Today I was the recipient of news that my favorite local news publisher, was ceasing operations going forward. Yes, print journalism is not viable in any fashion going forward, but others have found ways to go behind a successful paywall, or leverage advertising and diversity in their content to attract a wider audience. While I enjoyed the weekly print copy in my mail, I could see items relevant to my town or school district, it was often loaded with print advertisements to make it capable of being delivered weekly. The ads would be for merchants inside and out of my neighborhood, I would quickly peruse the 15 or 20 pages to see if there was a picture or article of interest and would often find minimal content that pulled me in, thus tossing the periodical into recycling. Back in the day, there may be an editorial written by a historian of the area…but that has long passed. Now we will find a political, sponsored or vanilla piece that has as much interest as the Reddit post that I just scrolled past. But you know what will be missed by the “Print” version of these outlets…the picture in its glorious black and white, color on inky paper. I had dozens of clipped pictures / articles that I would send to relatives about the exploits of my offspring.
Ironically, I have received over the last few years a physically mailed note from my parents about an article they saw in their local newspaper related to something that may have been going on in my neighborhood. I often was torn between saving the mailing and / or wondering why I received this from them nearly seven days after I read about it online. So with a guilty complex, I would save it for a few days and then ultimately toss in that weeks recycling. Bottom line, nostalgia is only worth as much as the person receiving the material and what they envision doin with the content. That being said, I want to propose the following to the local media providers / outlets. You need to fully understand the following before transformation:
Audience: Do you know who they are (you have subscription lists, social media follows, unsolicited comments and other interactions)
Contributors: Most engaged individuals (participants, audience, family members) are posting content about the event with disregard – They have become your reporters
Analytics: Do you know what articles have had the highest page views, clickthroughs and retention based on exposure
Demographics: Do you know who prefers online versus print, you know the segmentation of your audience (ex. age, sex, location, socio-economic…etc.)
Content Preference: Who prefers Sports, Cultural, Ethnic, Religious, Philanthropic content as this can be derived from various content streams that receive the most interaction and engagement
Delivery Preference: Where did you have your highest interaction – online, published or direct via social interaction.
Contributors: Who is most likely to contribute to the content – Family members, Students, Faculty or professionally hired resources
The Next Step…
If you fully understand the above observations and the desire for the general public to receive their news in a timely manner, but with personalization, I think you know the direction I’m going. Engage, Interact, Promote Participation and you create a “crowd sourced” media aggregator and the heavy lifting of content is taken care of by your advocates, while the detailed dissemination is provided by the professionals. Revenue is derived by personalization and retained audience.
Blueprint to Follow…
De Lio Tech Trends 