO), Minority Whip
- John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader; also runs GOP Leader
- John Boozman (R-AR)
- Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Kevin Brady (R-TX)
- Paul Broun (R-GA)
- Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
- Michael Burgess (R-TX)
- Dan Burton (R-IN)
- Eric Cantor (R-VA)
- Judge John Carter (R-TX)
- Mike Castle (R-DE)
- Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
- Mike Coffman (R-CO)
- Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
- John Culberson (R-TX)
- Artur Davis (D-AL)
- Keith Ellison (D-MN)
- Mary Fallin (R-OK)
- Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
- John Fleming (R-LA)
- Randy Forbes (R-VA)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Trent Frakes (R-AZ)
- Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
- Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
- Gregg Harper (R-MS)
- Dean Heller (R-NV)
- Pete Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Mike Honda (D-CA)
- Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
- Bob Inglis (R-SC)
- Steve Israel (D-NY)
- Darrell Issa (R-CA)
- Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
- Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)
- Hank Johnson (D-GA)
- Jim Jordan (R-OH)
- Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH)
- Mark Kirk (R-IL)
- Randy Kuhl (R-NY)
- Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), presidential candidate in 2008
- Tom Latham (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Chris Lee (R-NY) (unofficial?)
- Sandy Levin (D-MI)
- Cynthia Loomis (R-WY)
- Ben Lujan (D-NM)
- Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
- Dan Manzullo (R-IL)
- Ken Marchant (R-TX)
- Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
- Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA)
- Kendrick Meek (D-FL)
- Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
- Mike Michaud (D-ME)
- Candice Miller (R-MI)
- George Miller (D-CA), also runs Educ & Labor Democrats
- Harry Mitchell (D-AZ)
- Gwen Moore (D-WI)
- Glenn Nye (D-VA)
- Jim Oberstar (D-MN)
- Pete Olson (R-TX)
- Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
- Erik Paulsen (R-MN)
- Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House (unofficial)
- Mike Pence (R-IN)
- Ed Perlmutter (D-CO)
- Tom Perriello (D-VA)
- Chellie Pingrie (D-ME)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- George Radanovich (R-CA)
- Charles Rangel (D-NY)
- Dennis Rehberg (R-MT)
- Dave Reichert (R-WA)
- Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
- Tom Rooney (R-FL)
- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
- Peter Roskam (R-IL)
- Paul Ryan (R-WI)
- Tim Ryan (D-OH)
- Aaron Schock (R-IL)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Christopher Shays (R-CT)
- John Shimkus (R-IL)
- Bill Shuster (R-PA)
- John Sullivan (R-OK)
- Lee Terry (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA
- Zach Wamp (R-TN)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC)
- Rob Wittman (R-VA)
- John Yarmuth (D-KY)
Former U.S. Legislators
- Newt Gingrich (R-GA), former Speaker of the House
- Bob Barr (L-GA), former Representative, presidential candidate in 2008
- John Edwards (D-NC), former Senator, presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008
- Fred Grandy (R-IA), former Representative
- Mike Gravel (D-AK), former Senator, presidential candidate in 2008
- John Kasich (R-OH), former Representative
- Bob Ney (R-OH), former Representative
- Bob Schaffer (R-CO), former Representative
Video SEO Tips: Strategically Boost Your Search Engine Ranking
Even with my recent posts on the social media landscape, said landscape continues to morph at warp speed, and we are seeing more and more videos everywhere; on business sites, corporate news pages, personal websites, video hosting sites, mobile devices, social networks, blogs, cell phones, email and postings to video portals, and posting for clients. The Government even has its very own video channel on YouTube.
I had to post a video very recently and immediately realized there needed to be a strategy for this MarCom element as well to maximize my external outreach efforts. So, I went on a little “virtual research trip.”
According to eMarketer, 63% of Americans currently watch online video, up from 32% in 2007. I am sure this number is much is higher now. Three years hence, is a life time in the social media world.
My focus is always to look at how the changing landscape can benefit communication and marketing professionals with new media strategies and tools. To do more with less and to do it cost effectively. Therefore, I am constantly scanning the social media landscape.
Because many users do not have unlimited web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, forums, and other social media interactive pages.
When posting a video from a business, public relations, marketing and communication perspective it is imperative to understand how to leverage your social presence through online videos by applying Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) strategies.
You do not want to be the needle in the hay stack that nobody ever finds. You want your target audiences to find you! With the rise of our current “Moblution” and Internet hosted Video services, your goal is to ultimately rise to the very top in the top search engines and their respective ranking results. Clearly, Google is giving preferential treatment to multimedia content in search results, and this is an important factor to know! I can’t quantify this just yet, but it’s a personal haunch, which I will try to validate with a little more research (so stay tuned & I will update this blog). But it is my personal opinion that online video is the fastest way to achieve top organic search listings.
Secondly, YouTube alone has more than 52,436,820 unique visitors a day and ranked as the third top Internet site in the US. But it is also important to know that there are more than 30 other video notable video hosting sites. And there are indeed many more!
