To cut to the chase, the post revealed some data that showed certain behaviors, specifically from journalists, resulted in higher engagement (e.g., likes, comments, and shares) over average posts. Here’s a summary of the data and advice (The numbers are all in comparison to an average Facebook post):

• Journalists have seen a 320 percent increase in their subscriber numbers since November 2011. Those numbers are mostly fueled by the “people to subscribe to” recommendations.
• Journalists aren’t just broadcasting their articles. A quarter of their posts ask questions and those result in a 64 percent increase in engagement.
• Nearly two-thirds of all journalist posts include links. If they add some commentary to those links it results in a 20 percent increase in referrals.
• Almost a third of the posts include promotional language like “read my post” or “check this out.” Those posts get a 37 percent lift in engagement.
• Twelve percent of the posts have photos. Posts with photos get 50 percent more likes than posts without photos. Photos in general can increase engagement from 200 to 400 percent.
• Current events with commentary and analysis triple their likes and get twice the number of shares.
• Direct pleas, such as reader shout outs will result in quadruple engagement. Asking for recommendations will triple comments.
• Humor is your best friend as it has been for journalists resulting in 1.5x “likes” and 5x more shares.

Personally, I’ve tried many of these behaviors and while I couldn’t give you the exact statistics, I would agree with Facebook’s study. One thing I would be wary of is the promotional posts. Notice that they’re about 30 percent of total posting. I think if that ratio were to increase the pass along wouldn’t be as favorable.

Do you have any tried and true Facebook posting techniques that work for you? Let us know.

Creative Commons photo credit to Halans.

1. Not only are you competing with others on products and services, but you’re also competing to be your audience’s primary information source.
2. As the quality of your competitor’s content improves, your audience’s expectations increase as well, rendering your content either obsolete or just average.

This article got me thinking about how hard we try here at Intertainment Media to create content and invent new formats. Whether it’s on the Ingaged Blog, the IndyCar fan site Social Racing Grid, or through our services KNCTR and even Ortsbo.

Needs, demand, and figuring out the next big thing in content

Each of the services Intertainment Media produces has different content needs depending on audience demand. But often the audience doesn’t know what it wants and we have to foresee what they want. For example, Apple’s products were not developed out of audience interviews and testing. Henry Ford famously said (or maybe not), “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Asking the audience what they want is often not a good course of action.

Content creation and distribution formats is a never ending game. We constantly have to concern ourselves with the form of content, how it’s being created and presented, plus we have to create the content itself. Each one is a full time job in itself. But to stay relevant, you have to be doing both continuously.

While our content could be very successful today, it could hold no interest tomorrow. We see this all the time as TV shows and bestsellers that were popular one day no longer hold an audience’s interest.

To maintain relevancy, I realized I had to always be asking myself:

• Are you distributing content via a means the audience is currently using and wants to consume (e.g., blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos)
• Are you listening to your audience’s concerns and delivering answers in a timely fashion?
• Is your audience listening to you as a leading voice for information and advice or are they looking to others?
• Are you creating new thought pieces that become pillars for others to create discussions?
• Are you experimenting with different formats of content production and gauging audience reaction and engagement?
• Are you experimenting with different formats of content distribution (e.g., new video sharing tools, chat applications, widgets)?

Uggh, that’s so much, you might think, and you’re right. It is a lot of work. But if you make it a part of your daily thinking then it doesn’t become additional work. It’s part of an ongoing process that’s necessary if you always want to be seen as current, relevant, and interesting with both the content itself and its presentation.

Creative Commons photo attribution to FontShop and Werner Kunz.

Two years ago I wrote an article about my personal daily media consumption which was in response to a meme that Jeremiah Owyang began three years prior. So much has changed in the past two years that I thought I’d revisit the discussion, talk about my own morphing media consumption patterns, and ask you about your daily media consumption. It’s a topic that’s near and dear to Intertainment Media, because they distribute a communications and content application, KNCTR, which pushes content daily to your desktop.

