Seven Digital Media Trends of 2011

 1. Print Goes to the Tablet
 Reinvention and new digital distribution is better late than never for print media. Some big breakthroughs are on the way for print media moving onto the tablet. Touch screens are the new newsprint.

Last month, a new iPad only newspaper was announced by Apple and News Corp. Rupert Murdoch is investing $30 million to create The Daily, a new “paper” that will have no website and… no paper. It will only be available through an iPad application, which will cost $0.99 per week to use.


Wired Magazine and Adobe Digital Publishing have also been collaborating to create a new digital magazine experience for the iPad, Kindle, and other mobile devices.

The business model for distribution via tablet has also become more competitive. Amazon.com announced last month that they would pay publishers 70% of the retail price of their magazines and newspaper sales on the Kindle electronic reader—a virtual 180 degree turn from the terms the company previously had with major publications like the Wall Street Journal.

2. The Digital Talent Pool
Media Executives: Forget everything you think you know about where your talent pool is forming. It’s not growing in smaller markets, and with a few exceptions, it’s not coming from your programming or sales internship programs. Thereal talent—the ones you really want—are entrepreneurial and creative, and they’re not waiting around in your lobby to get a job. They’re trying it on their own.

Media outlets will find future talent on YouTube, iTunes, or other popular audio/video on-demand sites like BlogTalkRadio. In fact, equal-opportunity stages like the above-mentioned sites already made stars out of many living room dwellers.
This year in Radio3D, we have featured a number of YouTube producers who are earning six figure incomes by creating videos on a regular basis on all sorts of topics from how-to videos to comedy spoofs.

NBC Universal announced an initiative last week to harness the power of the 20 most influential Twitter users in each of the ten markets where NBCU has a local TV station. They will select 20 popular “tweeters” in each market to create content for their websites, broadcast segments, and other distribution channels.

3. Deal Hunters
If you are a deal-seeker and coupon-clipper, this is the most glorious time to be alive! Groupon is just one of many local deal-brands that are emerging now with growing reach and success stories. Other players in the deal-and-savings space include The Dealmap, AOL Wow, Dealradar, and Yipit. Amazon.com and eBay are also investing in the local retail business. This is a significant move by ad networks that have typically been national in focus. Now, there will be more local reach where radio, television, and print have long exclusively dominated.

4. Mobile Momentum
Like radio, mobile media is instant and portable. It has one more killer trait though—it’s personalized. It may be premature to say that mobile has revolutionized the way people consume entertainment and news, but it is certain that mobile has changed the way we communicate.

Next year will bring some big breakthroughs for traditional media in the mobile world. Right now, radio does mobile through a one-way speaker into the car. Mobile media offers a whole new toolbox for creating a mobile brand experience for radio stations.

Any radio station without a strategy for reaching mobile users in 2011 is woefully behind and missing a major opportunity to reach literal movers-and-shakers in the marketplace.

5. Social Nets Deliver Qualified Traffic
Facebook and Twitter are significant traffic and awareness drivers—especially when used in tandem with traditional media. Already, many ad agencies use social media to amplify a client’s local reach and customer engagement. The cost of marketing on Facebook and Twitter makes it hard to justify their absence in any marketing strategy.

Social networking for broadcasters will become an even more important part of maintaining and growing audience. Next year, smart broadcasters will use social networking as a way to drive web engagement, tune-ins, and time spent viewing/listening.

6. Power to the People
Audience-driven television shows like Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and America’s Got Talent have harnessed the power of the crowd to create compelling and interesting programming. Watch Twitter or Facebook during any big TV show, whether it’s the NBC Christmas Special or Glee, and you’ll see people posting comments and having conversations about the programming in real time.

In my other life as President of Listener Driven Radio (LDR), we have been working with radio stations to create interactive broadcast programming. Our software is in use at some of the world’s leading broadcast companies, and we’re seeing some fascinating impact on station ratings and website traffic as a result of empowering the audience to participate in real-time programming. We’ve seen real-time voting on music stations impact tune-ins and website traffic. In an instant-gratification society, giving your audience real-time influence in programming is natural and powerful.

