University of Washington – Social Media & Business

1. Leveraging the Opportunity:Taking advantage of Social Media to Increase Readership of the Seattle Times University of Washington – Social Media & Business Bill HigbeeLaura Williams Hayat Nierenberg Linda Jacobson June 13, 2011

2. Agenda • Why Social Media • Seattle Times Opportunity • Social Media Model – OGST • Facebook • Mobile Social Media • Next Steps • Summary and Parting Thoughts • Back Up & Supporting Documentation

3. Why Social Media? 106 Visitors 1 Fan Yields e.g. Facebook “Likes” 135 Fans 1 Active Fan Yields e.g. Shares or Retweets 445 Followers & Generates 4 New Fans Every Month 1 Active Fan Has Baekdal.com is about understanding the modern digital world from a media perspective - http://www.baekdal.com/about/ Baekdal.com online magazine research as referenced within Social Media Metrics (Sterne, J. 2010)

4. Seattle Times Opportunity 1M unique visitors provides the following opportunity… 1M Visitors 9,434 Fans Yields 9,434 Fans 70 Active Fans Yields 31,097 Followers & Generates 280 New Fans Every Month 70 Active Fans Have Let your current success drive more success!!!

5. Social Media Model - OGST Achieve Seattle Times revenue, profitability and growth goals while embracing the internet’s impact to the Newspaper industry. Obtain 10% of traffic from Social Media. Increase average entries per visitor to Facebook by XX%. Monetize Social Media. • Conduct a comparative score-card against industry / regional leaders for best practices and innovative activities • Optimize current Social Media • Identify new opportunities • Stay abreast of competition • Repeat quarterly or … • Increase Social Media followers • Facebook by XX% • Twitter by YY% • RSS by ZZ% • Etc. • Foster engagement at Seattle Times Social Media venues • Read multiple articles • Comment • Share / Like it back to Social Media Sites • Come back often OBJECTIVES STRATEGIES TACTICS GOALS • For each relevant Social Media venue • Facebook • Twitter • YouTube • LinkedIn • Blogs • Forums • Mobile Solutions Identify community outreach projects or contests via Social Media platforms Identify Key Performance Indicators and associated tools to track metrics that drive actions Identify opportunities to utilize Social Media influencers to drive Users, Engagement and Traffic Develop internal training on how to be more engaged in Social Media(brown bags, video recorded sessions, etc)

6. Facebook Integration The Value of Engagement “If searching for the news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing the news may be among the most important of the next.” – Pew Report

7. Average of 288 friends 39% use Facebook more than any other communication device 61%+ are parents Reach 68% of all online moms Facebook Age Diversity 13-17 35+ fastest growing 64% use it more than email 25-34 18-24

8. How well are U.S. Newspapers Using Facebook? • … And the Seattle Times? • 6,207 Fans •  6 likes per Facebook post* • 4.4 average number of comments per link* • Well below the average *Average of last 10 Seattle Times Facebook posts The Bivings Group of the Facebook presence of the 100 newspapers in the US with the largest print circulation.

9. How is Facebook Valuable? Images: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

10. Facebook can drive traffic to SeattleTimes.com, helping potential readers by…

11. Discovering News Through Friends on Facebook

12. …And on News Sites Slate utilizes Facebook Connect plugin to let readers know what their friends are interested in.

13. Make it easy to find! Links to Seattle Times social media sites are nearly impossible to find. It’s easy to spot how to follow the New York Times on different social media sources. ? • Video site Metacafe moved the “Like” button above the fold on their website, and tripled the number of daily likes and doubled their referral traffic from Facebook! • When the Daily Mirror renewed a focus on Facebook, they found referrals from 5% to 30% - Accounting for more than 4 M uniques in April!