Since my last article, I believe there have been three significant changes in my media consumption:

I’m forcing myself to go paperless

I made it a plan for 2012 to go paperless. The obvious thing to change with a paperless strategy is to scan all your receipts and then throw them away. But paperless also has to do with removing all the other paper junk in your life such as manuals, books, newspapers, and magazines. I now trash manuals and download the PDFs. I only purchase eBooks to read on my iPad. And I read newspapers on digital devices and my favorite magazine, Wired, cover-to-cover on my iPad. Oddly, Wired doesn’t have a way to turn off the paper magazine subscription, and just get the digital subscription. Every time that magazine shows up, I just throw it in recycling. An unfortunate and unnecessary waste.

By going paperless, and consuming my media in that manner, it’s forcing me to better organize my digital media. That means I have to have a system for bookmarks, storing digital files, and finding the media.

Reading a lot on my mobile phone

I can now actually read text, and lots of it, on my Android phone. The screen size is large enough and my favorite media sites either have a mobile application or a mobile optimized web site. The latest news in the areas I’m most interested is always with me. I don’t have to wait for it to be mailed to me or go pick it up at the newsstand, nor do I need to deal with the physical disposal of the media, which is a pain in itself.

The downside to all this media consumption on the mobile device is that batteries die quickly, rendering their primary use, communications, useless. Luckily, Android phones have removable batteries and you can purchase plenty of extras. I always have three extras charged in my bag at all times. This isn’t true with the iPhone, but there are plenty of portable iPhone chargers.

Reading everything on my iPad

I’ve become a huge fan of my iPad for reading PDFs, newspapers, blogs, magazines, and purchasing and reading eBooks. It’s a fantastic media consumption device. I don’t ever plan to purchase another physical book again. I’m so tired of packing them up in boxes and moving them to just adorn a shelf like it’s artwork in my home. Yes, there is something very comfortable about a physical book, but in quantity they’re a sheer pain in the ass to manage. Also, when I want to read something new, I can just select it and have it on my device within seconds.

The next obvious stage is textbooks to go digital. It’s no surprise that Apple is targeting the education market and will be making an announcement in NYC next week. I wish I had all my textbooks on an iPad when I was in school. My son is going to have it so easy.

How has/will your daily media consumption changed in 2012?

How has your media consumption changed over the past five years, or even just last year? What are you doing now that you’ve never done before and what have you given up?

Creative Commons photo attribution to leondel, zandwacht, and BenSpark.

After some uncertainty, Google is blaming this paid link fiasco on an ad buying vendor, Unruly Media.

First, what did Google expect when they hired them? They’re called “UNRULY” Media. They’re not called “We’ll listen to whatever you say” Media. I guess that’s what they have in their contract. Sure, we’ll sign this, but remember, we are called “Unruly Media” so caveat emptor.

Are we still fooled by bogus “search engine gaming” content?

What this story underscores is the fact that even with all the blocking and tackling Google and other search engines do, those who want to still can and will find ways to sidestep the system. Even Google will do it to itself. But all that means is they’ll be able to push their bogus content to the top of the search engines. It doesn’t mean people will actually accept it and take action on it.

Yes, non relevant links make a search engine less valuable because we count on receiving relevant results.  But when there are a few outliers, are we as humans really thrown by this? Would someone see an article “Google Chrome Helping Small Business,” not see any content about Google Chrome for business, and then switch their business to Google Chrome?

Or would it actually have the negative effect?

Would someone realize that the article actually has no content about Google Chrome for business and feel that someone is trying to pull a fast one. You’re too smart for that. Screw you Google Chrome.

We talk so much about the insidious tricks that are played by websites to fool search engines, but when you get right down to it, it’s ultimately a human’s decision. Why do people spend so much time and money trying to game the system when you could spend the same time and money actually working within the system to create content that people actually want. Then you’re not fooling the search engine nor are you fooling humans. How hard would it have been to actually make those articles actually about how Google Chrome can help your business? An article was written and a video was produced. I don’t understand why they just didn’t actually create relevant content.

Someone is still being fooled by these tricks, but it’s not me and I don’t know who it is. Got some ideas why these tricks still work?

How often have you heard that? All you need to do is create “valuable” content. It’s just that simple. Why haven’t you figured that out?

I find that answer, “Just create valuable content,” to be rather dismissive. No explanation is given as to what is valuable content or how one goes about creating it. It’s either a situation of they don’t know how to do it themselves or they’re not willing to open the kimono and show their secrets of creating great content.

