Social media is a rapidly growing phenomenon...And literally ALL publishing business decision makers are involved; however, they are struggling with just how to monetize the vast potential offered by these sites...As are the little guys, like myself !...But they have a good strategy formulating...
Matt Kinsman, Executive Editor of FOLIO magazine, wrote this insightful analysis in the May 2010 issue of FOLIO:
According to a 2009 Forrester Research study called “The Social Technographics of Business Buyers,” b-to-b buyers and decision makers are among the most active groups in social media. However, monetizing around that participation has been a struggle for b-to-b publishers.
Still, turning social media into a revenue-generating business is a priority for many publishers in 2010. As Cygnus Business Media looks to build value after emerging from its Chapter 11 restructuring last year, one of its top priorities will be harnessing what CEO John French calls “social business media.”
“Social media is the buzz word du jour but just like how everyone talked about Webinars and e-newsletters a couple years ago, everybody finds a new horse to ride,” he says. “We think social business media is as important as those previous developments but it’s a lot bigger. Business-to-business is a form of social media. The difference was in years past, it was done in print. We’ve gone from magazines delivering push content to getting the people out there to get together and talk.”
The next step is figuring out how to monetize social media around communities such as Firehouse.com, Officer.com and EMSUnited.com. As part of the relaunch of its brand, Demers Ambulances wanted to create a social business media “buzz” and purchased an integrated package in order to reach a targeted group of EMS professionals that included ads, e-blasts, blogs booth space, podcasts and Webcasts on EMS Garage.
“Getting manufacturers involved is one of the things we’re working on now, and we don’t have the perfect answer,” says French. “We’re trying to figure out the next best step. Our experience has been, it’s OK for a reader to see advertising from a manufacturer, they know they’re getting the magazine for nothing. The precedent has already been set. If there is an ad message in an online community it’s going to be OK, users realize without this the medium wouldn’t exist. Take the 50,000 people who got a magazine for the last 20 years. They didn’t know at the time but they were the beginnings of the community.”
Read more: http://alturl.com/2cqw
No comments:
Post a Comment