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CHOWNEY ON REPUTATION

The people are becoming the publishers of tomorrow

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 | By Vikki Chowney

You can’t commercialise content via advertising alone any more, even if you’re producing a very niche product.

I spent Friday at Like Minds, Exeter’s answer to Chris Anderson’s infamous TED conferences. On top of immersing myself in the potentially overwhelming but wholly useful debates that were born out of the day’s events, I moderated a panel on how struggling business models can innovate by using people-to-people activity.

Naturally it’s a subject close to my heart. Although Reputation Online is, as it says on the tin, an online publication, I’m still affected by and aware of how tough it is for my colleagues within publishing, particularly friends working for local newspapers who have recently lost jobs.

Reputation Online is a three-month old publication. Some people said it was a strange time to launch. Within the bubble of interactive media trade publications, we’ve seen competitors fold, which sucks for us because one of the best ways to drive the production of great content is having great competitors. The model we’re using for RO isn’t the definitive answer, but the new media age team and I knew that we needed to acknowledge the influence of self-publishing and produce something that could be flexible.

Social media is a different beast. Just because once upon a time you could broadcast your message from the top down doesn’t mean you can do the same now with this new channel.

P2P is a big part of our site, as we’ve decided to integrate editorial with user-generated content to present both sides of the coin. A personal goal of mine is to use RO to make the world of digital comms more accessible. And by changing the one-to-many mindset to something more equal, this goal is a little more achievable.

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Readers' comments (7)

  • crapcook | Tue, 2 Mar 2010 6:15 am

    For many years I tried to get a publishing deal. Now Twitter enables me to develop an audience and, down the road, will enable me to sell stuff to them...

    its good for me

    www.twitter.com/crapcook

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  • The Same Anonymous | Tue, 2 Mar 2010 12:19 pm

    Let's be clear. Twitter is not a marketing tool. It's millions of people talking with a few people listening.

    I don't believe the story about Sony generating £1m in rev. Sounds like an enthusistic ad agency getting the numbers wrong. Probably on purpose.

    And, crapcook, when you come to sell anything to to your 'audience' you'll realise that your 'audience' isn't listening either.

    Twitter is not a marketing tool. It's great. I love it. But it's not a marketing tool. Move on.

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  • Kristina | Thu, 4 Mar 2010 10:35 am

    I like this idea of publishers embracing a 'People to People' approach. My colleague Dan has written a great blog about how it's possible for publishers to do this, whilst still remaining at the heart of the conversation. Have a read - Are publshers getting the most out of social media?

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  • Kristina | Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:21 am

    Link to aforementioned blog - http://www.chameleonnet.co.uk/blog/PermaLink,guid,13fadb01-1f8f-4ca5-b9c7-66f5d0e06db1.aspx

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  • Vikki Chowney | Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:59 am

    @crapcook Thanks for commenting, I'd be interested how you turn your Twitter audience into sales. That's the real benchmark of success for me, if that's your goal.

    @same anonymous True, there are a lot of people broadcasting and many users couldn't care less. But you can't tar everyone with the same brush. Yes it's tough to turn any activity on Twitter into sales, but what about Dell? Bakertweet? Zappos? Others are using it for customer service (which, like it or not, is a form of reputation management) - how about WholeFoods, Comcastcares, VirginAmerica?

    The source of the Sony example was head of corporate communications Nick Sharples (as it says in the article). In his position, do you think he'd make up that stat? Unlikely, he'd get called on it.

    I see your point, but there's so much more to it.

    @Kristina Do you have a link?

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  • crapcook | Fri, 5 Mar 2010 10:31 am

    In the future you will look back and see that some people know how to use twitter and some don't. At the moment we have those bringing an audience from "old media" onto new. Meanwhile, at the ground level, new creativity will develop an audience over time, which will, if its really good, get a following..

    only the best will stand out.

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  • The Same Anonymous | Fri, 5 Mar 2010 10:32 am

    Vikki,

    My issue with Twitter is that the level of involvement between the user and the content is, for the significant majority, very shallow. It's snippets of text floating by at high speed.

    This isn't a good or indeed sensible way to build or market a brand.

    It's also worth arguing that the line between brands 'promoting' things on Twitter and outright spam (think SMS or email) is so fine that you could easily fall on the wrong side.

    And finally. I've worked in online advertising long enough to know that stats, and particularly stats presented to you by your staff, can tell you anything you want to hear. Or want others to hear. I'm sure I'm wrong and I'm sure Nicks stats are completely solid and Sony's use of Twitter is groundbreaking.

    Once Twitter add traditional advertising into their model then things may be different. But spamming into the stream to promote product x or y is not good.

    So, I stand by my point. Twitter is not a marketing tool.

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