Category — New Media

It seems like there is a marked uptick in ad agency interest in our 25 newspaper network.

As the ad agency world slowly comes around to realize that our newspaper readers are a terrific demographic (for a number of reasons), we are going to get more requests for ad inventory status. An aside: I am also excited by state-wide and national political ad activity at our community newspapers this political season.  Are you making political ad calls to get business in print and online? You should have a team heading it up. With changes in the law, there has never been more money floating around out there from corporations, unions and special interests, not to mention the candidates.

How can we make online buys easier for our publishers? Right now it’s pretty much put on the green eye-shades and wade through the ad server statistics.

I see that  online buying is getting more complicated as agencies discover our reader’s value, but we are going to have to handle this kind of thing or we’ll lose out on a terrific opportunity.

I would say this. Each publisher in charge of their online ad inventory. It is up to them to figure out what, if anything, they want to set aside for ad agency RFPs and to propose to the agencies what the newspapers are willing to set aside. These requests are increasing from my perspective. They will likely pile up as will the commitments to inventory.

A couple of  things:

*** Make sure that all online contracts include the ability to bump agency inventory if you get a higher CPM offer elsewhere – or at least does not restrict your ability to do so
*** Make sure you can cancel at anytime for any reason. They’ll want the same.
*** Get a sample of advertising they’ll be placing on your site
*** Don’t give away anything online (like ‘bonus’ ad impressions, e-mail blasts)

What methods/software are you using to keep track of unsold inventory and ad campaign commitments?

The industry literature tells us that contests and promotions are big on the Web and getting bigger. We’ve all heard of the ubiquitous “ugliest couch” contest sponsored by some local furniture store. The contest ideas are endless and should be part of our online culture.

I suggest newspapers do a monthly contest. We have a newspaper that plans to do a Glenn Beck look alike contest. Go figure. But sounds like fun. The cost per month for an unlimited number of contests is affordable. Here is a link and list of ideas from our provider:

http://share.upickem.com/category/contest-examples/

Contest Examples:

‘Best Of’ Contests
Trivia Contests
Pet Contests
Reality TV Contests
Tattoo Contests
e-Commerce Contests
Recipe Contests
MP3 Contests
Multiple Choice Contests
Battle of the Bands Contests
Local Sports Contests
Singing/Performance Contests
Makeover Contests
Big Giveaway Contests
Essay Contests
Kids Contests
National Sports Contests
Bracket Contests
Holiday Contests
Video Contests
Enter to Win/Sweepstakes Contests
Photo Contests
Deals Examples
Coupons
Gift Cards

Contests By Month….

Six Pixels of Separation
The Art of Possibility
Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words
Facebook Marketing
Twitter Marketing
Social Media 101
The Mirror Test
Email Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Local Online Advertising
Web Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
The Innovator’s Dilemma
Innovation to the Core
The Four Hour Work Week
Laws of Business Succeess
Twitter Power
Trust Agents
Crush it!
The Tipping Point
Freakonomics / SuperFreakonomics
Small is the new big
Outliers
Social Media at Work
The Long Tail
Googled
The Wisdom of Crowds
Wikinomics
Blink
Linchpin
What Would Google Do?
All Marketers are Liars
Groundswell
Tribes
The Little Big Things
Planet Google
The 360 Degree Leader
Guerrilla Marketing
Newsonomics
The New Community Rules
Never Eat Alone
ReInventing Local Media
The Innovator’s Toolokit

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See here:   http://screencast.com/t/M2Q3MDI2MWIt Must be 600px wide, 1200 long.

May I suggest you embark on a Twitter land grab?

Remember the days when domain names were snapped up and to this day you can’t get the name of one of your newspapers without going to the World Court? Well, here is an opportunity to grab your name(s) on Twitter before someone else does it first. It may already be too late.

Does it matter?

Yes. I think Twitter will be around for a while and it can be used to effectively create simple mini-content channels. Here’s an example of a Twitter land grab name: twitter.com/denver_moms . Claiming YourTownmoms or YourTown_moms could be a quick, inexpensive way to engage the moms in your area. Ditto car buyers, home buyers, etc.

I suggest using the name of your community vs. the name of your newspaper, though feel free to do both. But get your town/city first. The only cost is time (and it requires a unique email address for each Twitter account).

I recommend grabbing (at least) the following names in “YourTown:”

cars or autos
homes or realestate
jobs or employment or work or works
market
news
sports
elections
obits

If the name isn’t available, Twitter will notify you immediately as you sign up. If a name is not available, try adding an underscore before it, like _jobs. But remember Twitter names can only be 15 characters long.

Once you start using a Twitter channel, promote it!

So what if you don’t use all the names? There are plenty of domain names that are parked and not used. However, the Twitter names will be there when you are ready to run with them. You’ll be happy you grabbed when you could.

Have fun, Twitter fans and forward thinkers.

PayPal Business account implements “Multi-User Access” functionality to put controls around what individual users can do within an account.