7. Target Power
Digital ad targeting technology is getting better, more accurate, and more important to ad buyers. Precise geographic, demographic, and psychographic targeting is increasingly valuable, and I anticipate the technologies and systems that make better targeting possible will appreciate in value in 2011. Broadcasters’ digital outlets have a unique asset already, in that their digital audiences are largely concentrated with a specific demo group / lifestyle group respective to the station. Broadcasters have an important road ahead of them in developing audience databases, since precise tracking/databasing of the audience is the first step in making targeting possible.


Cite: http://fullthrottlecountry.blogspot.com/2010/12/seven-digital-media-trends-of-2011.html

5 Social Marketing Predictions for 2011

Another year is almost over. The Christmas Number 1 song has been decided (in the UK at least); the web has proved that even after a brutal recession, people still need to shop; and, after a year in which Facebook & Twitter became (if they weren’t already) true phenomenons, we had the interesting experience of watching political leaks going social. Watergate 2.0 if you like.

So what did we learn from the spread of social in 2010? What does any of this mean for the wider web, and world, and what does it herald for 2011? Well, my predictions have often been proved wrong, but where’s the fun in not even trying?

1. Facebook to hit the 1 billion mark

I’ve explained the thinking behind this projection before (basically I’ve mapped the numbers in Excel, and we know Excel never lies), and as time goes on, I think it’s only getting more likely. Holland is now the only developed/Western nation holding out against Facebook dominance and the surge in uptake of smartphones means that this projection now looks like being quite a modest one.

2. Foursquare will remain a (respectably sized) niche

Foursquare has been the buzzword to drop in meetings this year, in a way reminiscent of Twitter or Facebook in years past. However, despite all the hype, and high-profile brand partnerships, its user base is still relatively small: 5 million as of the start of December.

Whilst there is no doubt that location will play a part in the development of the web, it has always struck me that the game mechanic that lies at the heart of Foursquare (and most of its main rivals) will always remain a little to niche, especially when it’s tied to something (publicising location) so many people still feel uncomfortable doing.

3. Groupon will be 2011′s Twitter

What I mean here is that Groupon will be the site that every brand brings up in marketing meetings: you could argue it was 2010′s Twitter, seeing as how it’s the fastest growing company ever, and turned down a Google deal worth $6 billion. But whilst it’s been building a hugely impressive business, it’s not yet the cool kid that brands want to deal with, probably due to the fact that it’s been targeting small businesses. That will change.

And whilst many companies will have an issue with discounting their brands (discount customers tend to be less loyal, and it’s hard to go back when you’ve slashed your price), the sheer size of Groupon’s audience (more visitors in the US than Foursquare gets globally).

4. Offline will become social as connected TV becomes a reality

Again, hardly ground-breaking, but I do feel 2011 will see social TV move from two screens to one. Google TV is live, Apple TV (though hardly social) is finally getting some love from Steve Jobs, whilst Microsoft apparently also has plans in this field.

Interestingly, the Seattle behemoth might well be on to the best bet, due to its existing Xbox platform: moving from a console aimed at hardcore gamers, to one targeting families, and which allows for web based commerce and viewing as well as gaming, might well prove to be the perfect package.

5. Google won’t release a social network

Again, I’m hardly doing a Julian Assange here and releasing state secrets, but from conversations with Google, as well as their public announcements, I think it’s safe to assume that Google’s push into social won’t involve directly taking on Facebook.

Instead, their social layer (taking elements of Buzz & Wave) is likely to allow people to share different content with different groups of friends/colleagues, rather than forcing you to share everything with everyone, an idea that Mark Zuckerberg derided as out of date. Until he changed his mind, that is.

So, with all these predictions, what will 2011 end up looking like? Well, probably a lot like 2010. It’s often hard to remember that those of us who work in digital marketing tend to be more than just a little ahead of the curve.

This Gapingvoid cartoon always highlights this for me: penned in 2007, it suggests that Twitter was already boring by that point, years before most people had already heard of it. Just because something is new, doesn’t mean it will automatically become mainstream, and the tricky bit is spotting which ones will.

What we can be reasonably sure of though, is that 2011 will see a continuing convergence between devices, channels & sectors as TV, mobile & search all become increasingly social. If 2010 was the year when many brands finally asked whether they could afford to try social, 2011 will be the year where we’ll be asking them whether they can afford not to.

Source:  http://searchengineland.com/5-social-marketing-predictions-for-2011-58541

Social Media Marketing Plan

Social Media Marketing Plan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: http://chiefingredient.com/blog/wp-content/social-arena-marketing-prep.jpg