Publishers using social media to assist sales

Continuing the publishing theme it is interesting to see both an actual and an imagined instance of publishers harnessing social media to increase revenues.

The first instance was reported last week in Mediapost “Federated Media Publishing has cut staff as part of a strategic shift toward “conversational marketing” at the expense of traditional display ads.” CEO John Battelle blogged the reasons for  the company’s plan to increase its focus on social media-centered campaigns. “We reached out to our marketing and publishing partners to ask what they wanted from us…our ability to create highly engaging, cost effective media experiences that allow marketers to connect with their customers. It’s high-impact marketing, but it’s also time-intensive and nuanced work.”

Then on Monday Jeff Jarvis in MediaGuardian reported a summit on business models for news that he organised recently at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. During the summit the participants imagined the size and shape of a ‘digital age’ news orgnaisation. As they resized the workforce from 300 to 35 they kept a few old positions and invented a few new ones including community managers “who do outreach, mediation, social media evangelism”.

While it’s heartening to see those in  publishing recognising the potential for social media to deliver relevant audiences I think it raises some questions as the phenomena spreads. And if Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester is to be believed, it will spread; “Marketers will increase spending in social media during a recession as this cost-effective tool set allows customers to spread the word quickly at low cost.”

For starters;

1. Is this audience rustling? While “social media evangelism” could mean many things lets assume for a moment that it means going onto other sites and directing the audience via links to your own content. While there are some who understand the link economy its not hard to see some traditional media owners or content providers might take exception, especially as margins tighten and the game becomes significantly more short term.
2. Do the costs stack up for the advertisers? If we’re driving these highly relevant audiences to a bespoke piece of advertiser content is it enough to have them merely consuming that content? I’d imagine as an advertiser I’d quite like them to do something more if I’ve gone to all of that trouble to attract such likely customers. For example, I’d want them to tell me what they’d like to buy and what they think of my products. Or even better – buy my products. But this requires a bit more effort than just providing some copy and images. Will the additional effort and expense be rewarded by sufficient additional sales?

As the advertising model continues to come under fire alternatives will be sought. And effective alternatives will always win out, expecially in the ‘current climate’. It would be great see some figures from Federated that demonstrate the sucess or otherwise of social media providing that effective alternative for advertsiers. Otherwise we’re all being a bit Jeff about it and hypothesising.