Here’s what I believe it takes to create “valuable” content.

Your production skills need to be up to snuff

Whether you’re writing, producing video, or a podcast, your skills need to be up to snuff. This article is not going to make you a better writer, video producer, or podcaster. If you do have your technical skills in check, then read on.

Linkbaiting has a short shelf life

There are certain techniques for getting people to click on and share articles. There is no automated formula for creating “great content.” While there are subject lines that people fall for a lot, it doesn’t necessarily translate into valuable information underneath.

In essence, you can’t “fool” people into thinking you have valuable content. Don’t try to succeed with the idea that people are lemmings that’ll fall for any linkbaiting infographic or top ten list you create. When people get burned they don’t keep coming back.

Build an argument and show your work

People respect and recognize well thought out research and work. One way to create valuable content is to simply research your topic and show you’ve done your work. Quote people, cite sources, and create evidence for your argument.

Share experiential information

If you had something that happened to you, and only you, and the knowledge you gathered from it could help others, that can easily be made into valuable content. Tell your story. People will be able to relate to it.

Interview people with more knowledge than you have

You don’t know everything and no one expects you to, but by interviewing others you build relations and extend your visible knowledge through association with your interview subject.

Deliver on what people are asking for

When I’m prospecting for customers, the number one question I ask is “What is the number one reason you’re losing sales?” They’ll tell me because people don’t understand X technology or we lose out to competitor Y. When I get that answer I always ask, “Do you have a piece of collateral that explains X technology or a side-by-side comparison explaining how you’re different and better than competitor Y?” Almost always they say no and then give a range of excuses as to why they don’t have it. But if this is the number one reason you’re losing sales, it should be the number one piece of content you’re creating. There should be no excuses.

Deliver on what people aren’t asking for, but want/need

Henry Ford was once famously quoted, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

The argument is people don’t know what they want until you create it for them. No one knew they wanted an iPod, iPhone, or iPad until Steve Jobs created one for them.

I’m not suggesting you invent the car or the iPhone. But what you can do is not constantly copy others, but rather offer some new ideas and new suggestions. You’ll have to test the waters many times before you get people to jump on board.

Engage people in an industry debate

One of the best ways to create valuable content is to crowdsource answers to a contentious issue in your industry. Simply ask many people the same question, and then edit their answers. This will start the flow of an initial debate that will usually continue in the comments section of a blog post.

What’s your technique?

Do you have a method for creating “valuable” content? If so, can you share it with us? Let us know.

Creative Commons photo attribution Tracy Hunter.

Developing a social media strategy is a never ending moving target. Regardless, there are some standard things almost everyone does, such as getting a Twitter account and a Facebook presence. Many often think that’s it: “Our social media strategy? Well, we’re on Twitter and Facebook.”

For basics on getting started read, “Looking for a social media strategy? Try this one.”

We all know that’s not enough, and even if you do a lot more, any social media strategy can truly have an endless number of moving parts. There’s always something you’re not doing. Still, I believe there are there are a number of critical issues that are often skipped or not fully thought through.

What could you possibly be missing with your social media strategy? Here are some suggestions:

1. Blocking social services is moot

If your company still has a policy to block services such as YouTube and Facebook, it’s completely pointless. The penetration of smartphones in your office is very high, and any service you may be blocking via the corporate network can be access through a mobile phone. In addition, many of those phones have their own hotspots so people could use their mobile phone’s wifi to circumvent any service blocking you have. If you believe your employees are using these social services unproductively, then it’s your job to train them to do otherwise.

2. Simplify discovery of what’s most important

It’s not too hard to find us fall into the trap of link overload. So often sites try to point people to everything all at the same time. Nick Bilton of the NY Times did a really interesting study where he analyzed 98 of the most popular sites just to see how many links they have on a single page. The results were surprising. Huffington Post had 720 links on a single page. Other well known sites had more than 500 and 400 links on just one page.

It’s impossible to put all your social media efforts on everything. Some people will be more involved in Twitter, a discussion board, LinkedIn, or Facebook. Wherever you want people to spend their time, you need to direct them there with less links, in more obvious locations.