14. Implement activity and recommendations plugin • Users who click on the Activity Feed plugin generate 4x as many page views as the average media site user • Place above the fold for increased visibility • Implement on multiple pages

15. Increasing Website Traffic • The average media organization has seen a 300% increase in Facebook referrals since January, 2010 280% increase in traffic from Facebook, May–Dec ‘10 From #5 referral source to #1 referral source 9x increase in referral traffic

16. People who recommend articles view more sites and have more friends URLs visited from Facebook Average no. of Facebook Friends 2.4x More 5.3x More

17. 85% 22% 65% 18% 85% 90% 8 increase in FB reshares more time spent more pages viewed more articles read more minutes spent increase in comments more videos watched Increasing Engagement For Users Signing In With Facebook For traffic from Facebook: Facebook is #1 source of traffic because:

18. Focus on content and status updates to increase engagement Based on internal Facebook Analysis of posts from largest news media Pages

19. Insights for Websites Metrics for your site and its social plugins, in real-time Audience Insights Utilize Facebook Analytics to understand the impact of social activity across sites, apps, and Facebook Pages Insights for Apps Insights for Pages Metrics to track how users are interacting with your app Analytics to measure engagement with your Facebook Page

20. Optimize with Insights • What portions of Facebook users are logged in? • What type of users like this article? • What are people liking and sharing most/least • Where are the users liking? Demographics Domain Insights Like Sources

21. Recommendations • Make it easy to find! • Accessible from Seattle Times homepage – Users shouldn’t have to hunt to find a link! • Provide a listing of all fan pages associated with the Seattle Times • Opinion, Sports, Subscription… If we didn’t know they existed, how is anybody else going to find them? • Use Facebook plugins and utilize the analytics tools to understand your readers

22. Recommendations • Keep up the current pace of postings • Topics should be discussable; leave breaking news to other Social Media streams • Audit the information on the page • Remove dead links or pages that have not been tended to • Sweepstakes, FBML and Polls/Quizzes lead to… Nothing. • Photos & Video lead to minimal content

23. News Apps for Mobile Phones Mobile News App Analysis “Mobile Web users expect you to be there. Empower them with information, and they’ll talk about how great your company is. Don’t, and they’ll tell their friends you don’t have a clue.” Josh Bernoff & Ted Schader, empowered

24. The Good News Consumption of News via mobile apps, especially local news, is growing. Nearly half of Americans are using their cellphones and tablet computers to get local news and information The Millennial age group (born between 1977 and 1994) are particularly strong app users: they are almost twice as likely as the average adult to have read a magazine via an app and 73% more likely to have read a newspaper via an app in the last 30 days.

25. Brand Building Opportunity • Mobile News apps and in-depth enterprise or investigative-reporting packages build the Seattle Times brand by demonstrating innovation, progressiveness and leadership • Apps are a great way to “hook” target audience and cross-promote, drive audience to other Seattle Times ‘destinations’ and connect with Facebook, Twitter, Web site. • News apps meet the needs of a growing segment of those who want news, information on their phones

28. News App Comparison LA Times for iPhone LA Time Hollywood Star Walk

29. Best Practices • Examples of best practices • LA Times Hollywood Star Walk, Festival of Books • New York Times The Scoop: NYC App for iPhone (A guide to New York City from the staff of The New York Times featuring their favorite restaurants, bars, events and experiences), The New York Times Crosswords, The New York Times Sudoku, Learning English With The New York Times • The Philadelphia Inquirer Phrequency for iPhone and Android (Philly-centric music, food, art, style, and nightlife) • The Seattle Times Husky Football

30. Recommendations • Push the envelope, leverage new technology and create innovative, progressive ways to interact with the news via mobile apps or Web sites (such as News.Me, The Daily) • People are using their phone to check weather, sports scores, to find local restaurants, business, coupons, traffic conditions or public transportation, local community info • Promote your niche apps (such as Husky Football and Husky Basketball) • Make them discoverable

31. Change Management & Buy-In Creating excitement for Social Media within the company

32. Getting Buy In Convincing Your Colleagues • Accept your role as a change agent • Believe strongly that change is for the better good of the company • Be bold, be boisterous, be a pain in the neck • Match your message with the receiver • The Corporate “Upper Class”: Tell them why, not how • Those in control of your project budget: Process, not products • Business- oriented Department Managers: What it means, and what to think about it • Tech Managers: How it works so they can determine the best technical solution • Low Hanging Fruit • Other people’s success stories are good, but find stories specific to your audience – The ones that are close to home about people and products within your organization. • Make it Personal • Understand their personal motivations, and show them how Social Media will help them towards those goals

