The Angerosa Research Foundation recently released its “Web 2.0: How Associations are Tapping Social Media” report, a follow-up to their “E-Publishing Trends and Metrics” study from 2007. The report focuses on how associations are increasingly using social media and Web 2.0 tools and technologies to meet their association goals. Here are 10 highlights from the report:
While many associations are beginning to see the value of how social networks and social media can help them, many still have reservations about Twitter. They might feel comfortable with writing for a blog or posting videos to YouTube, but they continue to question the purpose of a tweet. If associations will take a cue from the business world, they can harness the power of Twitter to meet some of their member communication goals.
Research from the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study shows that almost 60 percent of Americans interact with companies on social media sites. The survey findings also revealed:
It’s clear that the majority of Americans have an expectation and a desire to interact with companies through social media online, which helps explain why Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the web. In only the last year its traffic has skyrocketed from 533,000 to 2.4 million visitors. To respond to this demand for communication from their customers, Ann Smarty, in her Search Engine Journal Blog, shares examples of how high-profile businesses are using Twitter:
Earlier this year at Hammock, Twitter played a pivotal role in an event website we created for the National Federation of Independent Business for its National Small Business Summit. The social media site included video postings, photo sharing, blogging and knowledge-sharing powered by Twitter. Using Twitter allowed organizers and attendees to post the latest updates and news from the event.
Wonder how you can use the power of Twitter to create a new avenue for communication with your members? Contact us for social media strategies you can benefit from today.
Hammock partner Susan Weiss of the national advertising sales firm the James G. Elliott Company shares some perspective on the value of advertising in today’s environment in the latest issue of their company newsletter Ads & Ideas:
It’s a question that marketers struggle with during periods of economic unrest: cut costs by reducing or eliminating the advertising budget, or else maintain or increase the brand’s advertising exposure?
Today’s b-to-b marketing decision makers have learned the lessons taught during past economic upheavals. Meeting a recessionary climate with aggressive advertising is, historically, a way to grow business during a recession and maintain continued growth after the recessionary period ends. A study conducted by BtoB magazine earlier this year finds that most business-to-business marketers are determined to hold or increase their marketing budgets during 2008.
If you are like most marketers and are looking for ways to stretch your advertising dollars in 2009, a new report by Marketing Evolution has the answer for you—magazines. According the report, magazines beat out TV and online media in terms of effectiveness when it comes to influencing audience behavior.
The study focused on an ROI “cost per impact” model that measured brand awareness, brand familiarity and purchase intent. Magazines were especially successful in the categories of branded familiarity and purchase intent. Defining ROI is always a tricky thing, but in this study they use three measurements as a guide:
As you work to finalize your advertising and marketing budgets for 2009, keep in mind these latest research results show that in terms of advertising, magazines are the most cost-effective medium for influencing consumer behavior, a critical part of the sales cycle.
Every two years the National Federation of Independent Business holds its National Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C. The event brings together America’s most politically active entrepreneurs as well as key congressional and business leaders.
In 2008, NFIB turned to Hammock to help solve two of their post-Summit needs: 1) Provide members who did not attend the Summit highlights of the event beyond the traditional few pages of coverage in MyBusiness, NFIB’s member magazine, and 2.) Generate additional advertising revenue. To meet these goals, Hammock worked with NFIB to create and distribute a special, multimedia, digital edition supplement of MyBusiness covering the highlights of the Small Business Summit.
I loved this clever headline in Sunday’s The New York Times— “Too Beautiful for Pixels”—about the biannual art book The Last Magazine. Formatted like a newspaper, its tag line is: All things new—at last. Magnus Berger and Tenzin Wild, co-founders of the magazine, said that colleagues advised them to publish it online. The co-founders decided against the advice, however, and opted for a print-only publication because ”with print you can make something really beautiful.”
I respect their decision, trusting that they know what is best for their content, audience and budget, but I disagree with the implication that you can’t create something “really beautiful” with a digital publication. The decision to choose a print, digital or a combination for distribution of your content should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Readers interact with digital publications differently than print publications, and so those behaviors must be weighed when determining what is right for your audience. Print publications can certainly be beautiful, but don’t discriminate against digital ones—they can be beautiful too.
