Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

...What small and large digital publishers ought to learn from these figures is that the public is moving so quickly to mobile consumption of news and social sharing that they need to take action.

In this kind of environment that requires rapid shifts in tactics and strategy, small news organizations that live only on the web have an advantage. They can move faster without having to worry about generating revenue to service debt or other legacy costs.

The rise of mobile and the rise of social media sharing represent a huge opportunity for those who are ready for it. And a huge missed one for those who are not.

Beyond distribution and a better user experience, being web friendly fits into the Flipboard business plan. The company has begun selling full-page ads mixed in with regular content like what you might see in a high-end print magazine. Larger professional publishers, including the owners of this publication, currently have revenue-sharing agreements in place for their own magazines, but the company plans to expand that to other content and curation creators.

Around two million magazines have been created since the March launch of the DIY tool, and many of the top ones are being curated by enthusiasts rather than pros — photography, maritime shipping, beer, and GIFS are some example themes. There’s a lot of additional reader attention to sell against.

But what about the publications trying to figure out their online (and mobile) business models? Why should they want Flipboard to get a piece of their precious few remaining ad dollars via alternative destinations like native apps and now its own web links?For some of them/us, the answer is going to be that they don’t have the resources to build good web sites and mobile apps anyway. For others, it’s that they can build their own products but don’t know how to monetize them well....

On top of the shifts in time spent with media and the fragmentation of audience engagement, media companies are also challenged with shifts in revenue. More traditional media companies like newspapers, radio, local TV stations, direct mail, and directories experienced a total decline in revenue ranging from $25 million to $1.7 billion from 2012 to 2013 according to Borrell Associates 2013 Local Advertising Outlook.

All of these factors are taking a big toll on media companies, forcing leaders at media companies to face their challenges head on. As I speak with more and more consultants, General Managers, VPs of Sales, and Directors of Marketing they tell me that if their companies don’t adapt to accommodate their audience and their advertisers, they’re going to fall behind. Here are the top challenges these media companies have shared with me, and how we believe inbound marketing can help them meet and defeat those obstacles....

The writing has been on the wall for some time. Back in 2004, for example, studies indicated that television viewing would be one of the first leisure activities to be hit by Internet use and online socializing. (Other activities supposedly affected were sleeping and real-world socializing.)

Though today, TV continues to remain the dominant medium, the emerging generation of so-called “digital natives” – the first to have been born into a world where consumer adoption of the web was already mainstream – seem to prefer other behaviors. And it’s more than just splitting time between TV and video games, or TV and mobile apps, or TV and online video. That’s why it’s funny that the general assumption is that services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu and YouTube will eventually claim users’ time and eyeballs in the way that the “boob tube” once did.

That may not be the case. We just don’t know yet. For a generation who grew up on the web, can we say for sure that watching TV-like content through other devices will be their preferred downtime activity?

TUMBLR AS THE NEW “TV”

Tumblr founder David Karp doesn’t seem to think so. Having built up an online community that Yahoo just acquired for $1.1 billion, he told Charlie Rose in an interview this week that Tumblr is part of a larger transition in consumer behavior.....