Insights on the Future of Media

Volume II - August 2012The Continental Content Divide

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Introduction

If there’s an undisputed truth in the digital age it’s that content is infinite, yet time remains finite. This makes it challenging to craft compelling narratives that span screens, captivate audiences and leave a lasting impression.

No one understands this difficult task more than the press. Yet, the media is innovating even as it stares down disruption. Any business can learn to communicate more effectively by unpacking its best practices. That's the goal of this report.

The media's rapid evolution, however, has curiously created a stylistic split - a “Continental Content Divide,” if you will.

Some publishers see social networking as their primary path to growth. As a result, they are mixing journalism and web culture in clever ways that get their stories shared so they find you.

Others, meanwhile, believe the future is in immersive experiences that audiences seek out and, perhaps, even pay for.

Very few media brands are equally adroit. The reason, according to Darren Burden from Australia’s Fairfax Media, is that “news you read is different than news you say you read.”

This report, the second in a series, is culled from briefings with dozens of leading media innovators and observers. It explores this widening divide and the tech companies at its nexus. (An expanded edition for the Edelman network has specific recommendations for PR, content and digital strategists.)

3BuzzFeed execs Jon Steinberg and Jonah Peretti

News That Finds You: Journalism and Digital Culture Blur

As social network use skyrockets, the public is growing more accustomed to seeing serious alongside silly. This is encouraging publishers to blur news and memes so content finds you. Some call this social discovery.

One manifestation of this trend is the growing use of infographics, slideshows and “listcles” (list articles). The press has embraced these formats because audiences find them emotionally rewarding to share. This, in turn, drives traffic.

This subtle, yet important, stylistic shift may sound familiar. It mirrors a time, during Google’s ascendency, when the press embraced search-engine-friendly editorial. Headlines mapped to common queries - e.g. “What Time does the Super Bowl Start?”

Today there’s a similar focus on Internet psychology. Stories are written in a style designed to trigger sharing. Headlines that are easy to scan and share are more pervasive - e.g. “The 25 Super Bowl Parties You Will Never See In Your Lifetime.”

In a more social world, the most successful content creators are both experts in their beats as well as the culture of online communities. Professional communicators should take note.

Nowhere is this ethos more apparent than at BuzzFeed where the content is crafted to make you look good for sharing it.

The site, which initially started as a place to find fun videos, is fast becoming what co-founder Jonah Peretti describes as “a collision of web culture and news.”

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To that end, in recent months BuzzFeed has recruited a host of digitally savvy beat writers, including Ben Smith (formerly with Politico), Amy Odell (New York Magazine), Matt Buchanan (Gizmodo), Doree Shafrir (Rolling Stone) and more.

In addition, BuzzFeed continues to hire some of the best “meme creators” in the business. In April it scooped up Stacy Lambe, whose claim to fame is “Texts From Hillary.” The Tumblr meme, which riffed on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made headlines worldwide and was eventually embraced by Clinton.

This infectious blend extends into BuzzFeed's ad programs too.

Many BuzzFeed campaigns are “native.” Ad creative looks just like editorial except it is labeled “sponsored.” A recent campaign for Pepsi Next, for example, featured “10 Beautiful Places in the World that Actually Exist.” (Pepsi is an Edelman client)

Another company that's fluent in online culture, although not to the same extreme, is Mashable.

“Community is every (writer's) responsibility,” said Adam Ostrow, Mashable's SVP of Content. During a recent tour of Mashable’s offices, Ostrow explained that the entire editorial team is encouraged to devote 80 percent of their time to content and 20 percent to cultivating a following across various social networks.

The strategy appears to be working. A growing share of Mashable’s traffic now comes from social network referrals. This, in part, is due to the team's pioneering spirit. “Journalists are the new early adopters,” explained Mashable Community Manager Meghan Peters.

While it’s easy to label upstart digital natives like BuzzFeed and Mashable as an unusual breed, this approach is widespread.

“Today’s journalists must be equally adept at their trade and in the art of ‘putting on a good show’ to engage an audience,” said CBS/CNET Editor Dan Farber.

Slate Group CEO Jacob Weisberg agrees. “Everything relevant happens first on Twitter.” To that end, Slate is using a suite of analytic tools (including one built by BuzzFeed) to study social networks. The goal: increase viral distribution.

TV news networks are also embracing the same blend.

CNN's iReport is staffed by a new breed of professionals that are half journalists, half community managers.

During a recent visit to the CNN Center in Atlanta, Participation Director Lila King described her team as “professional hallway conversationalists” who spend a whopping 60-70 percent of their time "managing relationships on the web.”

All of this may be just the beginning as social rivals search and direct visits as a primary pathway to news. The Huffington Post, for example, is pushing the envelope even further with the launch of “HuffPo Live” - a highly participatory video network.

Not everyone in news, however, is gunning for social network traffic. Some are choosing a different way forward.

5CNN’s Lila King and Members of the iReport Team

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News You Find: A Renaissance in Immersive Storytelling

Although social networking’s hold on the news business looms large, some publishers are making depth, context and visual experience the cornerstone of their strategy. The goal: enchant audiences on tablets, where brand preferences are still nascent.

This is the modus operandi at the Financial Times, where digital subscriptions recently surpassed print circulation. Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director for FT.com, said he believes “quality media,” rather than a “wild chase for page views” will prevail.

The Economist shares this point of view, too. This year it launched a major marketing push under the “Lean Back 2.0” umbrella to underscore the demand for long-form journalism.

