Daniel Eizans: Content Strategist, Geek

When I was still a wet nosed reporter (which was only in 2003 mind you), I would have told you that you were insane if you were claiming that traditional media would die out before I did. Then again, this was before iPods had video and WiFi capabilities, before Facebook and Twitter and before Google News.

Fast forward a few years and it’s a whole new ballgame. Newspapers are cutting staffs, magazines are calling it a day and headlines are being broken by Twitter users and bloggers far faster than the traditional media and it’s so-called 24-hour newscycle. The rise of the blogosphere, social networking and changing consumer attitudes have turned content production on its head. And if newspapers and magazines don’t make adjustments, pool their resources and begin listening as much as their shouting, the death rattle will be coming sooner than later.

Content sharing isn’t a new idea by any means. I grew up in Detroit, and remember when the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press published a single joint weekend edition between 1998 and May of 2006. Prior to that, the News and Freep entered into a Joint Operating Agreement on the business operations side of the shops to cut cost as part of the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. They are one of the few sets of papers in joint operating agreements that ever shared content.

But the current economic atmosphere, rising newsprint costs and increases in online readership are forcing papers to look at these sharing partnerships yet again.

Last December, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun announced that they would enter a content-sharing arrangement, and just two weeks ago, The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced plans share sports coverage.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we’ll continue to see this trend in newspaper publishing. The question we need to start answering is, when will this begin occurring in the magazine, tabloid or even digital industries?

I think the overwhelming answer is probably sooner than later.

As this PR Week media analysis points out, magazines like AdWeek, BrandWeek and MediaWeek (all Nielsen Media titles), began sharing content in October of 2008. The company points out in the news release that less than 2% of subscribers for the publications, which cover overlapping industries, receive all three titles.

Still, the unfortunate reality is that magazines need to begin examining sharing content with rival publishers, as some of the aforementioned newspapers have done. But there is a particular challenge in that experiment because newspaper content sharing (usually) has the advantage of regional play, or, as we see in the Star-Telegram/Morning News arrangement, the advantage of only sharing sections. Magazines are much more topic-focused, making cannibalizing of issues a given. And where do you make the call on which writers to keep, what sort of voice to carry forward?

Unfortunately, as the PR Week article points out, it’s a “murky” proposition, but one that I believe will be absolutely necessary for the survival of even the most storied titles in the annuls of media history. What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you ever see major media magazines or blogs sharing their content? Could Newsweek and Time one day share stories? I’m curious as to your thoughts.

Photo by : Sanja Gjenero

Unless you haven’t been reading any blogs at all, you’ve probably already seen the “7 things” social media meme. I’m happy to report that I’ve been tagged by the lovelyLeah McChesney, who I met at the Novi Tweetup earlier this week. Leah was tagged by Lori Laurent Smith who was tagged by Marta Strickland, who was tagged by Stacy Lukas, who was tagged by Ken Burbary who was tagged by Shannon Paul. So, to keep it all going, here’s 7 random things about me:

1. I play several different instruments and sing. I’ve been in four different bands and have recorded an album with one of them. Sometimes I still play solo. Music has always been a huge part of my life.

2. I’m a fluent German speaker

3. I’m a yogi. Even though I no longer practice in a studio, I still meditate regularly and attempt to practice when I can.

4. I’ve been shocked by a tazer. When I was a reporter at The Monroe Evening News I volunteered to be shocked when the Flat Rock Police Department bought them and began training.

5. I can recite every line from the film Caddyshack, start to finish.

6. Sometime I still get a little teary-eyed when I look at pictures of my wife and I on our wedding day. She’s my best friend, my partner and crime and the funniest person I’ve ever met.

7. I’m deathly afraid of bats. I know this a ridiculous thing to be afraid of, but I’m still afraid of them. I’ve starred down bears, wolves and other wildlife, no problems.