I guestimate that what you/we/I want to accomplish is channel saturation and depth of penetration through syndication across as many video hosting sites as possible. So, the question begs, how does one syndicate their videos out across various video sharing websites? And, how does one carry out VSEO?
The end goal is to have your video “optimized” to appear highly ranked in Google’s search results. Video Syndication Brings Higher Rankings and More Targeted Traffic. Therefore, the idea is to syndicate your video by sending it out across multiple video sharing websites simultaneously to obtain maximum exposure using specific strategic key words for search term results. Below are a few useful tips. There may be more, but this will get you started an out of the hay stack, so to speak.
Strategic VSEO Tips:
- Place online video presentations on public sites and intranet portals
- Remotely update videos on video portal websites
- Enable viral video sharing
- Integrate comment & rating capabilities
- Allow for approval-based or automatic requests for video distribution
- Capture statistics on syndication, viewership, Search Engine Ranking, redistribution performance
VSEO TIPS:
- Create Relevant, Unique, Informative Videos that speak to your target audiences
- Consider Your Video thumbnails – A video thumbnail is what users see first when they make their decision as to whether or not to view your video or another. Video search engines and video sharing websites use different methods to grab and show the thumbnail for your video. Some engines use the first frame of the video while others, like YouTube, will often take the thumbnail from the exact middle of your video.
- Make Your Videos Less Than 5 min. Long – One of the worst things that you can do is to create a long-form video as most users watch videos 3 minutes or less. If you do have a video that is longer than 5 minutes in length, try to break it up into smaller videos and make sure to tag those accordingly.
- Sitemaps – For video that is hosted on your own website use of a video site map on your site will help to filter page rank as well as direct search engines where to index your content. Use relevant keywords within the anchor text of all links to the videos that are featured in your video sitemap.
- Surrounding HTML -In order to get your video to rank well, you clearly will need to provide the search engines with text based content that is relevant for them to index and rank you for. Ssurround your video content with relevant content (on-page) as well as related links. Add a text transcript or external captions as text that you publish on the page with the video.
- Descriptive Meta Data – Use relevant keywords in your meta data to optimize your video. Include a keyword rich description of the video within the meta descriptions.
- Title - Make sure that you use the relevant keywords in your title as this is likely the first thing that the search engines will use to identify your video. Also try using a catchy or unique title that will not only give attention to your video but convey your theme, product, or brand.
- Tags – tag your videos with key phrases that are reflective of the content.
- Keyword “video” - Eric Papczun pointed out at the Search Engine Strategies conference in NY this past April, that a lot of people add the word “video” to their search query keyword phrase. As a result, make sure that you add the word “video” to your title, description, meta data, etc.
- Optimize your video for Important Key Phrases – You might want to optimize your video for terms users are likely to be searching for. Tag your video with these terms, consider naming the file name of the video with these terms in mind.
- Optimize URLs - In the same way that you do this for other web pages, you will want to optimize your URLs so that they to contain information about the video. Also, make sure you only have one video per URL.
- Branding – Many of us have found that video marketing is a great tool to help generate brand awareness with your potential customers. Use a watermark throughout your video to help incorporate your brand. This will help to drive users back to your main site if the video is hosted elsewhere.
- Inbound Linking – Link to videos using important keywords in anchor text.
- Upload to Video Sharing. Simultaniously upload to video portals (tubemogul & here as a paid service called Hey!Spread) and provide links back to related content and other videos on your Internet site. Here is a list of ways to get your Videos On Video Search & Sharing Sites
- Miro – Miro converts any media RSS feed into a channel.
- Video Upload Pro – Software to submit your videos to multiple video sites including Atom Films, Blip.tv, BoFunk, Bolt, ClipShack, EvideoShare, Flurl, Google Video, Guba, Jumpcut, Live Video, Myspace Video, PutFile, Veoh, Vimeo, Yahoo Video, Youtube, and more.
- HeySpread – Free online tool to send videos to multiple sites
- TubeMogul TubeMogul is the hands down the best free tool to submit videos to multiple video sharing sites in one go. Currently supporting Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo, Revver, AOL Video, DailyMotion, Blip, and BrightCove, TubeMogul does a great job at syndicating your videos out to these video sharing sites with full support for Titles, Tags, and Descriptions and provides analytics for you to track your video views across all of these websites. I highly recommend this free tool. More about TubeMogel: TubeMogul’s free beta service has been live since November of 2006, and in January 2008, TubeMogul announced the launch of its Premium Products, which include a host of new professional features. Through its acquisition of Illumenix in October 2008, TubeMogul is also able to offer rich engagement and performance metrics to video sharing sites, content creators and advertisers. Brett Wilson, Co-founder and CEO, Brett leads the strategic direction for TubeMogul. He spent the first three years of his career as a consultant for Accenture. Next, he founded and led YouCanSave.com, a profitable e-commerce company that obtained over $69 million in revenue and was successfully acquired.
16. Allow Embed Code – Definitely enable sharing and allow users to embed your video code into their own blogs and websites. This will help to create backlinks to your video which can help increase the video search optimization as well as make your video go viral.