33. Change Management, Social Media Style Be a Social Media Mythbuster! • They say: Social Media is a waste of time… • You say: NO! Social Media is a way to research your readers, curate content, support your subscribers, manage your reputation… AND INCREASE READERSHIP! • They say: Social Media is complicated… • You say: What seems complicated is the vast amount of tools, the plethora of weirdly-named platform and networks. BUT… When it comes down to it, Social Media is simply people talking with people. • You say: While focusing on the technology can be intimidating, looking at it through the business objectives can make it easier to accept and understand • Don’t be afraid to bring it down to the basics and explain it simply

34. Change Management, Social Media Style (cont. 2) • They say: Social Media is the shiny new thing. Two years from now, that bubble will burst. • You say: Yes, it’s shiny and new. But the bubble is not going to burst. Social Media represents an evolution in the field of communications, just as the internet and mobility did before it. • …And: Tools may change, and platforms evolve, but the way people communicate through digital networks and electronic devices has been fundamentally transformed • …Then: We haven’t gotten rid of the telephone, television or the internet. People will not grow tired of the Social Web either.

35. Change Management, Social Media Style (cont. 3) • They say: I’m going to have to change the way I work (stomp, stomp, sigh) • You say: Yep. For many, change is scary • Shift the conversation from CHANGE to IMPROVEMENT • Focus on results and ease into changes • Be prepared for the differences in rates of adaption, be there to explain and provide resources for training when needed. • Change management is important, how well it’s managed will determine the effectiveness and integration into your company • Sell the RESULTS, not the changes you’re making • Explain it. Show it. Build value every day.

36. Summary & Parting Thoughts

37. Key Takeaways for Seattle Times • Research, Resource & Rev Your Engines • Audit your content • Dedicate time to develop your plan and goals • Be persistent. Be patient. • It Takes A Village • Watch social and learn from best practices • It isn’t social without everyone – everyone needs to be part of the solution • Train staff and incorporate social into everything you do • Shout it from the rafters! Share your social feeds with the world!

38. References Backup and Supporting Documentation

39. Goldman, A. (2010, Dec 17). 2010 Best US Newspaper Facebook Fan Pages. Retrieved from: http://www.bivingsreport.com/2010/2010-best-us-newspaper-facebook-fan-pages/ • Forrester Research. (2009, Q4). [Graph illustration of mobile web activities of cellphone/smartphone users]. North American Technographics Empowerment Online Survey. Retrieved from: http://www.forrester.com/empowered/images/figure_5-1.gif • Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Rosentiel, T. & Mitchell, A. (2011, Mar 14). How mobile devices are changing community information environments. Retrieved from: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Local-mobile-news/Part-1/Local-news-apps.aspx • Bernoff, J. & Schadler, T. (2010). Empowered. Harvard, MA: The Harvard Press • Sterne, J. (2010). Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. • Solis, B. (2010). Engage! Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. • Blanchard, O. (2011). Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Indianapolis, IN: Que. • Ellwood, T. (2011 Jan 31) What’s the Real Value of a Facebook Like? Retrieved from: http://socialmediatoday.com/taylorellwood/266142/what-s-real-value

40. Kessler, S. (2011 Mar 16) Facebook “Likes” More Profitable Than Tweets [STUDY]. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2011/03/16/facebook-like-worth/ • Chapman, M. (2011 Apr 4). The True Value of a Facebook ‘Like’. Retrieved from: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/true-value-facebook-126137 • Facebook + Media. (2010 Sep 29). The Value of a Liker. Retrieved from: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=150630338305797 • Osofsky, J. (2010 Sep 28). Working together to build social news. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38417113/Working-Together-to-Build-Social-News • (2011 Jun). How Metacafe tripled likes, doubled referral traffic. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/54248434/How-Metacafe-tripled-likes-doubled-referral-traffic • Durrani, A. (2011 May 26). ABC: Facebook helps Daily Mirror’s web traffic rocket 24%. Retrieved from: http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1072110/abce-facebook-helps-daily-mirrors-web-traffic-rocket-24/

41. ROI Analysis Relative monthly searches and approximate Google Advertising Cost Per Click *Google Keyword Tool: June 8, 2011

42. Facebook: Competitor’s Best Practices

43. Local App Users are not more interested in news but they use technology more avidly