Good afternoon!

John Wilpers, Senior ConsultantINNOVATION Media Consulting Group617.688.0137 / johnwilpers@aol.com

Twitter: johnwilpers; Blog: johnwilpers.wordpress.com

Presentations should start

with something memorable

So let’s try this:

I took this this morning on the Pier here...

... But this next slide is probably more memorable

That’s me (the big gal). I’ve played “Mother Ginger” in The Nutcracker in Boston for 15 years.

STRETCHING YOUR NEWS BUDGET WITH OUTSIDE

CONTENT SOURCES

Becoming the SOURCE of all the best content about your turf, not just the

CREATOR of the best content.

NEWSPAPERS WERE ONCE THE SOLESOURCE OF QUALITY INFORMATION

Not anymore.....

MILLIONS OF EXPERTS ARE BLOGGING EXQUISITELY ABOUT THEIR NICHE

2) They know more about their niche than your staff writers

1) They are professionals

3) They can write as well or better than your writers.

4) They can spread the word about you to their hundreds or thousands of followers

WHAT DO READERS WANT?

2) Information & community around shared interests

1) Local Information

3) Variety of viewpoints

4) Chance to participate

5) All the best information in one place to save time

What can newspapers do to OWN their

niches and attract, retain, involve, and leverage these new information creators

and consumers?

THE ANSWER?

No surprise, there is no ONE answer

There are lots of answers

And most involve “being found”

“BEING FOUND”

With thousands of people in your market needing

information and asking questions every day, you want

to “be found” as:

• THE source of local information in as many niches

as possible, and

• THE place with the answers to as many local questions as

possible.

“BEING FOUND”

You want to deliver ongoing, useful, valuable information about exactly what readers

need exactly when and where they need it.

“BE FOUND” BY BEING

“REMARK-ABLE”

Deliver content that is so good readers “remark” about it online, causing it to spread virally, attract

links, and thus improve your Google rank, making you all the more

“findable.” — “Inbound Marketing,” Brian Hallagan/Dharmesh Shah, 2010

HOW DO YOU DELIVER

“REMARK-ABLE”CONTENT?

You can’t create it all by yourself.

You need help.

Find people creating high-quality content in the areas you want to “own” and partner with them.

Bloggers

BLOGGERS?!

Relax.

OMG!

And let me explain.

THE BLOG FLOW IS NOW A TSUNAMI

• Twelve new blogs every minute

• More than 100,000 new blogs by day’s end

• Nearly 1 million posts/day

• 41,600 posts every hour

• 700 every minute

• 12 every second

Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual Report, Sept. 2008

BLOGS ARE EVERYWHERE& ARE ACCEPTED

• 184 million people worldwide have started a blog

• 346 million people worldwide read blogs

• 77% of active Internet users read blogs

(COMSCORE MEDIA MATRIX/August 2008, eMARKETER/May 2008, UNIVERSAL MCCANN/Mar, ’08)

THEY ARE WRITING ABOUT A WIDE VARIETY OF TOPICS

Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual Report, Sept. 2008

THEY DO IT FOR LOTS OF REASONS

Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual Report, Sept. 2008

Money is not the top reason, it’s not even in top five!

AND THEY ARE REAPING REWARDS

Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual Report, Sept. 2008

• Becoming semi-famous• Getting promotions• Changing professions • Getting more executive visibility

• RELEVANCE

High-quality local bloggers: A great bet to increase your

• REACH • REVENUE

HARNESS THAT ENERGY & TALENT

SOME DISAGREE

One Brazilian newspaper compared local bloggers to monkeys banging on keyboards. It was a funny PR

campaign, but it ignored a legion of high-quality local blogs

EVEN IF 50% OF BLOGGERS ARE MONKEYS…

That’s still leaves a TON of good LOCAL content

that you CURATE to increase your content

offerings.

INCREASE REACH AND RELEVANCEWith high-quality local bloggers,

readers see your paper and website as being created by them and for them.

Bloggers are thrilled to be asked to be part of your paper & website:

THE NEWSPAPER MAGIC STILL EXISTS

Word of mouth: the most effective, most trusted means of marketing. Publish local bloggers and unleash a legion of cost-free marketers!

YOU JUST HEARDPOWERFUL,VIRAL,GRASSROOTS MARKETING

Photo by looking4poetry on flicker, CC

YOUR BRAND STILL RESONATES

Your brand = the best in information; Extend that

brand to blogs & vlogs

Be THE source of all the best info in town, even if

you don’t create it! Curate and point off

Or host the blogs.Who could resist

a blog address like: www.papername.com/myname?

IT IS A WIN-WIN:

You get:• Great web content• Great print content• Increased ad inventory, and• Viral grassroots PR from happy bloggers

The bloggers get:• Big-time exposure in your newspaper and on your website• Increased traffic• Increased income• Prestige and fame!