17. Encourage Ratings and Reviews - When you encourage users to rate your video, search engines will pay attention to videos that have higher ratings. In addition, videos which get high ratings from users tend to be the same videos that users often mark as favorites and share with other users.
18. Submit each video sharing site destination URL to Onlywire for social bookmarking
19. Check for your video across listings within specific video search engines and video search sites.
20. Syndicate – Submit your video RSS or MRSS. Here is a list of where to submit to Video RSS and MRSS Feeds
- Search For Video -http://www.searchforvideo.com
- Blinkx -http://www.blinkx.com
- ClipBlast -http://www.clipblast.com
- Pure Video– http://www.purevideo.com
- Truveo– http://www.truveo.com
- You have to sign up for a free Director account in order to submit your video feed
- AltaVista Video Search -http://www.altavista.com/video/default
- You can submit your site to AltaVista and be included in the video directory
- Yahoo Video– http://video.search.yahoo.com/
- Grind TV-http://www.grindtv.com/
- Astrasearch– http://www.astrasearch.com
OTHER NOTES:
The Future: Mobile Video Hosting
A more recent application of the video hosting services is in the mobile web 2.0 arena, where video and other mobile content can be delivered to, and easily accessed by mobile devices. While Internet based video-hosting services such as YouTube ( and many others) have developed means by which video can be watched on mobile devices, mobile-oriented video hosting services is an evolving component of the new Mobilution to come, in rapid succession. So, if I had a crystal ball, I would suggest learning all I could about VSEO strategies inside and out, and then strategize how your futre video productions/hosting and distribution will fit into Mobile Video for Mobile Devices (MVMD) will be developed, deployed and optimized for VSEO…because…..
the future is not for the Internet viewership but with Mobile Devices, where we will be decoupled from the desktop. A mobile live streaming software called Qik allows the users to upload videos from their cell phones to the internet. Currently videos are stored online and can be shared to various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and others. Videos will be stored on the servers and can be watched from both the mobile devices and the website.
I suggest that the future is in the mobile device. Start strategizing now and begin formating your videos to meet those screen/size/distribution requirements.
Also, a final note, please dont forget to continuoulsy build upon some of what I have previously posted in my other blog topics. For example, create a Bit.ly link of your video and submit it through Ping.fm and track it through both Bit.ly and strategically distribute through the Twitter Universe as well. Then send your bit.ly linked video through Mobile Marketing Services for distribution via cell phones.
Stay Tuned, as I will next talk about strategically Revamping Your Business Internet Press Rooms and Press Releases! All the previous posts build upon the Changing Media Landscape, Social Media Landscape and Ultimately Web 2.0 enabling and maximizing your communication and marketing efforts into a creshendo of internal and external reciprocity with continuous communcations, or Now PR.
Letterman Tweets! What’s Your Twitter Strategy?
Admittedly, even as David Letterman began his very first Tweets live on TV (snicker), there appears to be a great deal of nonsense communications, noise and ad hoc chatter. He says, “it’s pointless and infantile.” But Dave, remember this medium is a relatively “new medium” and just beginning to blossom into maturity. You can, indeed talk to David Letterman about whether ”You Smell Veal And Peppers?”
But, seriously what is your Twitter strategy? Does your organization, agency, firm have a Twitter strategy?
With more than 70 Million users on Twitter, it is definitely the “buzz” word of 2009. Twitter is a privately funded startup with offices in the SoMA neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. Started as a side project in March of 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging micro-blogging service that works over multiple networks and devices. Truly, mobilizing communications into“now” PR.
Indeed, Twitter appears to be THE sensational social network micro-blogging tool for entrepreneurs, job seekers, and companies. Twitter is being used as a research resource, a collaborative enterprise social medium, PR, communications and marketing tool, an audience measurement source, messaging utility, networking facilitator and broadcast system. In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens right now—from breaking world news to updates from friends.
There are plenty of ad hoc strategies for approaching how to make effective use of Twitter. And, for some, it may seem like it’s getting more complex each day. Here are some Twitter stats
Is your Twitter strategy via one person posting aimlessly with many Tweets all day? Or, are you posting only as reactive Tweets to others? Does your organization have many people with Twitter accounts post about each internal line of business? Are you considering many single Twitter accounts? Are you considering Twitter accounts by topic, for many topics? Or, is your approach really more seat of the pants’?
“The majority of practitioners … still prefer to ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ and use intuition rather than intellectual procedures to solve public relations problems.” ~Managing Public Relations (1984), James Grunig and Todd Hunt
With the excitement over all the new capabilities, social media and near real-time communication. Initially, it may appear that your Twitter engagement success will need only three elements; enabling technologies, core applications and a shift in behavior.
