Through Tuesday I’m in Los Angeles helping out with a Knight Digital Media Center seminar, “Using Social Media to Build Audience.”
This seminar (the culmination of a Poynter’s News University course of the same title) involves teams from several newspapers working to develop social media projects that they can pitch to their advertisers, publishers, communities and other partners or constituencies.
On Sunday evening I listened to a talk by Arturo Duran, CEO of ImpreMedia Digital. He said something I found especially intriguing:
“Revenue is only part of the [news business] value chain. Market valuation recognizes that Facebook doesn’t make enough money to pay its bills, but its value comes from positioning itself to build the future.”
Throughout the NewsU course and during the first day of the on-site seminar, I noticed a strong focus on the question of how news organizations can monetize their social media efforts. While I believe these efforts are important and can earn money, I think it may be counterproductive to require them to primarily provide direct revenue.
When news organizations engage communities directly and personally via social media, they’re doing something far greater and ultimately more valuable and important than increasing ad revenue or otherwise selling something; they’re building infrastructure. I view this as something akin to the building of the electric power grid, an effort undertaken mostly by electric utilities to increase both their market and the reliability of the electricity supply.
When you build an office for your business, do you calculate the return on investment (ROI) on your connection to electric power? What about your water, sewer or telephone service? What about the cost to add a roof or doors? Robust, personal connections and engagement with your community offer similar inherent value. They make the conduct of business possible.
So even though it’s a good idea to justify social media efforts at least partly in terms of ROI, it’s also useful to consider the value of “return on objective” (ROO, as USC Annenberg faculty Dana Chinn told the social media seminar participants).
In other words, aside from paying you money, clicking on your ads or simply being present in sufficient numbers to drive up your ad rates, how can your online community members help you achieve your goals? What measurable actions can they take to help you gauge that value?
To follow the action at the Knight Digital Media Center seminar, watch the Twitter hashtag #kdmcleader.