So, in spirit of the meme, I’ll pass it along to: (and to be honest, I can only find four of my regular people who I read that haven’t done this yet)

Sheena Harrison
Dr. William J. Ward (a.k.a. Dr4ward)
Brandon Chesnutt
David Murray

Can’t wait to read what you all have to say.

The Four Simple Rules:

* Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
* Let them know they’ve been tagged

Back in October, Joe Jaffe (@jaffeejuice) wrote a case study for the US Postal Service’s Deliver Magazine. In the study he discusses a trend he sees coming by 2012 – the development of the “Chief Conversation Officer.”

Jaffe says the Chief Conversation Officer will replace the traditional Chief Marketing Officer, serving as the true conduit between corporation and consumer. These new executives will essentially bring all customer conversations under one roof. They’ll be able to bridge the gap between public relations and consumer outreach, creating true integration and conversation about the brand.

I believe that that time is coming much sooner than 2012 for some companies as some have already started to adopt some of the roles of the Chief Conversation Officer.

Take the Michigan based Biggby Coffee as a great example of a company already putting this into practice. The company’s CEO Robert Fish (@BiggbyBob), is an active Twitter user, blogger and advocate for his brand.

I know what you’re thinking. Every CEO is a brand advocate. But not every CEO takes the time to engage with consumers, bring their consumers into product focus groups and do his or her own PR. What Bob Fish does well is have actual conversations with the people who consume his coffee. He’s friendly, honest and above all, engaging.

He’s also very open to rewarding those who are considering his brand. Fish entices fringe adopters by encouraging them to get in discussions with others who drink Biggby Coffee, without alienating those who are already true Biggby believers. This fantastic fan base is a true army of brand loyalists who act as evangelists for the brand. And in today’s challenging business climate, when loyalty is a fleeting thing, Biggby is committed to conversations with its consumers. Biggby isn’t just monitoring what its customers are saying effective response and responsiveness. As Jaffe writes in his book, and as Biggby has put into practice, “every customer complaint, compliment, question or concern deserves and mandates our time, our effort, our investment.”

In 2009, as more companies take the plunge into social media, I’m sure we’ll see more brands start to take these sorts of steps. We can only hope they don’t use these tools as another means to simply shout their message. It’s not another tool for companies to use, it’s about conversations. What other companies do you know of that are already using Chief Conversation Officers? Comments appreciated.

Photo by: Nara Vieira da Silva Osga

When I talk to co-workers and clients, I’m often asked how I can bear to follow so many people and still feel like I’m part of discussions on Twitter. My answer is a simple one. I take part in the discussions I believe I can add relevance to or ask questions when I have a genuine interest in a topic or particular Tweet. I treat Twitter as if I’m at a huge dinner party filled with really intelligent guests. I add something to the conversation when I believe I can say something relevant, helpful or offer my opinion when it’s asked of me.

Ironically, while doing research for this post, I found out Chris Brogan used a Cocktail Party as his analogy when he discussed how he uses Twitter. It’s a great post!

As of this post (Jan. 15, 2009) I’m following 900 people and being followed by more than 650 people. It’s not easy to keep up with all 900 people I follow. For most users I’d imagine Twitter, is the chance to engage with people who have their similar interests in mind or with people in their vicinity. For me, Twitter has become an integral part of my day, a research tool and a method of communication.

The long and short of it is that I DON’T participate in every conversation. I DO go back and use Twitter Search to find topics I’m concerned about and follow up on them with vigor. As an advertising and marketing professional, I spend a lot of time following the competition of my clients, discussing my client’s service or product and using my feed as a PR vehicle for those products or services. That being said, I also use my Twitter feed as an opportunity to be myself and to discuss issues I’m interested in. I don’t believe in maintaining a separate feed for my “work” activity. I’m always working and usually let my personality seep into my work and my work relationships (perhaps to a fault?).