Whole Foods’ new website is a great example of how a company can take the passion its customers have for its products and services and create an online destination for this community to live, grow and thrive. The site connects Whole Foods fans from across the country, demonstrating that the company understands the power of community for their brand. Here are four tips that an association can learn from Whole Foods about how to create and manage a successful community online:
If your association doesn’t yet have a blog, start one now. You can set up an executive director-only blog, or you can create an organization-wide blog that allows different employees to contribute posts. Although it might be intimidating at first to accept comments, this function will create more transparency for your blog and will encourage member participation.
One of the first steps to building such a dynamic community online is for your association to have quality content on your site. The content needs to provide information and resources that offers a real value to your members, and it needs to be updated often. We also recommend using different media, including video, photos and podcasts, to share your content. By offering a range of forms, you tell your story more effectively and appeal to different audiences.
If your association has state or regional chapters of groups, consider creating a section of your site for each of these communities. Following this strategy will allow local groups of members to gather and grow.
If your association is just beginning to explore social networking tools, it’s ok to start gradually. At first, try Facebook and LinkedIn. Once you feel comfortable with those two tools, you can expand the range of your social media to best accomplish the goals for your association community.
I recently read about an interesting experiment: For the next three months the magazine Good is allowing readers to name their own subscription price. Good is not the first to experiment with the idea. For one month in late 2007, Paste allowed readers to name their subscription price, a program that resulted in 28,000 new paid subscribers. For a consumer magazine like Paste that carries advertising, a circulation increase of 28,000 should translate to a nice chunk of new advertising revenue.
Over the last few years as auditing agencies have enforced stricter requirements on publishers regarding circulation, some publishers have been forced to reduce their rate bases to pass their audits. Some magazines then find themselves unable to sell as big of an audience to advertisers, so they must find new ways to boost circulation. This partially explains why an annual subscription to a magazine can sometimes cost less than a single copy of an issue on newsstands. (Mr. Magazine Samir Husni shares his take on single copy vs. subscription sales on his blog.)
Before you consider instituting this kind of program with your magazine, consider: What are the risks of allowing new readers to tell you what your magazine is worth to them? Will these readers be more or less engaged with your magazine? Will readers who pay the average $20 subscription price feel more vested in the magazine than those who pay $1, or will you end up losing money on them? Each publication’s situation, content, readership and financial realities are unique, but for some magazines, letting their readers rate their worth could be an experiment that could help give those publications the circulation bump they sorely need.
I’ve posted a number of times this year about how, in an effort to engage readers and meet the needs of advertisers, some magazines are using incentives to drive their readers to action—specifically to text. As a reward for this behavior, readers receive special offers, the chance to enter sweepstakes or advance notice on hot products.
In a new twist on this concept, SmartMoney’s Sept. 16 issue will drive readers to text, but with a different motivation. Instead of tempting readers with the lure of special samples or deals, the magazine will send readers premium content in exchange for their texts. Within its pullout section on retirement, SmartMoney will include a call-out box with a texting code and the phrase “retire.” Once readers send in their text messages, they will receive a PDF article about retirement.
Obviously this advertising package is appealing to its sponsor, Genworth Financial, because the concept integrates different media and is measurable. And it allows Genworth to position themselves as a go-to resource for SmartMoney readers when it comes to retirement. While I admit the integration of media is cool, the element of this program that I find most intriguing is the promised content. Will readers send in texts? Yes, if they think the content will be valuable, but readers are savvy: They won’t respond to the call to action if it looks or sounds like advertising.
We at Hammock consider ourselves reader advocates, so we’re always cognizant of reader behavior in the media we create. If an advertiser, association or organization creates content for their audience that is compelling rather than self-serving, and if it’s written, designed and distributed with their target audience’s needs in mind, it’s much more likely to be effective, engaging and deliver ROI.
The private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, specializing in the media, communications and information industries, recently released their annual report on media spending. According to the report, total communications spending is projected to grow 5.4 percent in 2008 to $924 billion. Outsourced custom publishing was one of the eight media segments that exhibited double-digit growth from 2002-2007. Along with word-of mouth marketing, pure-play Internet and mobile services, branded entertainment, out-of-home media, professional and business information services, VSS predicts that custom publishing will continue its growth momentum over the next five years, resulting in a solid decade of double-digit gains.