You may hear or be part of….“We’ve got to get on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. And, as part of that immediacy, you may also hear that there is sense of urgency. Ok, so you signed up and have an account or multiple accounts. Once completed, you begin hearing water-cooler discussions, hallway whispers and planning sessions with may contain some of the following: Initially, to many people, Twitter may not make a lot of sense at first. How in the world can sending little 140 character messages to a bunch of people, many of whom you’ve never met, help us grow our business, build our brand or be effective outreach? What do we do now? How do we do this? Who’s going to do it? Who will maintain it? How many tweets can I/you/we/they manage? How many should we send out daily, hourly, weekly? Why are we doing this? How many topics can we/you/they manage? How many responses can you/they RT in response hourly, daily, weekly, monthly? Who should we RT on? What if we end up with 2,000, 4,000 or 10,000 followers in under a month? Are we strategically ready to respond to each and every single follower? Do we send canned micro-conversations? What if you/we get no followers? How will we handle disgruntled audiences? What if you/we only get “women” followers who spam our account with messages wanting/sending messages to follow you to their “picts” or other services? How will you handle this if it these as ReTweets to some of our topics? What if staff want to take part as individuals? Again, Why are we doing this? Do we need to tell everyone internally?
In, a nut shell, avoid trying to fit two or three divergent strategies into one Twitter account as a melting pot.
Some of old school PR methods may still be of significant value for our evolving new communication world. Case in point, the Edward Bernays paradigm outlined in his influential 1920s book, Crystallising Public Opinion and expanded in his classic 1955 PR text, The Engineering of Consent, on which most modern public relations thinking is based, is under challenge from new approaches which if continued without adequate research will speed up “PR’s descent into disrepute.”
As a result, I plead for the continued need for the “Engineering of PR as a result of well founded research upon which one should base their basic Twitter strategy.
Therefore, to answer the Twitter strategy question in part, I emphatically assert that your strategy should not be ad hoc, should not be many different things crammed into one channel, but based on a sound strategic MarCom 101 basic formula, wherein Marston provided the R.A.C.E. formula for public relations which identified four stages. (research, action, communication and evaluation). Cutlip and Center provided their own formula based on this which they expressed as fact-finding, planning, communication and evaluation. For the purpose of this discussion, we will only focus on the emphasis of doing your research first. Research is more than just a one-off activity at the end of campaigns and programs, but an ever on-going integral process of communications.
Evaluate inputs, outputs and outcomes as part of a continuous, integrated communication process (R.A.C.E.) from the earliest stages of planning, then if need be…hourly, daily, weekly, monthly. Use a range of formal and informal communication research methods which will lead to your final evaluation being strategic and much more valuable to management when aligned with mission and objectives.
For a variety of specific high level Twitter strategies consider some of the following:
- Corporate Reputation Management
- Event Coverage
- Media Relations
- Advocacy
- Product, Service, Promotion, Sales
- Internal Communication
- Investor Relations
- Customer Relations
- Crisis Management
With any of these strategies, you will then need to use three key steps for each: follow, create and engage.
Twitter Strategy Considerations: Do Your Research First.
Research & Identify: How do you want to use Twitter? What function will it serve in meeting your objectives, target audience, needs and goals?
Research and know who your target audience, competitors and stakeholders are and what they are saying on Twitter: There are more than 50 research, tracking and analytic tools available to help track your audience, trends, messaging and your performance on Twitter. Learn a bit more about the basics of Twitter Search here. Here are a few named directly, Twazzup, Twitteranalyzer, Tweettronics,Twittercounter, Tweettronics,Twitnest, Klout, SuiteSpot, SuiteSpot,Monitter Wefollow, Twittermap.tv, Twittermap.us.
Research Who to Strategically Follow: Avoid following hundreds of people or companies immediately as this tactic gives the impression you are spamming people with sales propaganda. Consider developing strategic partnership followers/stakeholder to help leverage your outreach efforts, working in concert with other top industry SME’s. Therefore Research Who to follow, and identify people and agencies in the industry, business, niche, or company inline with your overall goals and objectives. Perform your due diligence before following someone. Do not sign up for an auto-follow service
Research Keywords: Make a list of relevant and timely keywords to help you find the conversations you want to follow and Tweet about. See what others are doing/using. Consider comparing these Key words what you are already using on your Internet sites, cloud tags, meta tags, search engine SEO Strategically synch them all.
Research: Integrate Search/SEO/SEM: Input in your keywords, names, topics into the internal/external search engines to tap into the conversations you wish to follow and engage in.
Develop & Vary Your Strategic Messaging: For example, for every 15 “Tweets” you may want to write or respond to 10 external value based tweets and then post 5 are about your products, services, or events. Create your editorial “calendar” for a daily, weekly basis. But also beware who is Tweeting about your topics as well, as misinformation. You can research this with a variety of tools as well. Within your 7 value messages leave links to your resources, services, products
Strategically Plan to Use Tiny Urls: Use these valuable links to shrink the size of your URL links so they fit within Twitter’s 140 character limit. Since the launch of Tinyurl.com about 100 or similar sorts of URL shorteners have developed. As of Spring 2009, Bit.ly over took Tinyurl’s use on Twitter.