3. Turn blogging into a challenge among colleagues

Ever try to get an office of non-bloggers to all of a sudden start blogging? It never works. In the early days of blogging for a completely unknown site and bloggers you get little to no response. Really hard to keep people motivated to blog when it seems so futile.

For that reason, in the early days of a corporate blog you need to gamify blogging within your organization. Give out awards and badges for small accomplishments such as first person to get five retweets, or first to publish three blog posts in a week, or maybe first to get a comment from a non-coworker.

To avoid social media strategy failure, read “Will your company ignore your social media strategy?”

4. Time, time, time

Similar to the last item, web developer Tom Belknap advises you to build time into the strategy. “The biggest mistake people make in getting into social networking is the thought that, well, we post a few updates on Facebook and we’re all set,” said Belknap. Plan on your social strategy taking time.

5. Own a singular identity across all social services

A successful social media presence has a lot to do with having a consistent identity. Too often organizations don’t plan out what their social identity is going to be. We’re “CompanyX” on Twitter. “CompanyXCorp” on Facebook. Our web address is “CompanyX-Inc.com”.

All these slight differences which may seem simple to you, are massively confusing to everyone else.

Pick one name and use it across all the services you plan on using. Use KnowEm to see if the name you want is available on all the services you want to use.

6. Move existing content from private to public space

A successful blogger is able to spot private conversations that could and should be made public in a blog post. We have private conversations in emails, IMs, over the phone, and at professional networking events. Learning what should be made public is what will make blogging a lot easier. For more, read my article, “Blogging advice for people who ‘have no time to blog.’”

7. Engage your top customers/connectors A LOT.

You’re going to learn and gain the most from the people who are your biggest supporters. For that reason, you need to feed that fan pipeline by communicating with them a lot. “Ask them if they had to replace you as their supplier how would they go about finding someone else? What keywords would they enter into the search bar, what social media sources would they pay attention to and consider to be authoritative,” said Phil Lauterjung, Duct Tape Marketing Consultant.

8. Your offline social strategy

Your strongest social media connections will be initiated in real life. Most people have very poor follow up skills. For example, 1-in-20 people I hand my business card to actually follows up. Not only should you follow up with someone via email, but also try to connect with them via all necessary social connections such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn so that you can more seamlessly maintain a relationship, even if it is only ambient intimacy.

9. Integrate with all other communications efforts

When it comes to customer relations, it is sadly the norm that you’ll get completely different service depending on how you contact the organization. I’ve noticed that the more publicly I discuss an issue (e.g., complain on Twitter, write a blog post about a poor product experience) the better service I’ll get from someone high up in the company. Conversely, if I chose to pick up the phone, I’ll wait a long time and get some phone lackey that may or may not work directly for the company, and not have the authority to give me the service that I need. They may not care about my dissatisfaction. I have always seen disjointed customer experiences. The trick is to simply bring everyone to same table and train them simultaneously, no matter what medium the public uses to connect with you.

10. Your strategy should be to help others

Almost everyone who begins in social media comes at it from the marketing angle of “How can I get people to pay attention to me?” If you flip that poorly aimed philosophy to ask yourself, “How can my social media strategy allow others to express themselves and their own interest,” then you will have a lot more success with social media.

Even though you need a strategy. The best social media strategy I think is to just start. For more read, “No more, ‘What are we going to do in social media?’ meetings.”

What’s your advice that I didn’t consider?

This is far from a comprehensive list. I’d like to know your rarely considered, yet highly important, social media strategy advice. Let me and your fellow readers know in the comments.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

As many media industries, such as music and newspapers, were having difficulty making a go of their cash cow revenue streams, such as CD sales and classifieds, respectively, the press was spelling doom and gloom. For example, both the NY Times and the San Francisco Chronicle were hemorrhaging money.

And then all this media, that at one time cost a lot of money to consume, becomes free. So many articles started to tout, “People online won’t pay for content.”

For a period of time that did seem true. Yet today we appear to be consuming more media than we ever have. If that’s true, why can’t enough people make enough money selling media?

