What Newspapers Need to do NOW to Survive
December 7, 2008 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
I’ve been thinking about the whole traditional media/new media thing – everyone trying to figure out will happen to traditional media in the future. I’ve been mulling over thoughts around this for a while now, but haven’t been able to gather all my thoughts into one cohesive post. And then, I came across Chris’s post entitled All Tomorrow’s Armies and realized that Chris managed to coalesce all my thoughts!
Stay with the old at your own risk. All tomorrow’s armies are equipped and ready to embed. We don’t need to gather. We have our own dial tone. We connect and disband the way waves shape the beach. [source]
Now, although Chris does go on to say that we might also might not be or do all of those things, but I have a very good feeling that this really will be the way of the media world. If traditional media doesn’t get involved in the social media world, they’re going to get left in the dust.
The New York Times has recently realized that the aggregation of and links to things the paper didn’t produce in-house improves the audience experience and they have begun to provide additional information written by bloggers and in some cases, even their direct competitors. [source] While this isn’t anything new for those of us who are used to the social media world, it’s very cool to see the New York Times embracing our world.
Steve Outing from Editor & Publisher has offered newspaper CEOS and journalists some ‘crisis advice’ in his most recent column. Chief among his advice includes hiring a Social Media VP.
Most newspapers have a vice president of circulation in charge of print distribution. Today, you need a “circulation VP” for the Internet. A more appropriate title: vice president for social media.
A key tenet in the digital media world we now live and do business in is: Be everywhere. Any newspaper company that thinks that its Web site or sites (and maybe a few other services like e-mail newsletters, RSS feeds and mobile-phone alerts) is enough is sadly mistaken. [source]
Today’s newspapers and media outlets have got to adapt. They need to get involved with citizen journalists more, get the reporters blogging, start covering hyper-locally, and be everywhere on line, absolutely everywhere. Check to make sure that your brand/user name isn’t being brandjacked.
In short, get on it, hire your VP of Social Media (I happen to know a few good candidates) and get started before you go extinct.