Strategically Plan to RT. “RT” stands for Re-Tweet. This is a form of recognition and the best strategy for networking. When you want to recognize someone’s Tweet content you simply place RT and then copy their Tweet. This provides your network with the valuable information and opens up a line of communication with that person, organization or topic of discussion. Consider this may require more real time communication planning scenarios. How will you handle this? @: This is another form of recognition. If you @person or company you can ask them a question as well as publicly recognize them for their writing, topic or discussion. This is engaging with your audience.
Research and Strategically Plan for Your #FollowFriday: (Consider Target Audience, Other Twitters, Other Lists, Other Topics, Other SMEs, Trending Up) Twitter Strategies: #Followfriday Recommendations: during your #Followfriday efforts use a combination of messages. Write a few #followfriday messages, then create a Mr.Tweet recommendation. Make sure you check the auto tweet option on your Mr.Tweet recommendation, so it shows up in your tweet stream. Mr. Tweet, the self proclaimed “Your Personal Networking Assistant”, recommendations. Much like the strategy behind Linkedin recommendations, Mr Tweet recommendations allow Twitterers the opportunity to strategically recommend their favorite Twitterers. The Twitter strategy in making use of favorites can be used in conjunction with your Mr.Tweet Twitter strategy. Mr.Tweet Recommendations: There are two methods to writing a recommendation on Mr. Tweet. You can use the Mr. Tweet internal search engine to find people you want to recommend or you can allow Mr.Tweet to suggest people you may wish to recommend.
Keep your ear to the ground continuously monitoring and evaluating the pulse. And, as Dave Letterman said, “someone go outside and see if the followers coming!”
Be sure to have fun!
Other Resources:
- A Twitter Guide:
- A UK Gov Twitter Policy
- Tweetdeck, Organize followers into specific categories (i.e. industry leaders, customers, etc.)
- A List of Social Marketing Examples: Thanks to Peter Kim
- Offshoot: Examples of Social Marketing by Channel Type: Ray Schiel’s Blog
- An External Wacovia Brand Twitter Case Study
Follow @Unlimitedpr Twitter
New to Micro Blogging? Try 12 Other Tools
The mutation of communication is drilled down to about 140 characters, these days. Micro-blogging is all the rage, and it has the potential to become a new informal communication medium especially for collaborative work. Over the last few years communication patterns have shifted primarily from face-to-face communication to more online communication in E-mail, IM and other tools. But, for organizations, I personally consider micro blogging, from a business perspective, to be the new media/press distribution channel. But, shhhh, don’t tell anyone. It will be just our little secret.
Don’t understand what all the Twitter mania is about or why you might even want to consider using this social networking tool? You’re not alone, but you might be missing out on useful information and professional connections. Read more about other micro blogging tools and options out there for consideration which are not Twitter. It’s important to always have more than one choice, I think. Try a few out, test their functionality against Twitter. Provide your opinion on which you like best? What do you like least, and why.
Have a good weekend everyone! I am just a little giddy about our pending first skiff of “snow” for the season here in the DC Metro area. I am watching for the very first flake or two to materialize, any time now, while silently humming to…..”Chesnuts roasting on an open Fire.”
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Reprinted/Reposted from CIO.
12 Microblogging Tools to Consider
Looking for business-friendly alternatives to Twitter? Check out these options.
1. Co-op: Allows you to post updates, ask questions, share links and track time. This tool also offers the ability to share your daily agenda with coworkers and enables you to search the transcript for old information. Tool is free.
2. Cyn.in: Combines collaboration tools such as wikis, social networks, blogs, file sharing repositories, microblogs and discussion boards into a secure enterprise platform. Free and paid accounts available.
3. Jaiku: Similar to Twitter but supported by Google. Updates can be posted via Web, instant message and SMS, as well as through third-party applications built by other developers. Tool is free.
4. Obayoo: Allows you to create a private and secure network for your company. Features include archiving messages, creating groups and inviting people related to your work, perhapsclients and contractors, to participate in discussions. Tool is free.
5. Present.ly: Features include creating groups for each project or topic of discussion; sharing documents, video and audio clips. Can be accessed via computer or mobile phone. Tool is free.
6. Sharetronix: Open-source software that allows updates of 160 characters or less. Features include bookmarking favorite posts, sending users direct messages and adding up to 10 tags to describe the user’s interests, hobbies, profession, etc. Tool is free.
7. Snipia: Capabilities include creating project groups, assigning and updating tasks to group members, posting Twitter-like status updates, and uploading and sharing files with your team members. Tool is free.
8. Socialcast: Features include public and private groups, e-mail integration, custom filters, user profiles and analytics that provide insight into the people, connections and information sharing occurring in your Socialcast community. Free and paid accounts available.
9. Socialtext: Accessible via browser, mobile device or an Adobe AIR desktop application. Features include a wiki, social networking profiles and activity streams. Free for up to 50 members.
10. StatusNet: Enables incorporation of micromessaging into a business’s own Web domain. Features include file sharing, groups, plug-ins and apps, customizable themes, and desktop and mobile access. Support costs extra.
