Robert Niles: December 2010 archive
How to do better than Groupon in building local advertising market share
December 22, 2010
This year's hottest buzzword in online news publishing - on the business side - has been Groupon. Business managers at start-ups and legacy media websites alike have been pushing the concept of "group coupon" services, such as Groupon's, as the next great potential savior for publishing online.Personally, I don't think online publishing needs a savior. Despite what some folks at journalism conferences might have you believe, online news publishing is doing just fine, thank you. Newspaper companies might be missing their fat, monopoly-era profit margins but plenty of smaller publishers have found ways to stay in the black.
That said, every one of us would like to find new sources of revenue for our publications. That's why so many of us are taking a long look at Groupon and similar services. Now, I've only used Groupon as a consumer, not as an advertiser nor as a publisher. But, based on my experience as a consumer, here are a few ways that I believe an entrepreneur could improve upon Groupon.
Better targeting
I don't drink, so every Groupon offer I get for discount wine, beer and bar drink specials goes straight into my trash folder. Why waste the bandwidth sending this stuff to me? Many consumers click the link to unsubscribe if they get too many of these badly matched offers, reducing the market pool for the service.
Sure, Groupon's got millions of users and won't miss those who opt out because they don't want stuff such as liquor deals. But if you're trying to compete with Groupon, this is an area where you can do better. More...
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Lessons in self-promotion for independent news publishers
December 17, 2010
When you step up from newsroom grunt to becoming a website editor and/or publisher, don't forget that you're also making the switch from reporter to source.Being interviewed is part of the duties of a successful website publisher - you'll need to know how to promote yourself and your publication in other media, to increase its exposure and drive new traffic.When you step up from newsroom grunt to becoming a website editor and/or publisher, don't forget that you're also making the switch from reporter to source.
Being interviewed is part of the duties of a successful website publisher - you'll need to know how to promote yourself and your publication in other media, to increase its exposure and drive new traffic.
To that end, I want you to watch this clip from one of the masters of entrepreneurial self-promotion:
Sure, Dolly Parton is on the show to talk about her support for LGBT youth. But notice how she slipped in a plug for every single project she has going currently? Her new musical, her single with Queen Latifah, her Dollywood theme park and her chain of Dixie Stampede dinner shows. She plugged 'em all.
That, friends, is a pro at work.
But let's also notice three important points about interview opportunities. Read them after the jump (plus the Inigo Montoya word of the week)... More...
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What can Gawker's redesign teach website publishers about maximizing readership and revenue?
December 10, 2010
Facebook got the PR this past week for its profile-page redesign, but I think news publishers ought to keep a closer watch on the redesign happening over at the Gawker blogs, instead. Here's a video showing off the new design:The Gawker redesign attempts to address the fundamental challenge confronting website publishers: How do you keep your front page fresh to reward frequent visitors, while also featuring your best unique or evergreen content, which will appeal to first-time or infrequent readers?
Get that balance wrong, and you're leaving money on the table.
While I've long encouraged students and beginning Web publishers to launch with whatever open-source or free available blogging tool that makes them comfortable, if you're going to prosper over the long term in online news publishing, you need to have fine control over your publication's user interface. Out-of-the-box templates and standard designs aren't going to allow you the design optimization you need to maximize your income.
Whether you're making money from advertising, grants, direct payments or a combination of those, you need engaged readers in order to make your site attractive to the people writing you checks. But designing for frequent, repeat visitors often leads you to bury content that could interest a first-time reader. And keeping your best scoops or evergreen content up top could lead repeat visitors to think you've got nothing fresh, discouraging them from becoming the loyal and passionate repeat visitors who keep your traffic numbers healthy. More...
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How to engage your readers? The 10 steps into social media on your website
December 6, 2010
Unless you're appearing on a reality TV show, you're not going to get married to someone you just met. ("Premiering tonight on FOX, Subway Wedding!" - I want a taste of the action when this show happens, BTW.) Yet website publishers offer a wide range of social media tools - from commenting to blogging - without first building a relationship with their readers. Then those publishers wonder why either no one's using those tools, or if a few folks are, why they're almost all trolls.Think of social media like dating. You've got to start with an introduction and deliberately work your way up toward building a sound relationship. Trying to convince folks you've just met to join you at the altar with Elvis in a Vegas wedding chapel rarely ends well. Either you get ignored, or worse, you end up with the type of person who's happy to get hitched to desperate strangers.
Ewwww.
If you want to build a website that incorporates rich, engaging user-contributed content, you've got to ease those readers into your community. Good contributors listen before they post, so you'll need to offer them something to hear. Start, then, by writing engaging, original reporting on the site - that's the warm introduction to your potential website companions. Your words and tone model the type of communication you want others to offer on your site.
How then will you convert some of these readers into contributors? Here are the steps I've found most effective, in the order that most readers follow. At each step along this path, fewer and fewer readers will choose to proceed - in fact, on most sites, a majority a readers won't take even the first step. But if you offer all of these steps, each one will be easier to take than if you asked people to make the big jump to one of these later steps. That, ultimately, will help encourage more of your readers to become full participants in your publishing community.
Voting
The easiest way for a reader to begin adding to the content on a website is by voting in a poll or other interactive feature. With one click, the reader has altered the content on your website, in a way that all other readers can see.
Voting in a poll (or its sibling, submitting a venue rating) is typically anonymous, with results reported in aggregate, allowing a reader to participate but not in a way that puts him or her "out there" publicly. As a result, it's the perfect first step toward active participating in online publishing. More...
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Wikileaks challenges journalists: Whose side are you on?
December 3, 2010
A reporter e-mailed yesterday to ask my reaction to the ongoing Wikileaks controversy. My e-mailed response bounced, so I figure I'm not short-stopping anyone's quote by publishing my response here, instead.Here's what I had to say:
The challenge for journalists reporting on Wikileaks is that, ultimately, you're reporting someone else's anonymous sources. Since reporters didn't collect this information themselves, they don't know the full story of where this information came from, who had access to it, or how or why it was released to Wikileaks.
Obviously, journalists would prefer to have that background information to help inform their decisions about reporting, even if they never reporting that information themselves.
I hope that Wikileaks, at the very least, encourages reporters to be more aggressive in challenging authority and working with sources to get information that officials, in government or industry, would prefer to keep from the public's eyes.
Sources with government and industry want the truth to get to the public. If journalists do not provide the means to make that happen, alternate media such as Wikileaks will do it instead. Personally, as a citizen, I'm thankful for that. More...
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