Media out of touch … again

Much of our mainstream media needs to take a long hard look at its performance on the global warming issue.

A lot of recent reporting worldwide has hinted broadly at media frustration over the political sidelining of global warming and the failure, to date, of moves toward a global agreement on handling the issue.

For example, Australian journalists have been within their rights to vigorously question Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, about his party’s plans.  However,  Abbott’s opposite number, Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, seems to largely avoid the same level of media scrutiny on his government’s market-based proposals. This lack of even-handedness may be  partially in the eye of the beholder, but we should be able to expect a certain degree of objectivity in the reporting of such a high profile political issue.

There’s nothing wrong with the media’s obvious obsession with global warming.

Journalists love tilting at windmills and they are entitled to paint the issue as a crusade to save the planet, as simplistic as that may be.

However, the world’s media also has a responsibility to question carefully; investigate official explanations; and help spell out what is really a highly complex matter, involving vital economic and social questions; the aspirations of much of the third world; and the credibility of government at all levels and many scientific institutions.

This need to investigate rather than accept at face value is especially important in the aftermath of the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ hoodwink played on the media and the public before the Iraq war.

The fact that the issue has not been better explained is one of the reasons that  a world-wide deal for tackling global warming will not be reached this year, even at the Mexico summit. So, the media largely has itself to blame for this situation.

Journalists have also generally appeared reluctant to report extensively on things they perceived as reflecting poorly on the global warming case.

For example, the ‘Climategate’ affair in the UK did not receive anywhere near the same media coverage as that given to sea level science and polar bear numbers. The same goes for the question marks that may now hang over whether Himalayan glaciers are actually retreating – or whether the deforestation in the Amazon is truly as grim as painted. I would like to see solid, investigative reporting of each of these.

And, now the web is buzzing with claims that the chairman of the IPCC has called for “grassroots action” to tackle global warming – whatever grassroots action means – even as the world’s governments are still to reach agreements.

If these reports are correct, it is a big story that a fair-minded media should devour. The IPCC head, as a representative of the United Nations, has no right to call for action that might bypass national governments.

The matter has been picked up and run by many bloggers and the extent to which the mainstream media report the implications will show clearly whether the media is (to use an Australian term) ‘fair dinkum’  – or is, in fact, being led by the nose.

From what I have seen so far, I’m inclined to believe the latter. We seem to have an international media that, on the global warming issue, is increasingly out of touch with the movement of public opinion.

Ian

2010: The year of social media

Social media is set to explode this year, led by the tremendous growth in the mobile web.

All indications are that everything that has come before will be dwarfed in 2010 – and the big loser will be traditional advertising and marketing.  The trend was signalled in late December, when Pepsi dropped its US Super Bowl advertising spend (after 23 consecutive years) to invest in social media in 2010.

One of the important spin-offs of this growth will be the absolute need for everyone who is serious about communications to undertake genuine monitoring of the social media conversation.  No longer can monitoring be restricted to traditional media, plus the odd website or blog.

My eye was recently caught by a report published by social media aency ‘We Are Social’.  The report reads, in part:

Social media goes up the agenda of organisations
In 2010. companies seem to have plans to invest seriously in social media. According to BizReport, social media is a priority for marketers: more than half of respondents (56.3%) had planned to include social media in their mix.

According to Charlene Li, “social media will become part of everyday lexicon for business in 2010″ while for Adam Cohen, “Social media gets smarter”: companies will start using social media more strategically.

For Connie Benson, “social media will shift from being experimental to metrics and the loop will be closed so that social media monitoring is necessary and actionable”.

David Armano predicts the mass adoption of social media policies in companies in 2010. This year, companies will understand the importance of investing for the long term in social media, rather than just on specific campaigns.

What was already important for brands in 2009 becomes crucial in 2010: listening to and participating in online conversations as they have a real impact on people’s opinions. Even more so now that Google and Microsoft have incorporated the real-time social web at the core of their search algorithms: Today, when researching a brand; making a shopping decision; or looking to see what your local government representatives are doing, you’ll surely find tweets about it.