11. WorkSimple: Offers users a personalized dashboard that displays upcoming commitments, tracks deliverables and highlights assignments; social profiles that showcase skills and peer recommendations; and performance profiles that capture employee performance, accomplishments and reviews. Free and paid accounts available.
12. Yammer: Private and secure. Incorporates microblogging, a company social network, discussion board, search capability, groups and can be accessed via desktop, mobile phone, instant messaging, e-mail or SMS. Free and paid accounts available.
Integration in a Fragmented Media World
Like many, we all have our profiles set up in more than a few social networking sites. It could become a time consuming and complex task to keep up and in touch with all your friends and contacts from all these different networks. In my last post, I hinted at how fragmented communications has become. There are now tools that allow you to either post or connect across all the popular networks – Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, GovLoop, Flickr, Friendster, Twitter, AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, just to name a few.
Are you a media, marketing, social marketing, public affairs or communications strategist looking for ways to streamline your external communications outreach and increase the depth of your Internet penetration? You can accomplish a more mature communications model that mirrors near ”continuous communications” out to your target audiences. And, you can do it across multiple online media channels. There are a few ways in which you can carry out this multi-tasking function.
You can either do it one by one with each individual channel with a single cut and peck-peck-peck method (no please don’t do that) or you can do it simultaneously across all of your media channels posting from anywhere to everywhere.
So, tonight, I want to mention a few tools which I personally like using, from an external communications perspective. These do not require any IT investment except your time in learning how to use them. Really, it’s quiet simple. They all are free. Yep, no cost. Nada. I am sure there are similar tools out there and others are sprouting up through the Internet perma-frost even as I am typing this up (copycats, are a nice complement in adding to an already good thing).
I also personally believe these tools can help with more consistency in an organizations external messaging and driving increased awareness in a tough and highly competitive economy.
The first tool I mention is for pushing/micro-blogging your messages out simultaneously. The second is for shortening your URL links (and making them trackable) to save space pointing people where you want to drive your target audience in a 140 character world. And, finally, the third tool is for generally zooming down to a geographic area and ”listening” to the buzz on the street, real-time. Remember, we have to listen to know what to say in order to resonate with our target audiences ( this is just one tool).
1) Ping.fm. Often it’s the (seemingly) simple applications that turn out to be the most powerful, and the most popular. Simplicity is beautiful. Ping.fm is a service that allows you to easily update a host of social networking and social media profiles all at once, seeks to resolve the headache of needing to log into multiple accounts to send the same message to different groups of friends and contacts all over the Internet. Ping.fm also has a decent help Wiki for more information.
Additionally, I like the fact that I can Ping right from my browser toolbar so simply that it makes my just giddy. While for some, Ping.fm may just be a nice little time-saving utility, for social media and communication professionals, this service may well be THE killer app of our time. Over the last few years communication patterns have shifted primarily from face-to-face communication to more online communication in email, IM, and other tools. As more collaboration is being done remotely through technology, there are relatively fewer opportunities for face to face informal conversations. In addition to time constraints or human resource limitations at work due to employee downsizing, drilled down efficiencies can be useful. To learn a bit more about Ping.fm read what’s on Wikipedia for some general information.
2) I am sure many of you have heard of or used Tinyurl.com. I believe it has the longest shelf life and was the first, dating back to about 2001/2002. URL shortening is a technique where an individual can make a web page available under a very short URL in addition to the original address. Since the launch of Tinyurl.com about 100 or similar sorts of URL shorteners have been born. As of Spring 2009, Bit.ly over took Tinyurl’s usage on Twitter. So I think it is safe to say, it has leading edge staying power. I personally like Bit.ly because it also allows me to quasi track the results of my link click through rates in real-time. It has some other good features as well. I came across an article that talks about some of the others, of course each one has its pros anc cons. For example, tr.im is another one which uses your Twitter account as your login, making it a sure-fire hit if it keeps up the rest of its services as well. A great one to try, it might surprise you. And then you have U.nu which creates the smallest URLs of any shortener, with only about 8 characters for each new URL created(not including the “http://”). That’s mighty tiny. The point is, that you have some choices with regards to shortening your long Webpage URLs for all your external communications so you can drive people exactly where you want them to go with a compelling message and then track that link’s click results. Anyone still hand typing paper press releases anymore and faxing them? Really, you can do it all with in the blink or wink of an eye, well almost. Now, that’s affordable and near continuous communications.
3) Visual Trends Map on Twitter topics being discussed or micro-blogged about in real-time. You really can get a pulse of what’s hot and what’s being talked about in specific geographic areas. Just incredible. And, then you can formulate and message and respond using the tools mentioned.
If one thing communications has taught me is that it is a constantly evolving medium. Never static, either in the evolution of the language we use or the medium in which we communicate through. We started with fire and smoke signals, sticks drawing in the dirt, painting on cave walls, pen and ink, the Gutenberg Press, newspapers, the telegraph, the LinoType, telephone, Radio, TV, Internet, Cellphones and so on to name just a few media landmarks (not necessarily in exact chrono order).
