Hey Print Media... The Internet Called and Said It Thinks You're Dead

Now you're probably wondering why a company that is entrenched in 2.0 marketing and hanging with the likes of the social media kind would be concerned with or even defending print media, right? Well the answer to that is simple, we believe in the power of marketing; be it print, skywriting, smoke signals or online mediums. I read recently somewhere that only 17% of people believe in marketing... I almost choked, fell out of my chair, and then choked again. Yet in the back of my mind I wasn't entirely surprised, I have meet so many business owners and individuals who view marketing and advertising as a "necessary evil" and a pseudo-waste of money. The truth however, couldn't be further from that notion, but we will save that for another day.

So, by now we're all familiar with the gruesome predicament of print media: Print readership is falling, ad revenues are disappearing as a result, blah blah blah....
What ever you believe, it's safe to say that we all can agree on the fact that how information is exchanged has rapidly changed. It would also be safe to say that certain individuals benefitted by acquiring a larger audience while others gradually lost their audience. Assuming the shift in audience size is not a result of better or worse content, this is an effect of certain people manipulating the pathways of information better than others. New media evangelists benefit from this and defend their newfound digital pathways in any way they can… hence their argument that digital media is putting all other forms of communication to bed... Ask anyone in Print Media and they will tell you that this is as about as far fetched as the idea of a Sasquatch. There is no denying though that the web hasn't been any kind of savior to print, I believe this is attributed to one simple reason:
No matter how good your newspaper or magazine's site is, advertisers still don't pay as much to reach a web reader as they will for a print reader, to the tune of about ten cents on the dollar. And like P.Diddy once said – it’s all about the Benjamins baby...
So no wonder print publications have been so scared to migrate their businesses online--it's like asking them to move into a shiny new house that happens to be on pile of toxic waste located on an Indian burial ground. But what if it's not all the publisher's fault? What if the crappy state of Internet advertising is to blame? Ask yourself this: When is the last time your favorite Dickens novel or issue of Vogue spammed you? With everyone now being a digital expert and web marketing genius it’s hard to decipher what’s worth it and what’s not. SEO... PPC... SEM... FML... It is easy to get lost in the idea of all that the internet has to offer and to be an expert in every capacity might be an accolade held by a very select few. There is no doubt however, that they are marketing mediums that work and when put into effect in a cohesive manner can be hugely beneficial to businesses small and large. Does all this really equate to the death of print though?

Let’s start with this, during the 12 year life of Google, magazine readership increased 11%. 11% isn't a negligible amount, that’s significant growth, especially when you consider how long magazines have been around... In an interesting article in Publishing Executive, Rex Hammock makes a distinction that I found more than insightful — print isn’t dying, magazines aren’t dying, newspapers aren’t dying, but rather mass media is dying... and with it the notion that one broadcast can satisfy the information needs of a common audience. Makes sense to me, this has already affected television, with the propagation of cable and satellite channels and the diminution of the major networks and their news operations. They are no longer the social glue they once were. Google, Yahoo, and high-speed broadband have taken the places of AOL and the crashing and binging of dial-up. Our Datsun b210 has been replaced by luxury, eco-friendly, gas/electric hybrid, super-charged automotive confections because we now live in a world where everything can be fine tuned to meet our needs. We have become niche people and the rate at which we can educate ourselves and satisfy our needs has significantly increased.

But what about the appreciation of good, old fashioned talent and hard work? Has that changed too? Our need for beautiful things to hold and look at, have they disappeared as well? The next time you're standing in line at the grocery store or at your favorite airport bookstore picking up bottled water and gum take a moment to notice the artistry that lies before you, the level of expertise, time and mastery that goes into every issue of W, National Geographic and the likes. It's hard to deny the tremendous value in passionate, knowledgeable, talented editors who can assign stories and photographs with budgets to do them better and more authoritatively than any one individual can. The reader of those magazines can depend on the information being accurate, coherent, concise, beautiful and created by the by most talented writers and photographers in the world. And best of all readers may learn about something that they didn't know they were interested in. As I see it print is the perfect introduction to an informed debate and to the deep resources of the web. The words and pictures in print or on a magazine's web site become the basis for searching, linking, talking and ranting (for those with the time or inclination to do so). The web is the friend of print, not its killer. After all, print media has lasted longer than past human civilizations. Why can’t it survive through this one?