So, if you have signored social media, or even hoped that it would just go away, it’s now time to rethink – or be left badly behind.

Ian

Women dominating the social side of the online world

Interesting figures have shed additional light on how the social side of online media is increasingly dominated by women.

Google Ad Planner researched 17 popular social media sites and found a clear gender imbalance.

Of the 17, Digg was the only site where the majority of users were men.

The figures supported research earlier this year, which showed 75% of women who used social networks did so primarily to keep in touch and chat with family and friends.

Only 25% were seeking information, advice, or staying up to date with latest events.

Because most female social networkers are not looking for specific information, they tend to select the network that their friends are using – and then stay there.  Sites that cater for a broader objective, generally  have a more even mix of men and women.

In countries such as Australia, where the majority of buying decisions are made by women, these sort of findings are of particular interest to e-commerce operators, online retailers and their advisors in the PR and technology fields.

Ian

Forget farting cows, look out Tiger Woods!

You gotta love this one.

As the old left wing works itself into a lather with its latest dire warning about the future of the planet, a new culprit has emerged from an unlikely quarter – the misty highlands of bonny Scotland.

This time, the  finger  of  climate change warriors is not being pointed at householders who, God forbid, dare to turn on an electric light, or run a warm bath. And, carbon-laden farts by Highland cattle have also escaped the eco-wrath, as have Haggis factories and woollen mills.

Instead, the self-appointed saviours of the Earth have turned their sights on that most Scottish of sports, the ancient – and some would say sacred – game of golf.

Apparently, when scientists scoured the floor of Loch Ness in search of a prehistoric creature, they found golf balls – hundreds of thousands of them.

And, although that sounds fairly logical to me – who doesn’t like getting out the old two wood and whacking a ball Happy Gilmore-style over the nearest water hazard – it has a downside that is offending the fun police.

The story is that golf balls in the water – in fact, anywhere in the wild – are a green no no. And, in case golfers dare raise a question,  there is, of course, the usual alarming report.

It seems that the Danish Golf Union says golf balls  may take between 100 and 1,000 years to decompose. And, as the balls break down, they release toxins and heavy metals into the environment.

So, rather than questioning whether monster hunting was valid scientific research in the first place – especially in light of their own  …”so much carbon, so little time” mantra – the army of green saviours now has its knickers in a knot because it says golfers leave behind an estimated 300 million golf balls in the United States alone every year.

I sincerely wish them luck in finding all those cunning little suckers that are sliced or hooked off the fairways every time I’m on a golf course. Hang the  toxins … I just want the balls back, so I can hack them into the bush again the next time around.

Ian

Print designs face a ‘yawn’ factor

There is a depressing sameness about printed material.

Take a good look at advertisements, newsletters, flyers, and the thousands of official and promotional forms that are regularly thrust under your face. Increasingly, they look alike – the same designs, colours, styles (or lack of) etc etc.

I know it’s a long bow, but we could be forgiven for thinking that graphic design for print has run out of ideas.

It stands to reason that there are a finite number of ways that type, images and logos etc can be arranged on a page and a document.  That number is  high, but it’s still finite.

But, I think it also has a lot to do with the evolution of desktop publishing programs that ‘dumb down’  output to  a bland template style – somewhat like website content management systems.  Using these modern ‘out-of-the-box’ publising programs is not rocket science ….. and the finished product increasingly seems to be reflecting that fact.

Of course, technology and the social web in particular offers salvation for the print graphic designer.  The only problem is that this is a whole new ‘Gen Y’ world in which the ‘First, we need a logo’ thinking so central to Marketing 101 is redundant.

Inventing a new font every month and stretching the uses of Photoshop to its limits may keep the wolves at bay for a while, but like the tide, it will be hard to hold back the impact of a wave of mediocrity.

Traditional websites on a downward slide

For months, I’ve been commenting on the trend away from destination websites.