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC, LINKS, INCREASED GOOGLE RANK• The Christian

Science Monitor TRIPLED traffic on its Money in just two weeks when it introduced bloggers.

• One post, published just after midnight, got 25,000 PVs by noon

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC, LINKS, INCREASED GOOGLE RANK• Almost

three-quarters of the more than 100,000 visits to GlobalPost’s outside bloggers were new visits.

• Visitors to GlobalPost’s non-staff blogs stayed on site an average 02:49.

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC

• Four of the top 13 page view URLs were blogs or the blog home page

• Our longest time on a page was a blog

• Our highest unique page view page was a blog

• BostonNOW hosted 3,900 bloggers; 900 of whom posted regularly

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC

• Between 12-20% of BostonNOW’s site traffic was to blogs; much of the classic “long tail” variety

• In less than 12 months, we attracted

773,000 unique visitors to a completely new product with no promotional budget

YOU GET RESULTS!

MetroBoston (’00) Denver (‘01) Dallas (’03) TampaBay (’06) BostonNOW (‘07)

BostonNOW

blank5 free papers, all the same -- but we,BostonNOW (the top line), had bloggers!

Launch dates:

Paper closed April 2008

SO, WHAT’S ONE OF THE BEST STRATEGIES TO

ACHIEVE YOUR MISSION?

After the previous 30 slides, do you really need time to think about that?

ANSWER:

HIGH-QUALITY BLOGS USED STRATEGICALLY

Vetted blogs written by experts in their niches.

Blogs covering every niche you want to own.

Published on your website, AND in your paper. In the theme-appropriate section,NOT in a “blogger ghetto”

THAT’S ALL VERY COOL, JOHN

Butshow us

the MONEY

EXAMPLES OF SALES RESULTS

• After the Christian Science Monitor’s success with our economy blogs, Smuckers signed up to sponsor the food blogs a month BEFORE we launched.

• BostonNOW did a $90,000 deal with a large regional bank mixing web and print budget to reach young college grads with text

and video content, and banners

BUT EDITORS ARE NERVOUS

Are we risking our hard-earned credibility opening our pages to outsiders?

NO!

You are still the gatekeeper.Don’t publish ALL the blogs, only the BEST blogs.

Photo by CayUSA on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY ABOUT THE UNKNOWN

How can I take responsibility for authors and content I know nothing about?

You vet them like you would any columnist or freelancer…

And pull them if they err.

EASY!

Photo by SarahFelicity on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY ABOUT PROFESSIONALISM

Don't you see any difference between

blogs by journalists and by readers?

ABSOLUTELY!

Reporters are trained to collect and check

facts; bloggers aren’t.

While many bloggers are excellent, you should

brand them graphically to make the distinction. Photo by Reinvented on flickr/CC

THEY FEAR NEFARIOUS ULTERIOR MOTIVES

Isn’t it just a clever way for publishers to

cut costs?

NO!

Most bloggers arenot reporters. We

still need reporters

Bloggers are an addition to your

local news products.Photo by St Stev on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE

Will community bloggers will be willing to produce their content for free in the future?

YES

Traffic, exposure, and brand extension are currently more valuable than a freelance check. Photo by Red5StandingBy on flickr/CC

THE ALTERNATIVE?

“Newspapers are going to see the relentless

emergence of new forms of media that might not even be … positioned as competition, but which have the potential to siphon off audience.”

— Andrew Nachison, Co-founder iFOCOS, a media think tank

Do nothing and the competition will eat your lunch

A NEW VISION: INCLUSION"Stop pretending your organization is an oracle. It's not. You don't know everything, and even if you did, you couldn't publish as much as you'd like to. Pointing to outside sources of information — especially local blogs and other media — is a great start …

A NEW VISION: CREATING TOGETHER“… It does not mean that you endorse what these folks are saying or vouch for it, but it does mean that you recognize that others in your community are creating media with at least some information other people might want to see." Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Arizona State Univ.

SO, THE KEY TO SURVIVING AND THRIVING?

BE FOUND!

You canʼt be found if youʼre not REMARK-ABLE

If you ARE remark-able, youʼll spread.

If you spread, youʼll rise in Google ranking, authority

If you rise, youʼll be found more often and youʼll increasingly own your market, and the future will

look a LOT brighter than it does today...

High-quality non-staff blogs can help you succeed in,

many, many ways.

BOTTOM LINE?

For free......

TODAY

Thank you!

John Wilpers, Senior ConsultantINNOVATION Media Consulting Group617.688.0137 / johnwilpers@aol.com

Twitter: johnwilpers; Blog: johnwilpers.wordpress.com

Now go home and find some

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