So what's the lesson behind all of this?
1. Don’t believe everything you hear 2. Print isn't dying, it hasn't taken a vacation and it's not going anywhere any time soon.
I encourage all businesses to use print and web to their best advantage and make both work
for one another. I don't have to tell you that in this economy you should be making the most out of every marketing dollar you spend. Promote your print ads on your web and social media sites and
vice-versa. Work to seamlessly communicate marketing and branding efforts through consistency in print, email, web and social media efforts. TV didn't kill radio and DVD didn't kill movies; and just because I can go to the store and buy all the fixin's for killer homemade cupcakes doesn't mean I'm not going to instead, spend $5 on a deliciously made, individually wrapped, culinary delight from my favorite boutique cupcake store and forgo the baking and dishes all together. All said and done the recurring theme in all marketing mediums is simple... make them work most efficiently to meet your goals and needs and garner the biggest returns on investment

Now who's up for that cupcake?

Does anyone "like" your business?

It’s no secret that Chandelier Communications believes in the power of conversation but many businesses (including a few of my clients) are still wondering why they should care about social media and how their own companies can benefit from becoming a part of the 2.0 marketing world. It is also no secret that anyone with a set of fingers, a computer and an internet connection can have a blog, Facebook page, twitter account and so on; so what’s the benefit from outsourcing another company to manage the strategy behind it? Well, that’s your answer. Strategy.
It takes more than fingers and a computer to develop 2.0 strategies, just like traditional marketing concepts, it takes creative direction, ingenuity and commitment to make a cohesive social media identity work. Now, that’s not to say that individual business owners and companies can’t do well at it on their own, there are plenty of companies that are success stories in their own right. However, I have found that for many of our clients that an overall lack of knowledge and/or desire was the driving force behind their lack of social media initiatives. Some had started their Facebook and Twitter pages and then lost interest and others were too consumed with the struggles running a business in a failing economy to dedicate time. There are of course companies and services out there that will never find value in Facebook and Twitter as they are not consistent with their brand statement or company goals. That portion of social media is not always relevant for everyone; but that doesn’t completely count those companies out, there are many ways to utilize video podcasts, blogs, YouTube, etc where Facebook and Twitter have lacked in relevancy.
The last and maybe most important questions we have been posed with is “What is the value or ROI of Social Media? And “How do I measure the ROI of social media?” And these are great questions that companies should be asking. Unfortunately, there is no one answer. While we can certainly obtain some metrics through tools like Twitter Search and Google Analytics, some of social media is simply about building goodwill and nurturing relationships. Like the good old-fashioned golf game and the “Let’s Do Lunch” strategy, people like connecting with people. To a certain extent it would be like me asking you to quantify the value of all your business relationships, you know that there is value there but it might be difficult to put a number on it. The trick is to not rely solely on the numbers, but on what the numbers end up leading to. For instance, does your increase in website visitors correlate with higher sales? Are people that find your website from Twitter or Facebook then clicking on your product pages or going to the e-Commerce section of your site? That’s the sort of data you want to be able to look for, as that is the data that truly matters. Just like with any marketing or advertising campaign your company develops or initiates, at the end of the day you should be able to see the value it has added. It’s as simple as that.

Here are some stats that we found particularly interesting on the ROI (return on investment) of social media

1. Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook and roughly a 1/3 of these are small businesses.

2. Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook program incented users to give up ten of their Facebook friends in return for a free Whopper. The estimated investment for this program was less than $50,000 yet they received 32 million media impressions which roughly estimated equals greater than $400,000 in press/media value. Which to put in context is somewhat like reaching the entire populations of 19 states (understanding this doesn’t account for unique vs. repeat visitors, etc.)

3. BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube blending everything from an iPhone to a sneaker.

4. Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.

5. Naked Pizza, a New Orleans Pizzeria that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media. In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.” And 85% of their new customers were from Twitter. So, yes, social media does work for small businesses.

6. Tweets for a Cause sent out a tweet from Atlanta to encourage support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a result of retweets, the Atlanta Chapter site received 11,000 visitors in 24 hours as a result of this initiative by ResponseMine Interactive.

7. During Barack Obama’s rise to the White House, he garnered 5 million fans on social media and 5.4 million clicked on an “I voted for Obama” Facebook button. Most importantly this resulted in three million online donors contributing $500 million in fundraising. An astounding 92% of the donations were in increments of less than $100.

8. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center witnessed a 9.5% increase in registrations by using social media.

9. eBay found that participants in online communities spend 54% more money.

10. 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It.

Basically, if you are not using social media, then begin now. Because today, people want to get excited. They want to engage in dialogues with the companies that they support. So, to thrive and grow you must use social media to create exciting ideas and to stimulate conversations and to build online brands with which people have passionate love affairs. Social media has become the great equalizer as it allows every business to leverage huge numbers of people by creating an online community and generating excitement around its brand.

Is your company making the most of its social media potential?