Where does Social Media fit into the daily business activities of Traditional Media?

Social Media & Traditional Media collision inevitable!

This is a question that many people are blogging about, there are discussion all over the Internet trying to figure out how the corporate world will change once people "get it". In Valarie Maltoni's Blog she displayed this image. It is an excellent visual demonstration of how the communication will transform from dissemination information from the few to the many, to the many to the many. Media will change for sure. This has been demonstrated over and over again.

First there was the printing press, which was an easy way to duplicate the same news information many time. It came from one source, and was distributed to many readers. The along came radio, now instead of having to purchase something new everyday you could make one purchase and get all the news still from one or more sources. The radio gave you a choice of how to get your news. Eventually Television made it onto the scene. The traditional "BIG 3" networks had cornered the market for news. Again the news came from a few sources, and had further reach, and spread throughout the the country by the creation of affiliates. This has pretty much remained the same for about 60 years. Sure there have been upgrade, like cable, and Satellite TV, but this remained news from above. Now we are almost current. Now the 400 lb Gorilla in the room s THE INTERNET, with its websites, blogs, and twitters, and forums, and newsgroups, and wiki's and and and... All that is what we have today. Newspaper adopted websites, so did radio and television, but now with blogging, and Social Media giving anyone a chance, anyone who is willing to share his/her opinion a voice. I say speak up, Speak LOUDLY. Make a change.

This new revolution, will change the world as we know it. Take for example, advertising. How has it changed? Think back, just say 5 years. no AdSense, no Google ads, nothing splattered all over the margins of you page. Now they are everywhere, and cheap, with a much more targeted niche markets. Advertisers can reach people who are looking for their product. So where does this leave the traditional media players? I believe that they are still trying to figure it out. But to what end? How to make a buck from Web 2.0. This is slowing their ability to move ahead. When the day is done, people will still pay to have themselves mentioned in front of people who might buy their products and services. They need to stop trying to tie news distribution directly to advertising. Advertising should always be in a peripheral experience. Nothing bugs me more than an in your face auto dealer commercial between the first block and the weather. I know that there is money to be made there by the TV station, the car dealer, the production company. But do they have to raise the volume up to 11? I got a car, why do they have to scream at me to see if I want a new one. Does this method work? Yell at me enough times to buy a car, and I will most definately NOT go to that dealership. Name recognition is worthless if I recognize your name as being associated with the cheezy loud car ads. To me this seems counter productive. Plus I bought my last car off of the Internet.

In my opinion, newspapers, tv, and radio should all attempt to drive people to their own sites, and involve more people in discussion, report discussion, comments, interesting blogs. Let the people behind the blogs be the news, and not the latest murder rate in the crime invested city. The people are beginning to show the media that they are more intelligent than the media wants them to be.