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type in 1452, was deemed ”the most influential man of the millennium.” The first book printed in the colonies was in 1640. The first publisher was Lipincott. And, Thomas Jefferson was a radical for his defense of Free Speech. That old press release written in AP style? And, Ivy Lee, a PR genius. It was created to fit into the evolution of communication by using a new tool with the advent of electronic transmissions across telegraph wires, dating back to the early 1900′s. And, YES indeedy here we are in 2009 and we are still formatting our press releases the very same way we did 103 years ago. Why? Much has changed. Some things have not.
Your organization’s lead news ‘graph of 21 words or less in a 350 word press release should be considered a historical dinosaur (forgive me, being a PR professional, I should know better than to even whisper such). It begs a few content related communication and distribution upgrades. No, an extreme makeover.
Is that press release formatted for continuous instant consumption to fit in a 140 character Tweet? Is it formatted for today’s “telegraph wire” in 2009? And, is that press release just sitting on your Website with a hyperlink to it sitting there percolating on your server going no where, with scads and scads of other press releases from years and years and years ago?
There are, of course, still some resonating repeating themes from the original press release objective. And, I encourage you to read the article to see if you can pick out a few? I will wait, go check that link right there just above this line.
Open, transparent communication? Hmmmm. As this post draws to a close highlighting three useful online tools, it leads me to yet another area for exploration. Web 2.o enabled social media press rooms and social media press releases, can they still accomplish the Who, What, When, Where and Why in an inverted pyramid format? Should we? We we are to achieve open and transparent communications, we may well need to recraft out media relations is formatted, tactically accomplished and transmitted.
Stay tuned for more. Are you ready? Are your Website media “rooms” Web 2.0 enabled? Are your press releases Web 2.0 enabled?
Have we come full circle? Are we not still saying and wanting the very same things today that were echoed in 1906?
What is your idea of the best Social Media Press Release for a main stream best practice? There are some samples out there already floating around and being test driven, talked about and even used. What do you think?
Well, until Web 2.0 enabled press releases become mainstream, I hope you will see the potential value at least in the three tools I mentioned tonight to help with some of your organization’s external communication efforts. We may not be able to physically integrate all the media channels, but we can closer to streamlining our external communication efforts using these tools.
Have a good day everyone!
Alice M. Fisher
If you would like strategic advisement or help please contact me via email at alicemfisher58@yahoo.com Follow @Unlimitedpr Twitter Resume & Profile: http://bit.ly/3kuiuV
Media Landscape Part II
(Bio) Well, yesterday I wrote about the fact that PEW’s 2009 State of the Media Report findings indicated that in the U.S. only about 34% of the population is reading newspapers (personally, I think that is a bit high) and of that number, the readership population is predominantly an older generation, with a few younger audiences scattered throughout. Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value.
By recent calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009? Well, that remains to be seen.
And, today, I read AP news and a few others want to charge money for online news content. ”AP, News Corp bosses tell search engines and bloggers that it is time to pay up” Would you pay for online news? I am not as versed on the international media landscape, but I am sure changes are being felt or noticed overseas as well. I did find a traditional media landscape for Europe for anyone who wants to dig into that area a bit deeper. But, I digress.
OK, so, does AP and the top News Corp bosses sound a bit panicked here? are they mad? Is this an attempt to recover from their own dismal landslide in revenues, as previously noted in the Pew 2009 State of the Media Report? I welcome opinions.
Long story short, print media, i.e. newspapers are struggling. And, if you are unaware of the social media landscape, then developing your strategic public affairs or media relations plan for your organization could render results less than spectacular- you could be in a print newspaper black hole and not even know it. But, who is reading print these days anyway? As I mentioned in my previous blog, only about 34% of the people are doing so. And, what predominant age group? 65+ years old. Is this the circle of influencers or your target audience that you want to reach? I beg, please dig deeper.
When I stumble across companies jumping into the waters of social media unaware “because everyone is doing it or because it’s the hottest thing out there”, or because public relations agencies are pushing social media practices as a “must have” for their clients as part of their new tool box of capabilities-I become just a little nervous. But, contrary to what many may say, social media is not a silver bullet, nor is it ideal for every company. It’s a strategy that should be carefully and strategically researched and considered and its subsequent tools which are designed to take companies to where their target audiences are already conversing.
So, today I want to look at what that “new landscape” might look like with a bit more depth. Ultimately, our goal should be to prepare to advance from the basic direct one-way communication strategy, using those basic media tools of yesterday to a more aligned two-way continuous communications model/strategy where there is true engagement. How, might you ask?
Before you start touting social media, please make sure your own site, your own news room, and press releases are Web 2.0 enabled. Are your own senior executives embracing and using the new media landscape?
Well, first off you need to know what the new media landscape looks like. With a little research I came across a great little visual source which I just have to share which is a little farther below. After taking a look at it, I image you may be saying…”How can you achieve continuous communications across so many channels, simultaneously? Believe me, there is a way to do this with a couple strategies. But, stay tuned, as I will get to that on my next blog post. Now back to our landscape work.
