A survey published yesterday by the Pew Research Center (http://people-press.org) shows that 95% of all stories with "new information" published online and offline are still generated by traditional media, eg newspapers.
Interestingly, this research is based on stories generated over six weeks in the region of Baltimore / USA. This city is home of one of the most respected American newspapers, the Baltimore Sun - one of many struggling traditional American media outlets.
The survey evaluated six news threads. 83% of all stories did not contain any new information, but were simply repetitive. Nearly all of the remaining 17% (containing new information) were coming from traditional media.
I find a lot of reference to the fact that many of these stories were local. Blogger Jeff Jarvis is even quoted saying that it is "obvious, that local news generation in the internet is still at its beginning" (NB - my translation of a German quote: http://meedia.de/nc/details/article/zeitungen-setzen-die-themen---immer-noch_100025577.html).
Now that I find really strange. I would have thought that social media are exceptionally strong locally. How should one be able to find global or national news and be the first to transmit them over Twitter or one's blog? If anything I would have thought that what you find MUST be local - at least initially.
Obviously this all does not mean you can neglect what is being published in social media or on the web. Quite the contrary, you should monitor what is being said there. Very often there might be an opportunity or a risk for you or your company that you can spot early boy social media monitoring.
But we seem to be farther away from the stage where the internet is really replacing the job of traditional media: generating relevant news.
In short, the web often breaks the news - but the traditional media are still making them relevant.
Today I have to let off a it of steam. I just read that 18% of German voters would vote for Horst Schlämmer as their next Bundeskanzler (chancellor).
Now what all non-Germans have to know is that Horst Schlämmer is a fictional person created by comedian Hape Kerkeling. Horst is a local journalist who is a well-known TV persona - and who will star in a new movie coming to your local cinema this August (pre-elections). This movie seems to be something like a half-documentary (Borat style) movie showing how Horst is a candidate for the next Bundestag (parliamentary) elections.
So - first the Americans voted an actor into presidency (Reagan), then Italians voted for Berlusconi as their president. Now Germans would like to have a fictional comedy journalist with bad teeth and ridiculous hair as their next Kanzler?
I am really a fan of Social Media and Virtual Worlds - but it seems some people can not see any difference between TV, Internet and reality anymore. Is the current situation really not serious enough? Is the recession really so laughable that we could just hand over our country to a comedian?
I don't fear Horst Schlämmer. What I do fear though is the expressed lack of confidence in politicians and therefore in democracy. Maybe it is time to scale back the virtual elements in comms and politics?
I just read that Twitter launched its new website. I probably would never have known because as a Twitter subscriber you never get to see their website again.
The new look shows clearly what Twitter is today - a trend-o-meter. They weigh what their users are writing about and therefore know what people are really thinking about this very moment. Globally. In real-time. Nice, is it?
The three trend lines show what is hot now - today - and this week. It could not be clearer.
I like this. Everyone in the media, news, PR and marketing industry will be able to use this. As always with Twitter it is very simple, even simplistic you could say. Obviously I would love to be able to know more. Like what are people tweeting about locally? In German? In French? In Munich? In Rome?
Well, when Twitter launched no-one thought they would ever get to this stage of fame - so I am sure they are on the right way.
I just found (thanks to my German colleague Alex Deindl, who yammered about it) an interesting post on the German state of the Social Media sphere.
So are we really 5 years behind the U.S.? The post does not really give you any proof that this is really true. What is true though is that we are definitely lagging behind the development in the States (if by 5 years of not is anyone's guess).
It is my personal belief that the weakness of especially the German blogosphere has a very German reason. Blogs are interesting because you can read opinions there. Famous bloggers are famous opinion leaders. The problem with German opinion leaders is that these are mostly intellectuals who would rather write looong books (Sloterdijk) or have been writing articles in intellectual newspapers (the late Lord Dahrendorf).
I recently asked colleagues about famous opinion-leading journalists in Germany. No-one could mention any name. People don't even know the name of the editor-in-chief of papers like SZ, FAZ or DER SPIEGEL. In short, Germany does not have a culture of personalized opinion / columnists, which would be a great basis for a blogging culture.
I am certain that the German blogosphere will change over the coming years - and Social Networks are already very fast-growing. Germans are not really against new ways of communicating with each other - it seems the German community on Second Life is the second-largest in the world.
So maybe we really just need a German craigslilst as the author of the post says. Where is the German innovator who will finally kill German newspapers?
