The Pitfalls of Social Networking Sites

Our class has been wrapping up the semester by discussing various types of social networking sites and how they can be utilized for promotion.

I am a member of some of these social networks, and have certainly seen some companies do a very good job of reaching and engaging their audiences. During our discussion today, however, it became clear that there are many many misuses and even abuses of social networks by intrusive advertisers and scam artists can become all users remember.

This is easy to understand being that users expect to be "safe" in online communities where the believe they are among friends. An article in the Los Angeles Times today discussed this problem and reported that phishing scams of all sorts have been increasing across several popular networking sites.

Most of the scam artists try to learn a member's login name and password by setting up fake log-in pages, and then try those names and passwords on email and financial sites in the hopes that the passwords are re-used.

With this malicious activity on the rise, it seems users will be even more cautious about receiving unsolicited communications or being aggressively targeted for product advertising. If companies want to be successful on social networks it is essential for them to gain the trust of their audiences and stay away from anything that even remotely resembles these abuses.

NYTimes tests viewer patience with intrusive ads

Intrusive ads are a topic I touched on earlier in the semester with my post about pop-up surveys. So when I read this article about the New York Times trying out screen take-over ads before users even enter their site, I had to comment!

Although many sites use these screen take-over ads, or interstitials, they are always annoying, and in my opinion, unacceptable as "welcome" ads. The Times argues that they are just complying to the needs of their advertising customers by providing this often-requested placement. But I think a newspaper as important as the New York Times should be focusing on its readers, not its advertisers.

The Times, however, has promised that they will be monitoring the prevalence of these interstitials and how they affect reader experience to determine how often they can run these "welcome ads".

Hopefully the readers will speak up and news sties will learn that these intrusive ads just aren't appropriate for their readers.

Economic downturn may not be all bad news for digital promotion grads

Despite the apparent economic downturn over the past few years, an article I found on Foliomag.com yesterday gave me hope that my career choice may indeed allow me to be gainfully employed come December.

The article noted that business to business publishers in general saw a 2% decrease in ad revenue, but those that have been working on their transformation from print to digital are still doing well.

While many companies have imposed hiring freezes, one company CEO quoted in the article said this freeze would not apply to its New Media Group.

This CEO said that he considered that group's actions "critical to our revenue growth plans for both the near and long-term future."

For soon to be CMC graduates like myself, news like this means that there might be a multitude of job openings in online media, even as print media suffers.

Even so, the article did conclude that online is not the complete solution. The point is it's critical for any business to know their audience and how to fulfill their roles online and in print.

Flickr adds video features, attempts to compete with YouTube

Flickr, the successful photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo, launched its video features for its pro account holders on Tuesday.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the new features, which came in response to the increasingly video oriented tech world, are Yahoo's most recent attempt to compete with YouTube, Snapfish and other media sharing sites that already offer video capability.

Currently only Flickr's pro members (who pay $24.95/year) will be able to post videos, although all users will be able to view them. The size limit for clips is 150MB or about 90 seconds, which is far below YouTube's 10 minute maximum, but Flickr hopes this will attract homemade clips that fit in with the site's sense of community.

In another attempt to facilitate the site's community identity, all pirated Hollywood clips will be banned and the site will remain ad-free for paid users. Subscribers will also be able to keep their clips private or make them public.

While Flickr has a long way to go if they really intend to compete with YouTube's video market, these added video features will surely help them match-up against their photo-sharing counterparts.

Editors may need to rethink guidelines for social media

The majority of major news organizations follow guidelines set by the Associated Press Stylebook, or create their own formal stylebook for editors to follow. While these guidelines are generally accepted in print media and as basic standards for journalism, some readers and online participants are suggesting more relaxed rules for online social media formats.

The main topics that came under scrutiny were anonymous remarks and journalist participation in online discussions.

The Associated Press reported that according to the Online Journalism Credibility Study released Tuesday by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities would support good journalism, while only 45 percent of the public did.

The study also reported that 58 percent of editors said letting journalists join online conversations and give personal views would harm journalism, but only 36 percent of the public agreed.

Topics the editors and readers did agree on included the need to ensure accuracy, fairness of coverage, labeling of commentary and the desirability of depth (such as links to outside more detailed content).

The study was created to gauge what kinds of changes newspapers should be making as they continue to blend print with web operations, but unfortunately raised more questions than it answered.

What became clear was that readers are looking for something more personal and interactive online, and editors will surely have to develop new guidelines to handle that.

Report reveals print and online ads suffered big in 2007

The impending doom of print newspaper ads seems to have been predicted for quite some time. So even though national print advertising revenue dropped an insulting 6.7% in 2007, which marked the most severe decline since the beginning of advertising, this figure probably doesn't shock many people.

What may be more worrisome is the Newspaper Association of America's numbers for online revenue which show its growth slowing significantly from the impressive 30% growth rates of 2005 and 2006 to only 18.8% in 2007.

Editor&Publisher.com, who originally reported this story did not seem upset about this growth stunt, but instead explained it saying, "As newspaper Web sites generate more advertising revenue, the growth rate naturally slows. "

I would argue that most of the online environment still has a lot to learn about the best ways to grab reader attention and capitalize on online advertising. Big newspaper sites may think they have it all figured out, but many of the "innovative advertising methods" I've come across lately are either intrusive or just annoying.

HTML the clear winner in the e-newsletter format debate

For almost a decade, experts have been debating which format is best suited for sending out e-newsletters. Web-standards gurus, media professionals and the like have written countless articles and given lecture after lecture to discuss this topic. Originally, the debate focused on html vs pdf.

In the last few years, the general consensus is that html should be the standard. There are still some minor debates regarding the ability of all email programs to process and correctly display html newsletters, which has sparked some defenders of the boring text-only format.

As a CMC student, an experienced email user, and a newsletter coordinator, the choice seems very clear to me.

Below is a short list of the benefits of html newsletters:

• Businesses can track reader click-through rates on the newsletter in general, as well as each individual story
• The colors and graphics entice users to read the email
  
• Allows for branding reinforcement through logos and images
• Graphical layouts encourage scanning and are less intimidating to readers
  
• Readers can be easily directed to take a specific action such as make a donation or redeem a coupon
  
• Story teasers entice readers to continue on to the company web site to find out more