We’re going through a media industry correction

Like the public had to be trained as to what the cost of a print newspaper was, we’re going to have to be trained to understand what the new digital media costs. For example:

• The varying cost of a newspaper on a tablet, PC, phone, or in print.
• The varying cost of a movie in a theater, on DVD, on-demand over the Internet, on cable, or over-the-air TV.
• The varying cost of a song on a CD, streamed, or purchased digitally.

There are some clear cut answers to these issues, but only a few. Many others still need to be hashed out. Understandably, many in the media industry are frustrated. They’ve got bills to pay and they don’t have time to wait for this “correction” to work itself out.

Software can convert a device into a marketplace

I’ve become a huge fan of the iPad. It’s a perfect media consumption device for all kinds of media. Not just because of the device itself, but because of the marketplace for the media and how one can actually access and consume the media. That last part is the part for which all other media consumption devices have tried and failed.

The iPod succeeded, not just because it was a great device, but because it had iTunes. The competitors were all a distant second. I remember many years ago at CES when the first wave of portable video players were coming out, the selling points were always on the display size, resolution, and disk space or how many movies it could hold. When I asked the basic question, “How do I get movies onto the device?” I always received the answer of “We have software for that.” As if “software” was as universal and standardized as purchasing a nut for a screw. Any one will do.

I remember when I purchased my first iPod. All I did was connect it to my computer and it automatically found all my MP3 files (I had previously ripped my entire CD collection) which were then loaded onto my iPod. It truly was the best experience I ever had with the installation of an electronic device. I was all prepared to fight the troublesome nature that was so common with installation of devices. But this truly was phenomenal. I plugged it in, found my music, and I was done. That was it.

iTunes proved to us that “software” was integral to the sale of the hardware, for both short term and for building an ongoing marketplace. Not only was iTunes good software for initializing the iPod, it also enticed great content producers to produce for the platform and the device.

The iPad: Next great hope for all?

I believe the iPad, because of both the device and marketplace, has great hope again for the media industry. I’m not alone. According to a survey, AllThingsD reports that 63 percent of tablet users (predominantly iPad users) want more digital content to  read. Yet for some reason magazine publishers aren’t biting. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why many, like Wired, don’t allow me to end my print subscription and only get the digital version of the magazine on the iPad. I love reading Wired on the iPad. Since it’s begun coming in that format, I’ve stopped reading the print version. Yet I still pay my yearly subscription.

I do receive free magazines on my iPad such as AOL Editions and Flipboard, but those aren’t fully edit publications and to improve the quality of the publication I have to keep giving it information. I find that frustrating. I don’t want to work that hard to curate my own content. I’d like the publication to curate for me. I trust the editors.

I used to subscribe and pay for many magazines. But currently, the only one I have a paid subscription for is Wired. I’m sold on the new iPad reading experience. A call out to all magazine publishers for which I stopped my subscription. Create an iPad version that’s natural to use and I’ll happily renew my subscription.

For more, please read:

• Seven Ways You Can and Should Start Charging for Your Content
• How to Increase the Value of Your Content Without Changing Your Content

Creative Commons photo attribution to Sigalakos, gordonr, and Steve Rhodes.

This got me to thinking, “Why do we consume media?”

I ask you readers this question (please throw in your two cents in the comments), but here’s my viewpoint to launch the discussion.

There are obviously many different kinds of media that all serve a different purpose. To simplify, I break all media into serving three purposes:

• Inform - It heightens our own knowledge and context. Gives us points of discussion, learning, and discourse.
• Educate – Some of the most popular content is “how to” based as people are using for pinpoint ways to learn.
• Entertain - We’re looking for any kind of story to get sucked into, or to be amused.

There’s often a bleed between these three, and if you can produce media that marries two or more of them together it can heighten the value of the content, as they’re serving multiple purposes. And obviously a piece of content’s ability to serve its intended purpose is mediated on the quality of the content.

In all cases of media consumption, the next step is to engage, which cycles back to more media consumption. We want to debate about something we saw in the news, or share the story we heard. If we learned something, we want to connect with experts who can teach us more. And if we heard a good story we want to share it, or point to something we saw that was funny.

We didn’t need the Internet to begin engaging in “social” media.

