If you are a business owner with an online presence, a digital content producer like a film maker or music producer, an author, or someone in communications, then you have got to read this book on the NEW economy titled “FREE”, written by Chris Anderson (the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine).
With the new media transition going online has completly changed the way digital content like music and video and pictures are consumed, and so far it has been a real challenge for these content makers to make a transition to monetizing on digital media. For example, 95% of all digital music (like what your would find in the iTunes store), that was downloaded last year, was downloaded illegally.
Chris Anderson’s book discusses the new economy and gives brilliant insight into new age consumerism in the wake of Web 2.0, and discusses the “Freemium” business model that has been adopted successfully online, but has actually been around for over a hundred years.
From a business perspective, this book outlines what “Frremium” means in the NEW economy, and gives digital content producers and digital publishers some perspective and insight on what type of business model works in web 2.0 and what type of thinking is required to survive the rapidly evolving and sharing world through emerging and existing technology.
From a communications perspective this book basically translates what we as communications professionals have to bring to the table so that our clients can adapt to the new media world and so that we can do things like apply social media strategy and translate those offerings we freely share on web 2.0 into ROI for our clients.
New thinking is required, and if anyone catching this was wondering what social media strategy and web 2.0 strategy could do and how it could produce ROI and save our digital content from becoming valueless, then this read is a must.
Same goes for all you aspiring digital publishers out there, there air is thin these days in terms of being able to monetize on digital content, so you’ll be getting valuable info info from the Chris Anderson book. This is recommended in a big way for you content makers out there. This is an excellent NEW economy business model for you.
The link below is the free audiobook, download it and pop it on you iPod and listen to it on the way to the office. By the time you get to work, you should be brimming with new ways to monetize on digital content and ways to use web 2.0 strategy and social media strategy in the NEW economy.
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- Spiegel Online: Will media be a hobby rather than job, asks Chris Anderson (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
- Chris Anderson Discusses the Free Business Model, Promotes Upcoming Book (techcrunchit.com)
- Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson (mediabistro.com)
18% of Search information Market is on Social Media
It’s official, Social Media Strategy accounts for 18% of information searches online according to a Neilsen study on Social Media.
Social Media is just an extension of how we communicate today. When we are going to make a purchase we discuss it with peers and friends. When we want information about any specific genre we look for an expert, often asking peers and friends for a reference. When we look for some someone to fill a position in the work place, we look to see if there are common references for the people we might hire. We do all those references and searches online as well as in person. We do it using Social Media.
Google has added Social Search to it’s search engine recently, Yahoo and Bing are showing Twitter results in their indexes. These things are new. They did not exist only a short time ago. Yet today, they are major players in an online marketing strategy.
Search Engines advancements has caused search engines to deliver better and more relevant search results. The evolution of Social Media has caused search engines like Google to include things like dashboard that have linked gateways to services like friendfeed, facebook, news feeds, Twiiter Collecta etc. Those dashboards draw our attention to new channels of discovery and information, and more importantly, they allow us to connect and find people in our network to share and collect this information.
A Neilsen study was fielded in August 2009 and consisted of 1800 participants in which they looked at three main consumer segments using search. The segments were “Searchers”, “Portals / Portalists” or social media “socializers., and the study segments determined what primary vehicles were used for digital content discovery.
Traditional search engines accounted for 37% of search queries, and online portals such as Yahoo, MSN and AOL represented 71% of the sites that serve as the sources for discovery.
Social media sites such as blogs, Wikipedia, and social networks accounted for 18% of where searches begin, outperforming sites that are dedicated to publishing information specifically to help individuals find deeper analysis and details.
Neilsen also discovered that for almost 15% of “Socializers”, the information they “trusted” the most was found on blogs when researching purchases, and 20% most trusted the info they discovered on forums and message boards. 8% trusted Facebook and Twitter for content discovery.
SEO needs a Name Change to include Social Media
SEO has changed forever, and there is no going back in sight. SEO indicates that content is being optimized for Search Engines only, and perhaps it is time for a name change, because search today is migrating from search engines to Social Media services.
The Web 2.0 landscape made up of blogs, wikis, social networks, content portals, social boomarking, forums, websites, mobiles, multi player games and search engines has become tied together with the advancement and growth of Social Media, and it is now bound by real people linking and sharing through Social Media.
The fusion of so many types of online communications tools has made Social media Strategy more important than it has ever been because those profiles have become our common references for sources of information.
Social Media Strategy is a long term solution for communications, and there is no “quick fix” for that. It is a live and evolving media that requires conversation and updating to be a factor.
Gone are the days of SEO where keyword spamming and directory link schemes could dominate on many terms. Today’s search engines are putting those lame practices to sleep with their application of Web 2.0 and Social Media links in search results.
The bigger picture that has been difficult to translate for some has been the evaporation of control over communications. No longer can slogans speak the message in one direction. Active groups and communities of people using comments and Social Media are running today’s communications. Today it is all about sharing and being transparent and being part of the conversation.
The shift of power to Social Media has impacted SEO in other ways, which include off-site search engine optimization, digital distribution of materials and possibly most important, Social Media has become the best way to gauge how our brands are perceived and how our communications are interpreted.
The explosion of Twitter on the Social Media Landscape into a live stream of information for discovery has changed our expectations of quickly we can access information, and how fresh and current the information updates we follow should be. Today, our communications strategies have to include constant updating and interactions if we hope to succeed.
Coca-Cola’s new campaign gets it, PizzaHut’s latest new job proves they get it, and yet there are still so many who just don’t undestand how much things have changed in SEO and Web 2.0 communications.
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