The figures have been there to prove it.  But, for many, the demise of the corporate website just seemed too hard to believe. 

Now, the issue has started to become a hot topic across the social web.  Check these latest statistics put forward by blogger Doug Brown

Again, I’d suggest a long hard think about the direction of your organisation’s digital communications, especially if you are considering spending money on a new or existing corporate website.

Ian

Old school marketing merely an illusion of control

I’m increasingly amazed at much of today’s marketing.

Many of the traditional marketers that I meet are quick to criticise PR people as snakeoil salesmen, yet a big question mark hangs over their own methods.

Traditional marketing often doesn’t bother listening to people or genuinely engaging with them.  For some reason, there is too often an assumption that marketers automatically know what people want to hear and see.

And, in reality, the ‘message’ mindset and methods or channels used by marketers are becoming totally inadequate in a changing media mix. Yet, in many areas, there seems to be a reluctance or inability to change and adapt – to understand that traditional advertising and newsletters may no longer be breaking through …. and to abandon the ‘my logo is bigger than yours’ thinking.

As someone put it very succinctly recently … “far better to be willing to engage people in actual conversations — which is what social media allows us to do. It humanizes communications — and gives us an outstanding opportunity to gather market intelligence as a value-add”.

As I’ve said before, social media is not simply another tool in the marketer’s bag, but a culture change.  And, of all people, it is particularly sad to see traditional marketers who either don’t get it, or refuse to move with the times.

Ian

Phone calling comes to Twitter: huge news

This is big:  From tomorrow, Twitter users will be able to make free phone calls to and from each other .

Daniel Terdiman, of CNET News, says a system developed by Internet systems provider, Jajah, “will allow Twitter users to have two-way voice chat with other users by typing “@call @username”–where “username” is someone’s Twitter ID–into any Twitter client. “

During a trial period,  the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length. However, it sees the two minute period–after which the call will end–as “the verbal equivalent of a tweet.”

Daniel says  the service will allow a user to place a call to any other user, so long as the second person follows the first on Twitter and both have Jajah accounts. The service is free to use and is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones.

One important element of the service is that users can keep their phone numbers private, yet be able to have voice chats with just about anyone on Twitter. To be sure, since the calls are initiated by one person, the recipient may well not be online, or may choose to ignore the call if they don’t want to talk.”

News of the service has swept through Twitter users in the past 24 hours – and certainly seems to be a big development.

Ignore this at your peril

Want an example of how the speed and spread of social media is making traditional communications largely redundant?

After being refused  ‘drive through’ service at a fast food outlet because she was on a bicycle, US writer, Sarah Gilbert, immediately complained on Twitter.

A few minutes later, she was contacted by a local newspaper reporter who had seen the  Twitter post.  Two hours later, she was interviewed on local TV news.  And, all the while, Twitter users were spreading the issue far and wide in huge numbers – using the viral spread of the micro-blogger to ‘name and shame’ the outlet involved.

By the next morning, Sarah had received an apology from the food outlet’s manager.  Within hours, the company had gone on Twitter and other media to announce a new bike-friendly policy at all of its drive-through windows.

The national newspaper, USA Today had been watching the social media storm — and quickly arranged an interview with both Sarah and the food chain – followed by the LA Times newspaper; the local newpaper again; bloggers; and breakfast radio hosts.

In the past, the company would probably have taken out a newspaper advertisement to stem the tide of dissent and unveiled its new policy with brochures, flyers and newsletters:  well meaning but too slow for this new era.

Things have changed

Ian

Businesses set to use Twitter in massive numbers

A new chapter in the Twitter story is underway.

Businesses world-wide are starting to use the microblogger in huge numbers – far more than any other social media service.

Influential blogger, Robert Scoble, believes this unprecedented  business adoption will propel Twitter to new heights: adding brand promotion to the list of reasons why people are using the service: reasons such as real time searching and building and nurturing communities.

‘Twitter is winning, big time,” says Scoble.

See his full post.

Ian