Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
My thoughts on strategy, communications and digital and technology, and how it’s creating opportunities and transforming service delivery in businesses and governments.
Sign-up to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Listen to my podcast on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
All tagged social media
Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
If proof was needed that social media empowers people and fuels revolutions then you should look at the unfolding situations in #Tunisia, #Egypt and countries in the middle-east. Facebook, Twitter and Egypt’s own Masrawy have connected people and empowered them to share their thoughts and opinions on how their states are governed. The adoption of social networking in Arabic-speaking states has gone relatively unnoticed. Yet according to web research firm Alexa the top sites in Tunisia and Egypt are Facebook, Twitter and search company Google
Social media and networking channels have during the past year established themselves as the preferred method of communication amongst the varied publics that we interact with. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have become part of the mainstream.
The Adverting Standards Authority (ASA) siloed approach to regulating social media highlights this regulatory body’s lack of understanding of real-time communication channels.
Following on from the CIPR’s acclaimed Digital Impact conference last month the institute will be hosting a series of social media meetings this summer. Entitled The CIPR’s Social Summer events will take place every Thursday until the end of August and will bring together leading PR and social media professionals to discuss and debate this ‘not so new’ communications channel. Speakers include Philip Sheldrake, who yesterday presented a session on analytics, Andrew Smith, Stuart Bruce, Stephen Waddington, Steve Earl and myself.
KPMG reports that that consumers are "spending less on traditional and digital media than six months ago, but consuming more." The six-monthly KPMG Media and Entertainment Barometer released yesterday shows that average spend per UK consumer on traditional media fell from "from £9.19 in September 2009 to £7.46 in March 2010 and spend on digital media also fell (from £1.99 to £0.98)."
The Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s announced today that it has brought together some of the UK’s most eminent social media thinkers “to provide input into the Institute’s policy guidance, education and training.” Led by CIPR Board Member and Stainforth MD Rob Brown the advisory board is charged with looking at the impact of social media on “online reputation developments, convergence in marketing communications and best practice social media measurement.”
Last week Google decided to launch a salvo against the news industry by attacking plans by some outlets to introduce paywalls. Armed with an array of statistics Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian highlighted how “newspapers have never made much money from news” and that they could “save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.” In effect, what Varian was saying is that print is dead, bin the paper and move all your content online. Simple. But is he right and would such a strategy save the news and publishing industries?
Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10). At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues. WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media. Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.” He was right. This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.
We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries. Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture. In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry. But how wrong they appeared to have been. If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job.
The BBC’s User-Generated-Content (UGC) unit will be celebrating its fifth birthday this summer. Since it was set up in 2005, the unit has quietly been transforming how the BBC gathers and reports news. The unit is now a hub of 23 journalists that sift through stories, pictures and videos sent in by people who either have a story to tell or find themselves at the centre of a newsworthy event.
It has been an interesting year for public relations. The recession has affected how businesses communicate. Reputation and issues management have been the watchwords as companies throughout the world battled to safeguard their image and reputation during what could be described as the first major downturn in this globalised era. And it has taken no prisoners as it spread across sectors and continents, highlighting how interconnected we all are today
A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.
Nic Newman summed up the impact that social media is having on journalism when he said that based on volume and time spent on site, “Facebook was six times bigger than CNN.” People today spend more time on social networking sites than on news sites, with industry commentators citing this to highlight the reason for the supposed death of news and quality journalism.
“Be human, all this is still experimental” is how Media140 founder Ande Gregson summarised everybody’s expectations of Twitter and social media at the end of the Media140 Brands conference in London this week. And he is right.
The MacTaggart Lecture took place last week with News Corporation’s James Murdoch deciding at long last to take the stand at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival.Murdoch wasted no time in setting his stall out to get support as he painted a grim picture of the state of the UK’s media industry. Pointing the finger at the BBC, Murdoch described the corporation as a villain that had a “chilling” hold on the UK media landscape.
However you want to describe it, online and social media is playing an important part in shaping the reputation of brands around the world. It’s been doing so for some time now, certainly a few years. The issue at hand though, the one that New Media Knowledge (NMK) raised at their ‘What happens to online PR?’ event last week was if the Public Relations industry was best suited to lead clients through the ever-changing digital media landscape.