I just found a great map on locally dominating social networks around the globe here.
It shows that Facebook is the number one social network in most countries - but that to find your audience in some countries you need to go beyond that. In Europe the big exceptions are Netherlands (with Hyves), Portugal and Romania (with Hi5), Czech Rep. (with Lidé), Poland (with Nasza-klasa), Hungary (with Iwiw), the Baltics (with One and Orkut), Moldavia (with Odnoklassniki) and Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (all with V Kontakte).
Again, even in the age of globalization you need to think local when you want to reach your audience. Global outreach is certainly easier than ever before - but things are in permanent flow and this map may look different next year.
It seems to be official now - Tesla, the company producing the first "mass-market" electrocar, is about to open their first European offices. In Monaco (wonder why!), London (my second home) and - Munich (hooray, my homebase).
Not that I will be able to afford the car, but this is the hottest car I know currently. I also use them as a test case in my seminars on International PR and it seems everyone grasps it immediately.
If this won't fly as a PR success, I don't now what will.
Just found an interesting report on all the developments in the U.S. news media, just – excerpts from the summary:
“Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value. By our calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet. (...) Perhaps least noticed yet most important, the audience migration to the Internet is now accelerating. The number of Americans who regularly go online for news, by one survey, jumped 19% in the last two years; in 2008 alone traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%.”
Nothing new really, but very comprehensive reading with great stats.
German business newspaper Handelsblatt writes about a recently published survey which reveals that over 80 per cent of the biggest European companies are using social networks and tools like Wikipedia to manage their reputation.
This confirms my observation that over the last 12 months (nearly) all companies have finally realized the power of the Social Web. And although some people may still think the web offers great opportunities to save money - it is more the ability to target certain user groups much more efficiently than ever before which really makes the web interesting. The fact that Wikipedia rules in this research still seems to indicate that the companies are still going for large audiences rather than using the really Social factor in the "new" web.
So, still some wy to go for many it seems.
The survey, carried out by Swedish consultancy H&H, says that the last 12 months have seen a steep increase in companies using social networks to do their PR. The most popular platforms today are Youtube (where many companies already have established their own video channels), picture portal Flickr, presentation portal Slideshare and Apple's audio platform iTunes. Surprisingly (or not), the top target for online PR is Wikipedia though.
Interestingly the research also shows that 90 per cent of the analysts, shareholders and business journalists contacted said they are increasingly using these channels to gather information.
European Social Media PR leader is Siemens, followed by Vodafone and BP. When asked about the quality provided by the ocmpanies, they rated Deutsche Post as the leader.
And yes, here comes the country ranking (how we love it): Quality-wise German companies are best in European Social Media PR, followed by Finland and the UK. If ranked by quantity of Social Media usage France is the leader followed by British and German companies.
LEWIS PR is holding an evening of networking and presentations on April 1, 2009 on the topic of international PR.
We have a fantastic line up of speakers (including salesforce.com and Orange Business Services) imparting their knowledge and experience on different facets of international marcomms including global branding strategies, how to take a global message to a local market, driving campaigns in emerging markets and the secrets of the international media.
The forum is from 16.30 - 18.00 at our central-London venue the LEWIS Media Centre and tickets are complimentary but limited. It would be great to see you and any interested colleagues there.
Please find more information at http://files.lewispr.com/mailer/internationalPRforum/ or give me a call on +49 179 1075 441 to book spaces.
I have just been speaking at PR Nap, the First PR Conference in Budapest arranged by Kreativ, the #1 Hungarian PR publicatication.
Interesting how everyone says the same - it is all about web 2.0, speed and visual elements. It seems to me that the Hungarians are around 6 months behind the developments in Western Europe re Web 2.0 / Social Media. But the trend is clear.
Back in Germany there recently have been several stories about how Twitter and Blogs are key in PR and mass communication. It is amazing how fast this now happens.
It is an open secret that being really different is a key factor in being successful. Why else would companies try to define their key Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) - who basically summarize what makes them different?
Warren Buffet is the richest man in the world because of this.
And today I read on Grenzposten (a German journo / PR / online blog) about the idea that companies should build a fund of communication budget to be spent in time of a crisis or recession. Because that is when you really need to communicate internally and externally. And because in a recession still the main first reaction is to cut comms budgets.
I think this is a great idea. I am also lucky enough to work in a company who has been building a cash reserve which now allows us to grow even in a recession and to open new offices.