Sure, as someone who’s main client is Chevrolet, I spend a lot of time reading Tweets from Auto Blogs, newspapers, industry buffs and gearheads, but I’m also a passionate Geek who loves film, technology, iPhone applications, philosophy, politics and sports. I believe that as social media practitioners we have a responsibility to be ourselves. We can’t tell a brand to be authentic and transparent without being authentic and transparent when we’re doing the telling. We really need to drink our own Kool-Aid more often than not.

I personally don’t use any desktop apps to manage my feed. I check updates occasionally when I’m away from my computer at work through Twitteriffic on my iPhone, but if I miss some things I don’t panic. I take it in stride that I can’t be involved in every discussion that I’d like to be in and that I can’t be part of all the action. I react and respond to what I can. With the number of followers I have at the moment, I can still make time to respond to ever Direct Message (I get about 10 a day), and still respond to every “@.” However, I can’t respond to every request for a poll, can’t read every blog post tweeted by a user I follow whose opinion I genuinely value, and can’t stay up 24-hours a day to keep up on the feed. I do what I can, stay as transparent as possible and make sure I’m a part of the conversations I believe I NEED to be a part of – which usually equals 20-30 tweets a day on the average (more in cases I’m at events like #NAIAS – 34 tweets in 4 hours).

I imagine if I pop well over the 1,000 following mark, I’ll need to start using something like TweetDeck to keep up and keep things organized, but for now, I’m happy with the way I’m using Twitter.

Sidenote: @Eyecube has an amazing post today on the politics of corporate social media transparency with lots of great discussions in the comments.

The short and quick answer to the question posed above is yes. There is no digitally based service that provides a better forum for quickly reporting and analyzing a situation based on the opportunity for a community to collectively report on a situation. But if you want a more detailed case for this argument, keep on reading…

I spent the bulk of my day today at the North American International Auto Show. In the process I became a reporter again. It was far from my first time at Detroit’s annual auto extravaganza as a member of the media, but it was the first time I’ve been to the show armed with so many devices, my iPhone and an array of social networking services that are followed by a reasonably sizable audience.

What happened was pretty inspiring. My coverage of the show Tuesday was truly a collaborative effort – an exercise in citizen journalism. During the course of the day, I had conversations about vehicles and the show with PR professionals (Scott Monty), Bloggers (Andrew Mrozinski at RideStory), Gearheads and interested non-auto professionals (Shelli Gutholm), both via Twitter and in real-time.

For the first time in quite a while, I was a journalist again. I snapped photos, shot video and immediately began transmitting short snippets and thoughts about the show via my Twitter feed, launching into conversations with fellow journalists, PR folks and gearheads. After my initial tweets began, I began talking about NAIAS with journalists and enthusiasts who couldn’t attend and was able to provide several of them with photos and information that they wanted to see on specific models. The photo below, for example, was requested by a Ford fan in Austin.

In short, the community at large shaped my story and the way I approached this year’s show. I didn’t explore and tweet about the show in the way I would have covered it. Instead, the tweets and brightkite posts I made were made about certain the vehicles were shaped by my audience.

What Twitter and microblogging services are providing us is a true citizen form of journalism, albeit a bit underutilized. Twitter needs to evolve to be a place where people go to for news other than just widely-discussed events like the North American International Auto Show. It’s here that traditional media outlets like @CNN, @FoxNews and @NYTimes have a real chance at involving their audience in the coverage of events and integrating it into all forms of media – print, digital and otherwise.

We need only look back to the attacks on Mumbai to see the true power of Twitter’s citizen journalism potential. According to New York Times research, at the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter. But the traditional media outlets should create feeds of these tweets and help decipher, map and weave them into lengthier stories and microsites on their own Web sites to create a richer story. When the big media outlets truly empower the citizen reporter and make sense of the micro-blogosphere, truly powerful results can occur. Blogs have been doing this via commenting for years, but traditional media outlets have the unique perspective to use their credibility to empower truly passionate citizens. This is how newspapers in general began. It’s high time they returned to empowering the community and citizens that they serve.

What do you think? What’s standing in the way of Twitter becoming a truly amazing experiment in citizen journalism?