Brady Media Group

Jeff Brady of Brady Media Group talks with Alan MacKenzie of WFAA-TV and Ted Price about the ubiquity, power and effectiveness of streaming video. Alan shares expert photography tips.

Jeff Brady of Brady Media Group talks with Shama Kabani of Click to Client and Ted Price about the evolution underway from old to new media and the era of the “digital natives”.

Jeff Brady of Brady Media Group talks with Jeff Crilley of Real News PR and Ted Price about the definition and purpose of a podcast, as well as the changing media and PR landscape.

Newspapers, in case you haven’t noticed, are in a real crunch these days. Fewer readers, higher costs and less eager advertisers.
No big surprise, right?

For one generation, reading the morning paper is a sacred ritual. For the newest generation, it is a cumbersome, boring mess.

We have become a nation of on-line readers, and headline-only news consumers. With an iPhone on the hip and CNN on the nearest office lobby monitor. Why pay for paper? It’s out of date as soon as its printed, soggy when it rains, full of ads and a waste of precious resources. Just think of the costly newsprint, ink and oil used to get that folded stack of newsprint to your door each morning. Yes, I still subscribe to two, but I know I’m in a shrinking minority. People in their twenties don’t read newspapers. Much less subscribe to one.

Consider also the archaic technology. Germany is credited with creating the first newspaper 500 years ago. It began as a handwritten neighborhood newsletter. Now it’s a thick Sunday pile punched out of a massive printing press and trundled around the city in the pre-dawn hours. It’s come a long way, and yet still the concept remains: put ink on paper and hand-deliver it to each recipient. Is that really the best way to deliver news and information in the 21st centrury? For some, yes. But for how much longer?

Among industry analysts, there is “no joy in Mudville”. Critics, Wall Street investors and “new media” proponents of every shape and stripe have offered estimates on how much longer the venerable metropolitan daily will survive. A few years? 18 months?
Or even weeks? Many are already in bankruptcy. Parent organizations of newspapers in Chicago, Philadelphia and Minneapolis are already deep in bankruptcy proceedings and a morbid guessing-game has begun as to which big paper will surrender next.

And a small consortium of newspaper owners and suporters have even begun an on-line roundtable debate and ad campaign to save the newpaper. Check out www.newspaperproject.org. Good articles and ideas, but in the end, no viable business model.

So here’s my two cents worth: Why not circumvent the whole printing and delivery process by morphing the newspaper into an e-mail attachment? Subscribers could conceivably use a standard home HP device, or even buy a unique home printer designed specifically for newspaper content. The customer could customize his own mix of subject matter and feature material from a long list, or buffet, of topics with an appropriate price. Each article would have an ad attached. The recipient could either read the paper on-line or print it out each morning. On his paper, using his ink.

Now just think about it. If you’re the owner of the paper, you’ve just eliminated all printing costs, all delivery costs. And yet you’re still in the business of journalism. You’ve just morphed the technology.

I know, I know. It would be a delicate dance to take down all the free content currently available on-line and force people to start paying for an on-line subscription. So you would have to start slowly. Maybe just the editorial content at first – only available through on-line subscription. Or the food and movie reviews. But something has to be done.

Consider what the phone companies have done: we have been systematically conditioned to pay ten or so cents for each text message we send or receive. And yet we pay newspaper organizations nothing to receive lengthy, beautifully-written articles by the dozen each day. It is simply unsustainable.

Would the conversion I describe be drastic, dramatic and expensive? Sure. But consider the alternative.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, people criss-crossed the country by wagon train. Using horses as the primary engines of transportation. Then a new technology arrived: the steam locomotive. Smart businessmen who owned wagon trains had to ask themselves a very important question: Am I in the horse and buggy business, or the transportation business?

Now a similar profound shift is underway. And newspaper owners must ask themselves a similar question: Which business am I in – the delivery of print on paper, or the delivery of credible, creative news and information – that is, journalism – by whatever means?

What’s the ROI of Social Media?

That’s the critical question these days.
I hear it all the time.

If I invest my time and effort, or even hire some small gang of teenage experts to develop a “Social Media Branding Campaign” for my company, what’s the ‘Return on Investment’ or ROI? What’s the payback for developing a Facebook page, or a Twitter account or – God forbid – a few videos on YouTube? How do I know it’s worthwhile at all? How do I know it will ever generate revenue?

All valid questions.
But my rhetorical reponse is “What’s the ROI of happy hour at your favorite pub?” Or the ROI of that networking luncheon you attended last month? What’s the ROI of the half hour you spend socializing at the Country Club last weekend? Or having breakfast with a downtown service organization? What’s the payback? What did you “earn” after these meetings to justify the expense and trouble of violating your normal routine – and paying cash out of pocket – to attend these functions?

Of course the metaphor I am creating is that your Social Media effort is just the same as any other casual networking, except that you suddenly have a potentially-global audience. You are networking on a grand stage, and most people take it for granted.

Why Facebook? What’s the point of connecting with an old girlfriend or my cousin from Houston?
It’s a network, friend. And there may never be any ROI unless you use the social fabric of Facebook to spark interest in some unique way.

For example… one clever Dallas entrepreneur uses Facebook as a powerful tool to communicate with his clients, drum up attendance for weekend events at his wine bar, and create cash flow.
I interviewed him recently for my newsletter.

“We’ve generated several thousand dollars in revenue, at least, by using Facebook to promote events,” says Dallas wine bar owner Brooks Anderson. “And I really didn’t even start using it until the first of this year.”

Anderson leans against the slick concrete bar-top at Veritas, the Henderson Avenue lounge he opened with his brother last year. “Saturday afternoon would be competely dead in here,” he says. “but Facebook can turn it into an event that attracts 40 or 50 people. Suddenly, we have a profit!”

Anderson and his brother allocated nothing to market Veritas when it opened last June, and may never invest in traditional media. “Traditional media is kinda dead,” he says. “We may never do traditional advertising. I mean, I’m 35 years old. And I know that for myself and my generation, anytime we want to do something, we go straight to Google.”

Moreover, Anderson says Facebook has done what traditional advertising never could – helped him promote events at Veritas (many involve decadent cheese) to a receptive audience – at no cost.
The Anderson brothers – both civil attorneys – opened Veritas in June of 2008. They have learned to drive business on weekends by hosting local celebrity chefs for wine and food tasting events. And their only event promotions are done on Facebook and Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing service. “So that every time we have an event,” says Anderson, “there are at least a thousand people out there receiving a free message about the event.”

Pretty smart.
Of course, I’m a believer in Constant Contact, as well. It’s the vehicle I use for the BMG Newsletter.

So the next time someone asks about the ROI of Social Media, offer a glass of chilly Chardonnay and mention my friend Brooks at Veritas.