Finally I have found a link to the interesting discussion we had at the Medientage about International PR.
I had been kindly invited by GoldMedia to participate and had a great time discussing International PR with my fellow panelists from Publicis and Roland Berger.
Enjoy (it is in German though!).
Today LeWeb announced the entries for the upcoming competition.
OK, this event is taking place in France and therefore has a string focus on this country. But still, I would have hoped to see more entries from main markets like the UK and Germany. From the 30 contestants only 2 are from these countries (Samedi from Germany and Charge Ventures from UK).
So - congratulations to the our Dutch neighbors and to Spain - who both at least were able to enter two interesting candidates.
I just found a report on Google's latest online research tool on TechCrunch.
If you liked Google Trends already, I am sure you will love Google's new Insight for Trends. Especially the new filtering mechanisms and the heat map are really great for a first shot at trends or companies. I was using Google Trends already a lot and always was surprised to see how few marketing experts were aware of it when I mentioned it.
So let's see if Google IfT will change this.
Although I am usually focusing on industry issues not directly related to my company, today I am so excited about the latest LEWIS announcement, that I make an exception.
After over 12 years of global expansion, LEWIS announces the opening of LEWIS Tokyo from July 28. This move is in answer to our clients’ call for LEWIS’ brand of PR in that market.
Our Tokyo office will be headed by Fred Tanaka, a 14 year PR practitioner in the market with in-house and agency experience. Fred has in-depth experience implementing local PR programmes for internationally recognised brands including All Nippon Airways (ANA), DaimlerChrysler, ExxonMobil, Faurecia SA, Giorgio Armani and Nissan.
Good luck, Fred. I hope this finally allows me to get to Japan at some stage .
Finally someone has the courage to save the world of printed press: The German government today launched the "Nationale Initiative Printmedien" (do I really have to translate that?). This initiative wants to encourage young people to read more printed media.
Whereas I am always glad to see how someone tries to save quality (and I think that is what they are trying to do or what they THINK they are trying to do). I am just not sure if this is a vain effort.
Just yesterday I attended a "Media Accused" event in London (ahem, organized by LEWIS) with Nick Davies, author of "Flat Earth News". This book basically deals with the loss of quality journalism in (formerly) quality press. No-one really argued this is happening. No-one really was able to find a solution to the problem.
I wish I would believe the German government is able to bring back quality into the printed media - as this is the only way out of the problem. Seeing how owners of the big quality papers all over Europe are continuing to cut costs (basically cutting back the workforce of editors) I am not sure how this initiative will be successful. Who wants to read old news? And who really wants to read entertaining stories in a newspaper when you can watch TV - or get it all on the internet?
The problem of quality journalism lies deeper. And one initiative won't help I am afraid. Especially when it is backed by journalist and publishers associations as they are at the core of the problem.
I just added Blog It on Facebook, a nice little app to directly send basic blog posts from Facebook. Looks like a useful tool (if limited), especially as you can also update your Twitter account as well through it. Not sure how widely spread this is, but it certainly serves Facebook well to become a central application in your day to day work.
It seems that Apple missed a big opportunity when launching TV content on German iTunes this week.
The initial feedback showed that the audience was completely taken by surprise. E.g. Werbeblogger complained that he could not find the full offerings (it seems to me he simply had not downloaded a new version of iTunes yet). So I think the preparation could have been done better.
Now the users are feeding back on different forums, blogs and inside iTunes. Feedback is that it is too expensive (one old Harald Schmidt show for €2? are they serious?), only having shows on offer which have been on TV already, only offering German audio (and people really want the original version), etc. etc.
It seems that Apple trusts to be successful in the long run. A bit arrogant if you ask me. But in the end it will certainly be successful as it is from Apple, you may say. Well, I would not be that sure. There are so many other Internet TV offering s out there these days that it is only a question of time until people will be able to access at least old TV content in English for free (from Europe) without going to suspicious websites. I really wonder if Apple's TV approach can be successful - and if they should not have prepared this better at least this time.
I just found an interesting video on Youtube where I am not sure exactly how old it is (seems about three days, but it might be much older).
Still, I find it very interesting - it shows Queen Rania of Jordan talking about Arabic culture and how surprised people will be learning everything about a country like Jordan. I find it very interesting they chose Youtube as a platform to launch a conversation / discussion on that topic. The 815 comments so far are showing this seems to work.
I wonder what happens next and how they will continue this dialogue. But it is (and will be) certainly something to learn from.