Media Week

Social media spreads..... People create their own content. As people co-create brands by editing youtube videos of ads and taking photos on flickr of products they are supplanting traditional brand advertising. Glossy brand messages - one size fits all- do not work well in a social media context. If you were at a party you wouldn't want to be interupted by someone shouting about a product which you did not care about, would you? The internet now is about niches. Niches of interest. Advertising has to get smaller to get bigger. Think niche. The trouble is that many ad agencies are not in a position to think niche. Big sweeping, centralized brand plans and campaigns are relatively easy to carry out. Big money, big messages, and in theory big reach. But they are not working. I saw a music festival recently which is accepting no sponsors. Brands are banned. Brand advertisers should take heed. A social media generation is here which demands more sensitivity. Your ads better be useful and relevant to them wherever they are online otherwise their will be a backlash.

www.itsopen.co.uk

Press barons and journalists trapped in traditional editorial mindsets cannot accept that their content should be free. They have failed to recognise that news is now a commodity. Google has made more or less everything a commodity. Everything is searchable. Content is everywhere. Newspapers who fight to charge for their content are going the way of the dinosaurs. It is time to open up. Drop the charges. Enable your columnists to enter into broader and wider conversations with audiences. Develop communities of interest around your content. Invite people in. Be interesting and you will gain influence for your content as it is shared around more easily and you will get more clicks on your ads because more people can get in.

 www.itsopen.co.uk

With the Evening Standard promising to be different, it is interesting to read the debates taking place on BuzzMachine (www.buzzmachine.com) about the future of newspapers.

Here is the key message: In the old way of thinking, the newspaper was a product. In the new way, news organisations provide a service. In the old way of thinking readers sat still to observe a performance.Now readers are participatory. In the old way of thinking newspapers marketed themselves to a population. In the new way, they converse, engage and collaborate with the communities they serve. The population markets the news organisation among itself. In the old way of thinking, editors were in charge, choosing which stories to provide to readers based on what they thought the readers wanted to know. In the new way, readers are in charge. They read what they want, when they want.

 If the Evening Standard really wants to be relevant to London, then Buzzmachine would suggest it puts these principles into action.