You can add users, such as employees, and Developers to your PayPal Business account and give them access to your account based on security privileges you’ve selected. Here’s how:

1. Go to the PayPal website and log in to your account.
2. Click “Profile” at the top of the page.
3. Click “Manage Users” in the Account Information column.
4. Click “Add User.”
5. Enter the user’s name, a user ID, and a password. The user will use this ID and password to log in to your PayPal account.
6. Check the box for each of the privileges you’re allowing this user.
7. Click “Save.”

When logging in to the PayPal account, a secondary user will enter their User ID in the “Email address” section.

Full details on User Access privileges can be found on p. 17 of this guide: https://cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/developer/PP_MerchantSetupAdministrationGuide.pdf

What are account access privileges?

These privileges are typical business operations that can be performed on PayPal, which you may assign to someone else.

Send money

Allows users on your account to pay almost anyone with an email address in the countries that accept PayPal, with no fees.

Request money

Allows users to request that someone send money by email or through invoicing.

Add funds

Lets additional users add money to your PayPal account from your bank account.

Issue refunds

Lets your users send a full or partial refund.

Withdraw funds

Allows the user to withdraw money from your PayPal account to your bank account.

Cancel payments

Lets the user cancel unclaimed payments for you.

Distribute mass payments

Lets another user on your account pay large numbers of people using only the recipients’ email addresses and the payment amounts.

Set up recurring payments

Allows the user set up automatic billing cycles for your customers’ credit cards or PayPal accounts.

View balance

Lets the user view the available balance shown on your Account Overview page.

View profile

Allows another user on your account to view your profile’s settings.

Edit profile

Lets users add, remove, or edit information on your PayPal account for you.

Discuss account with Customer Service

Gives the user permission to discuss your account with our agents. All you have to do is accept our Account Administrator Agreement after you select this privilege.

Handle authorizations and settlements

Lets another user perform this task for you daily.

Activate and authorize APIs

Allows your developer to integrate your website with our products by setting up PayPal secure API credentials and permissions.

Schedule and download Transaction History, and run Settlement Report

Means when you create a virtual agent on your account, these reports will be run and made downloadable daily.

Use PayPal shipping

Lets the user buy U.S. Postal Service and UPS shipping labels online and set up shipping charges and tax, too, so that shipping is automated.

I’ll be distributing 35 copies of Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels of Separation” at the Wick Publishers Conference this weekend in Phoenix. It is a very informative book about where SMBs (small and medium businesses) are headed in their marketing efforts on the Internet and is written in layman’s language.

I think it should be read from two points of view. 1) Read it as a small to medium business owner [ie., one of your customers]. 2) Read it for your own newspaper business. You are a small to medium sized business, correct?

***Some inside information. While attending the SNA Revenue Summit, Pepsico International was having a conference at the same hotel. For their managers, they had a table stacked with “The Art of Possibility- Transforming Professional and Personal Life.” Perhps we should read it, eh? A multi-billion dollar company thinks it is important enough to give away… OK, I’ve already got it.

What are you reading?

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A few months ago, I signed up our newspaper at Google’s Local Business Center (LBC) and filled in some basic information. Within 2 weeks I got a postcard with a URL on it to verify that we were the owners.

Today I received an email from Google’s LBC giving me an update on search stats for the last 30 days. This is a new service. Also, Google is now telemarketing to small and medium businesses (SMBs), offering to upgrade their local business listings for $25/month.

Because more and more people use search to find businesses, this is a direct threat to newspapers, and dare I say, Yellow Pages. This is another shot across our bow.

Google is obviously getting deeper and deeper locally, going directly after our bread and butter.

What are we going to do about it?

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I installed the latest Firefox version 3.6 .x and suddenly was getting SERVER NOT FOUND errors when trying to get out to the Web.  Very annoying. This was also now occurring in Google Chrome as well. Fortunately, Internet Explorer was still getting to the Web and I searched Google for answers. I found that  many people are having this problem. Long story short (after many hours things get fuzzy) I fixed the problem by using OPENDNS and shutting my computer down and bringing it back up. Important: a simple RESTART did not do the job.  OpenDNS Free here: https://www.opendns.com/start/ 

For whatever reason, the new Firefox update screwed up my PC’s method to resolve DNS requests. Not good.

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I’m still looking for an alternative to Google Adsense. Help. SOS.

Google has been acting flaky lately… dropping sites for no apparent reason (stopping the delivery of ads to sites). Did we somehow violate Google’s terms of service? Who knows? (see more below).

Since they are busy taking over the planet, Google doesn’t bother notifying you if your site has been dropped. If you are responsible for, say, 30 Web sites, notification would be helpful.

Speaking of helpful, as Google creeps around the earth, it seems to be increasingly difficult to talk to a human being at Google when it comes to Adsense or anything else. I can certainly understand loss of human contact as Google becomes monolithic, to a point.

Also, our Adsense earnings have dropped way off, even as our page views increase. Again, no clue from Google Galactic Headquarters.

Sorry Google, I need to run our businesses with a partner that actually has a feedback/customer service function. Methinks Google has outsourced it’s CRM function to droids. If only they could speak.