Dallas media/social media panel, September 23, 2009: Victoria Harres Akers @prnewswire, Mike D. Merrill @mikedmerrill, Catherine Cuellar @ccuellar, Oscar Martinez @oscarmartinez
3. Oscar Martinez Managing Editor neighborsgo The Dallas Morning News [email_address] Twitter / @oscarmartinez
4. Catherine Cuellar Senior Communications Specialist, Oncor Co-host, The Writer’s Studio Freelance Journalist Community Volunteer [email_address] Twitter / @ccuellar
5. Mike D. Merrill Senior Account Executive New Media Gateway Chief Bacon Maker & Marketing Strategist Bacon Marketing Blogger President, SMC Dallas [email_address] Twitter / @mikedmerrill
6. Created by: Michael Pranikoff, PR Newswire Director of Emerging Media Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_fast_growing_us_companie.php
Director of Audience Development for PR Newswire, which includes both outreach to media, as in media relations, and outreach through social media. I am the voice of PR Newswire on twitter, so please follow me there if you are not already. The #hashtag for today’s event is prndallas
Oscar Martinez is the managing editor for neighborsgo , a community newspaper published by The Dallas Morning News in 17 weekly print editions that cover 39 communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He also oversees neighborsgo.com, the social-media site that covers an additional 35 communities and provides the stories and photos for the print product. In 16 years at The News , he has been a print editor, an online news editor and head of both a TV Web site and a Spanish-language Web site. His work with WFAA.com and AlDiaTx.com was honored with two Emmy awards and a national Edward R. Murrow award. Before working at The News , he was an editor at The Boston Globe and smaller newspapers in Connecticut and Texas. In 1996, he became the first American journalist to receive the Reuters America Fellowship to the University of Oxford. Oscar first experienced “breaking news” online in 1995 via an AOL chat room, when he heard about the death of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia.
Catherine Cuellar started her journalism career at The Dallas Morning News – co-founding arts and entertainment website GuideLive.com in partnership with WFAA-TV. She worked at KCRW in Santa Monica, earning a 2003 Southern California Journalism Award from the Los Angeles Press Club for To The Point with Warren Olney and uploading on-demand streaming audio of shows like Morning Becomes Eclectic before podcasting was invented. She was KERA 's girl reporter; and is founding board president of Oak Cliff arts residency La Reunion . In 2007 she became Managing Editor of Dallas' hyper-local Pegasus News , earning a 2008 Katie Award from the Press Club of Dallas for Best Website. And this past year she joined the PR world, working as a spokeswoman for Oncor . She also co-hosts the award-winning literary series The Writer’s Studio , syndicated nationally via the Public Radio Exchange; chairs the Oak Cliff Chamber’s sustainability committee; and blogs for the grassroots advocacy group Bike Friendly Oak Cliff . And...some of you may remember her as ‘hostess’ for Media Bistro in Dallas.
Mike D. Merrill is a President of Social Media Club Dallas; he is Sr. Account Executive at New Media Gateway, a digital sales and marketing platform and services. He is also Chief Bacon Maker and Marketing Strategist for his own firm, Bacon Marketing. Mike is obsessed with sales and marketing and was previously a direct marketing addict at Dell. He has learned the error of his ways and has embraced, championed, and cried out to the heavens in praise for Web 2.0 and the rise of social influence and branding. Mike is on a quest for a chocolate covered bacon dessert.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research performed the study for Inc. Magazine and their findings confirm what previous studies have argued as well: social media use is now a major, mainstream activity. According to the study's authors, "26% of respondents in 2007 felt that social media is "very important" to their business and marketing strategy. That figure rose to 44% in approximately one year. It is clear that this group of fast-growing companies considers the use of social media as a central part of its strategic plan."
Media Jobs between 1997 and 2007, 10 years. From 2000 forward one in four media jobs have disappeared.
The number of Newspaper industry jobs since 1990 have steadily decreased to almost half.
Traditional media is in flux. We are now seeing the rise of Mass Social Media. Where traditionally we had institutional control of messages (news), the control has shifted to the consumer, who now picks and chooses what and how they will receive content.
Blogging, including micro-blogging, and social networking platforms have gained popularity very quickly.
CNW Group
This is an example of just one way PR Newswire has been working on increasing the ability for anyone to engage with our client’s content since 2006 when we first added a Delicious button to our news releases to allow people to start sharing that content. We have continued to increase the ability for anyone interact with our content.
Case study: Target
We have to think about Engagement. Interaction – The actions a person takes while present at those touch points Intimacy – The affection a person holds for a brand Influence – The likelihood a person is to advocate on behalf of the brand
This is a great example from Nielsen about different ways to measure. Today, there is a big difference of just measuring clear “hits” or unique visits to a page that you are directing people to go to. Today, we need to also and maybe more acutely look at the “engagement” of a user once they get to where you are trying to drive them too.
Only 16# of today’s professionals are measuring the ROI of their social media endeavors.
But we have to embrace the data.
As professionals, we need to set our goals, and then monitor and measure our success or even failures. The more data we have on how people are interacting with our content, the better we can focus future campaigns.