This all seems so ludicrously obvious, but it isn’t until you realize this is the purpose of media. While content has these initial intentions of informing, educating, and entertaining, its greater goal is to connect individuals and communities. Conversations happen around content.

This circles me back as to why we have these endless discussions about content and then later engagement. That’s the hope for a piece of content, but often content is instantly forgettable and there’s no desire or need to engage.

Is media’s purpose to generate conversation and connect people? If I consume a piece of content and I don’t share it with anyone, is it a bad piece of content? Did it not serve its purpose? Does media have a greater purpose that we should always strive for?

Your thoughts.

Creative Commons photo attribution to IceNineJon and roland.

If you try to look for a definitive number as to how many, you’ll get answers that vary from about 1,500 up to 5,000 advertisements per day. What’s not arguable is the volume of advertising has gone up with the sheer number of media options and outlets. One research study from Yankelovich estimated that a person living in a city in 1977 saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 ad messages 30 years later.

We’ve got ad clutter. We’ve known about it for a while. And there are endless discussions as to how you make your ad heard through the noise.

It got me thinking about the classic study that’s done with all advertising, and that’s your ability to recall an ad you’ve seen or heard.

I was watching a football game last night and I can’t recall one add I saw during it. Mostly because I have a TiVo and I fast forward through the ads by purposely being a little behind in the game, or when I’m caught up I mute the sound during the commercials, or pause the TiVo. Similarly, I never see the ads on my favorite non-live programs either.

Also, this morning, when I drove into work I’m sure I passed by a ton of billboards, the same ones I pass by every day. I think one of them had to do with Chase Bank, but I’m not sure.

Marc Maron interviewing on WTF Podcast

Conversely, I can tell you who the sponsors are of most of the podcasts I listen to. For example:

• Adam and Eve, Audible, and Stamps.com sponsor the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron.
• Audible sponsors Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo.
• Carbonite sponsors This Week in Tech.

The reason I can remember these sponsors is because the hosts do an in-show advertisement that is not copy written for them, which is what DJs at radio stations had to do. In the cases of the aforementioned podcasts the hosts turn their sponsorships into content for the show. That in turn makes the advertisements memorable. That’s why I can tell you what they are. I remember the stories or jokes they told when they were talking about the sponsors.

Not all podcasts do this. Some insert the same advertisement that appears on all the shows. Some do a very long bed of commercials and I purposely advance past them. But the shows that actually turn the sponsorship into some actual content, in other words let the host, for whom I’ve developed an attachment to, create the ad content, then I as a listener am predisposed to pay attention to what they say, even if it is ultimately an advertisement. If they can make it informative and entertaining, that’s all I care about as a listener.

I can’t say I have become consumers of these products, but I can say that the messages are memorable to me and I have repeated them.

Wouldn’t it be more effective if we turned sponsors ads into show content? Can you do that without ruining the editorial integrity of the programming? For talking heads that just talk about their day, it seems easy, but for dramas, news, and pre-written programming, is it possible?

Photo courtesy of Marc Maron of WTFPod.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Robjewitt.

“Build your network now, before you need it.”

You’ve heard that advice before. It’s pretty standard advice for anyone looking for a job. But given that everyone is a publisher through social media, our network and our channel are becoming one, explained Julien Smith, co-author of Trust Agents and blogger at InOverYourHead.net.

The definition of “friends” on our different social networks is heavily misleading. An individual really can’t handle more than 150 relationships and most of us have far more than that on Facebook and Twitter. These followers and our connections are both part of our network and our channel. If you’re interacting with people through social media, you have a channel, Smith said.

Like your network, you need to build your channel so you can use it in the future. Build it now when you don’t need it. “Controlling your future means controlling your channel,” said Smith.

To get people to pay attention to your channel, you need to build something for a large group of people so that it matters and that it becomes part of their existence. Are you creating something that matters to people, that is at the center of their existence. If you’re not, how can you be, asked Smith.

Smith goes on to tell a well-known story about the founder of a company called Soapier who reached out to the Reddit community to help his business get out of the red. While people come on to Reddit all the time and ask the community to do something for them, this instance was different because the Soapier founder was already an established member of the community. When he reached out for help, which he hadn’t done before, the genuineness was clear and that’s why the community responded positively in droves.