It’s not just stalwarts, however, that are addressing the hunger for context.

Upstarts like The Huffington Post, The Next Web and Engadget have all launched magazines on Apple’s iPad newsstand.

Hyperink, meanwhile, is helping indie bloggers unlock the value of their archives by turning them into eBooks. Some earn upwards of $50,000, according to Hyperink CEO Kevin Gao.

There are mobile natives banging on the gate, however.

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Newcomers Flipboard and Pulse, which aggregate content from around the web in a highly visual way, are rapidly racking up users across all of the major mobile platforms.

Pulse co-founder Akshay Kothari projects the service will reach 35 million users by year’s end. The Pulse audience is highly engaged. They’ve read two billion stories so far this year, he said.

This growth has prompted some publishers to ally with these apps. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal formed premium content partnerships with Flipboard and Pulse respectively.

Other media execs, meanwhile, view the category with trepidation. They still syndicate content to them but privately voiced concerns over their growing influence on traffic.

Another class of apps that’s also growing aims to help people time-shift content for reading/viewing in an ad-free zone. This group, which also reflects the appetite for reflective reading/viewing, includes Instapaper, Pocket and Readability.

Pocket co-founder Nate Weiner sees Flipboard as a tablet newsstand and his app as its nightstand. Weiner said that Pocket users squirrel away one million new pieces of content each day. Much of it, notably, is long form and how-to content, he said.

With demand for depth growing, the media is also facing competition from corporations and NGOs. Many have hatched their own content platforms for engaging customers directly. Qualcomm's Spark and GE Reports are two such examples. (GE and Qualcomm are Edelman clients.)

Pulse’s Akshay Kotarhi (top), Pocket’s Nate Weiner (bottom)

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This is even creating new career opportunities for veteran scribes. Forbes Chief Product Officer Lew D'Vorkin calls this “the full employment act for journalists.” Forbes Advoice is helping firms like Northwestern Mutual publish on Forbes.com.

Agencies too are hiring journalists in content roles. Britt Godshalk (CBS Evening News and NY1) and Joanne Colan (Discovery and Rocketboom) are now two Edelman senior content strategists. Others, like Forbes’ Melanie Wells and ABC 20/20 co-creator Victor Neufeld, also bolted the news business for PR.

Regardless of whether publishers are going for what USC’s Dr. Henry Jenkins describes as “spreadable media” vs. “drill-able media,” five technology companies loom large.

The Nexus: Five Tech Companies Guide News Discovery

As this report details, social and mobile technologies are reshaping the news business. Some publishers are betting on social discovery. Others are doubling down on context. Few do both well.

At the nexus of this divide there are five companies – Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon. Together they influence the flow of all digital news.

On one side there’s Twitter and Facebook. They control the social discovery of information - but in different ways. “Twitter is for your head, Facebook is for your heart,” said BuzzFeed's Peretti.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (top) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (bottom)

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On the other side there are the various app and content stores. With more content consumed on tablets and phones, Apple, Google and Amazon wield great influence. (Google too runs the world's top two search engines - Google.com and YouTube.com.)

The media must adhere to every move these companies make - although some may loathe to admit it.

The FT, for example, pulled its mobile apps off the iTunes App Store when Apple began to demand a 30 percent cut of revenues. It has moved to HTML5-based web apps, which are growing rapidly.

Mahalo, a how-to media company, successfully pivoted away from the web toward iPad apps when Google changed its algorithms.

Finally, when Facebook tweaked its news feed, several media companies saw their referral traffic plummet without warning.

In the near term future, the media companies that understand, adapt to and partner with these five players will be in the best position to succeed going forward.

Businesses and NGOs too must adopt the same mindset and master the five rivers that run through the divide.

Apple CEO Tim Cook (l), Google CEO Larry Page (c) and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (r)

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Conclusion

The bets that media companies are making today - the pursuit of social discovery vs. doubling down on immersive content - will have a tremendous impact for years to come.

It’s not necessarily a zero-sum game either. A few are straddling both worlds.

Reuters, for example, is seeing a lot of success with its highly engaging live blogs. These are quickly set up for breaking stories that require context. Anthony DeRosa, the newswire's social media editor, calls this a “hover and dive” approach.

Whether there will be others like Reuters remains to be seen. The skill sets required to straddle both worlds are different.

Regardless, PR, content and digital strategists must not only comprehend this widening divide, but they must also appropriately map their programs to and/or mirror the media’s approach in a more social and mobile world.

The challenge: tell compelling stories across what Edelman calls the “Media Cloverleaf ” that find an audience and are worth finding. (An expanded edition of this report for the Edelman network outlines specific strategies.)

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Edelman’s “Media Cloverleaf ” comprises (clockwise from top left) traditional, hybrid, social and owned spheres with search and visual

content at the center.

Credits

Steve Rubel is EVP, Global Strategy and Insights for Edelman - the world's largest independent PR firm. In his role, he helps teams and clients understand the future of media and develop appropriate integrated strategies. Rubel can be contacted on Twitter (@steverubel) or via email (steverubel@gmail.com).

(The opinions expressed within this report are his and do not necessarily reflect those of Edelman or its clients.)

Photo credits: practicalowl on Flickr (p2), LoggaWiggler on Flickr (p3), David Berkowitz (p4), yuhwangwu on Flickr (p5), DG Jones on Flickr (p6), Feliciano Guimarães (p6), Emily Steffen (p7), Roadsidepictures on Flickr (p7) and niko on Flickr (p7).