Like I said, being aware of the media landscape is important. The traditional media sources should not be completely ignored nor forgotten but part of your entire media mix. Therefore, I am providing a couple of links to the top 100 US newspapers , the top 100 international newspapers, top radio stations by state and DMA as well as TV networks. We will now take into consideration the “other new” channels.
There is no question that social media is responsible for a dramatic shift in the relationship between those who produce news and those who consume it. And, both traditional and new media are very fragmented. But, consider it another step in the evolution of a more mature continuous communications model. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, to name just a few, are all incorporating innovative uses of the Internet. Who are the top dogs (Websites) in the US?
News subscribers are no longer defined as simple recipients of news, getting information by only reading newspapers, watching television or listening to reports on the radio. Today, consumers of news are also gatherers and distributors of news: they take part in creating it, capturing it, re shaping and disseminating it.
In fact, in a survey of 50 radio newsrooms in the top 50-markets, News Generation uncovered the impact that social media is having in the newsroom. The survey found that nearly half of the newsrooms (45%) use Twitter and Facebook, to offer their technologically savvy audiences an extension to conventional radio to provide another broadcast platform. But, there are so many other channels within the social media construct. Therefore, I would like to introduce the social media prism, a lense through which each petal represents a social media channel.
Source: Strategically, as a communications professional or agency professional, you should want to find yourself at the center of the prism – whether you’re observing, listening or participating. So, with this conversation landscape noted above, how does one manage all the channels? How can you be “one with a channel” or even begin to strategize and garner results with this much fragmentation? Does it make you dizzy just thinking about it? But, to resonate, to be heard, to listen, to be in the mix, you do have to have some idea of what it all looks like and who is out there.
From my observations, there seems to be four main Web 2.o usages that have evolved. And, the various topical usage tools and services displayed in this landscape are listed below.
1. Expressing tools allow users to express themselves, discuss and their social life:
- Publication tools like blogs (Blogger, Typepad, WordPress), wikis (Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Wikia), microblogs (Twitter, Tumblr, Identica), citizen news (Digg, Newsvine, AgoraVox) and livecast (JustinTV, Ustream, BlogTV) ;
- Discussion tools like forums (phpBB, Phorum) and video forum (Seesmic), instant messengers (Y! Messenger, Live Messenger, Meebo, eBuddy), comments services (IntenseDebate, Cocomment, Disqus, BackType) and 3D chats (IMVU, Habbo, WeeWorld, vSide) ;
- Aggregation tools (Topix, FriendFeed, SocialThing, LifeSteam, Profilactic, Plurk…).
2. Sharing tools allow users to publish and share content:
- Content sharing for videos (YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo), pictures (FlickR, SmugMug, Picasa, Fotolog), music and playlists (Last.fm, iLike, Deezer), links (Delicious, Magnolia, Reddit) and documents (Slideshare, Scrib, Slideo) ;
- Product sharing with recommendations platforms (Crowdstorm, ThisNext, StyleHive), collaborative feedback platforms (FeedBack 2.0, UserVoice, GetSatisfaction) or swaping platforms (LibraryThing, Shelfari, SwapTree) ;
- Place sharing with tools based on local adresses (BrighKite, Loopt, Whrrl, Moximity), on events (Upcoming, Zvents, EventFul, Socializr) and on trips (TripWolf, TripSay, Driftr, Dopplr).
3. Networking tools allow users to search, connect and interact with each other’s:
- Search networks allowing users to find ex-classmates (Classmates, MyYearBook, Alumni) or persons (MyLife) ;
- Niche networks (Boompa, Dogster, PatientsLikeMe, Footbo) ;
- B2B networks (LinkedIn, Plaxo, Xing, Viadeo) ;
- Mobile networks (Groovr, MocoSpace, ItsMy, Zannel) ;
- Tools to build an online network (Ning, KickApps, CrowdVine, CollectiveX).
4. Playing services that now integrate strong social features:
- Casual games portals (Pogo, Cafe, Doof, Kongregate, PlayFirst, PopCap, BigFish, Prizee) ;
- Social games portals (Zynga, SGN, ThreeRings, PlayFish, CasualCafe, Farmtown,ChallengeGames) ;
- MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, EVE Online, Lineage, Dofus, Runescape) ;
- MMOs (Drift City, Kart Rider, Maple Story, Audition, Combat Arms, Quake Live) ;
- Casual MMOs (Puzzle Pirates, Club Penguin, Neopets, Gaia Online, SmallWorlds, OurWorld).
But, for the communication professional, public affairs, media relations professional do you have to be on top and up to speed on all of them and have uptine # of channel masters working each one? I can hear someone saying in the background now, “I am going to have a media meltdown. How can I keep up?”
Is media still top down? Is it direct one-way communications any more? Or, is it top down and bottom up simultaneously? Anyone have other thoughts on this evolving social media landscape? Hurry, it will change yet again! 
Next, we will look at how to distribute through and connect across multiple media channels after you have strategically performed your target audience research.
Have a good weekend everyone!
Sincerely, Alice M. Fisher
