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January 19, 2010
Breaking Media -- The Vertical Play
I had lunch with my old friend, Jonah Bloom, until recently the editor of Advertising Age and now the CEO of Breaking Media, a collection of vertical professional sites launched over the past four years. Jonah helped expand Advertising Age’s-- a must-read for us-- focus on the broader communications industry, and report the most compelling ground breaking work as well as the big campaigns and brands. The media brands under the Breaking Media umbrella include Fashionista (fashion), Dealbreaker (M&A), Above the Law (legal) and Going Concern (accounting). Here are the highlights from our conversation:
The dispersion of media continues apace with significant implications for PR firms. We have conflicting pressures, with many more media outlets and ever more time-pressured reporters, while procurement officers seek discounts in our hourly rates. We need to employ better software that enables sharing of media lists (preferences, experiences with reporters) while enhancing our training efforts for staff. The second key point is that the nature of influence has been altered, with specialist blogs often the first point of call for decision makers. This is corroborated by a recent study by Edelman’s Public Affairs unit on legislative assistants in Brussels, London, Paris and Washington, in which more than half (55%) polled said they read online sources even before mainstream media. On matters of category-specific interest which lend themselves to discussion, we should counsel clients to break the news on vertical social media.
- The editor of each site has a celebrity borne of subject mastery and provocative content. Bess Levin of Dealbreaker and Lauren Sherman of Fashionista lead from the front, not the traditional editors who assign reporters to stories, then massage the content.
- The best reporters are often those with professional credentials in the given field. At Above the Law material is generated by three former attorneys turned journalists.
- The goal of each site is to get “the community to gather around news that they really want; a good example is salary levels at law firms or investment banks,” said Bloom. “This is a fundamentally different experience than Facebook or Linkedin. We aim to offer insight and conversation.” The look and feel of Fashionista is a hybrid of Facebook and a mainstream media digital site.
- The business model for Breaking Views includes vendor advertising (LexisNexis on Above the Law), conferences, recruitment advertising, and data analysis in verticals. There is quite specific actionable connection to advertisers (Lateral Link, the recruiting firm, has a job of the week listing—and earns a success fee from the employer).
- The stories are enriched from consumer generated content, particularly on Fashionista, with photos and commentary from fashion events around the world.
- The four brands practice “open garden journalism” in that they are constantly posting links to the best sources on the web or MSM content, then adding their own short form commentary. Above the Law teams with Law Shucks on layoffs and with the 10th Justice on possible court appointments. This enables broader coverage than the 5-8 person internal staffs can achieve on their own.
According to our study:
- One in five staffers have changed a policy position based on online sources
- 39% of capital staffers use blogs to monitor policy news and opinion
- 64% of staffers are using facebook as proxy for face-to-face meetings
- The first source of information checked in the morning—aside from email--is the still the leading local media – Washington Post in DC; Spiegel in Germany; BBC.com in the US
Posted by Edelman at January 19, 2010 9:44 AM |
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Comments
I have found that Twitter lists are a valuable tool for organizing and responding to niche media streams online. The nice thing about Twitter lists is that they are transparent, and can be followed by others.
For example, I follow Steve Rubel's Edelman list: http://twitter.com/steverubel/edelpeeps, and I also frequent http://listorious.com to discover the best Twitter lists developed by other media curators.
Free software such as Seesmic Desktop http://seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/ allows multiple streams of information, such as Twitter lists, Facebook news, and Twitter search queries, to be managed at once.
With online media sources having greater influence on reputations than ever before, the companies that are able to leverage these free tools to manage media will emerge as leaders.
Effective management of real time news enables a business to act on real time media and establish a competitive advantage by creating an engaged company community and a stronger brand.
Posted by: Garin Kilpatrick at January 20, 2010 7:46 PM
Interesting post, thanks for sharing.
I took some time to check out Breaking Media and they seem to have some interesting discussions around the different niches they operate in.
My interest in this post was especially sparked by the fact from the Edelman Public Affairs unit’s report on legislative assistants that “more than half (55%) polled said they read online sources even before mainstream media.”
I proceeded to read the entire report and I was surprised to learn that:
-Over half of all staffers have first learned about a policy issue online.
-Nearly half of all staffers see blogging as an effective way to reach constituents.
-83% of staffers do not use twitter.
I found the low usage of Twitter quite surprising. One trend that I think will gain momentum in the near future is an increasing use of Twitter by legislative assistants, and others in similar careers.
The recent implementation of Twitter lists is part of the reason why I am predicting a growth in Twitter usage. Twitter lists can provide a way for legislative assistants and others to manage multiple information streams related to their field, in real time, from their mobile device.
Legislative assistants should look to this study by Edelman’s Public Affairs unit if they need evidence of the opportunity in social media tools such as Twitter and others. If legislative assistants are seeking other methods of digital innovation I also recommend checking out the very recent Edelman Digital white paper “Ten">http://www.steverubel.com/ten-ideas-for-the-new-decade-an-edelman-digit”>“Ten ideas for the new decade.”
Posted by: Garin Kilpatrick at January 26, 2010 2:36 PM
Dear Richard,
Kudos for your Davos-comment.
@The Vertical Play. Due to all respect: blogs like fashionista start to get on my nerves royally. I am in the fashion-/luxury business for some years, ceated and published 2 successful lifestyle-magazines in Germany. What`s bothering me with fashionista, glam, and all the sartorials of this world is the impression, they only deal with the subject superficially: some PR-Gags (celebs dressed in Armani/ Dolce& Gabbana/ whatever), Marketing-Schnickschnack and big fotos with small texts.
The fashion-business is a 300-Billion-business! But fashion ist not only about selling skirtseems and the 1000th IT-Bag. What makes the industrie really interesting are background-informationsand the journalistic approach (even more in the internet with the flood of information) - to classify things, put them into perpective and explain contexts. Fashion ist last not least also culture.
Quasi out of selfe-defence I cerated my own (journalistic) interpretation of style. To be ckecked out on www.stylesublime.wordpress.com. With cordial redards!
Posted by: Uschka Pittroff at February 2, 2010 11:27 AM
One thing about this blog really sparked my interest. I understand social networking is an extremely effective way to communicate to mass groups of people, but using Facebook as an alternative to face to face meetings? I feel that it is much too generic for high standard businesses to use.
As a college student, I realize that the effectiveness of online communication that is used today is incomparable to a standard newspaper. I realize that it is inevitable for companies to use online communication techniques to keep up with minute-to-minute news, but, in my opinion, Facebook is too juvenile, common and underdeveloped to take the place of any communication in a thriving company. Honestly, when I hear that a corporation of any kind is using Facebook as an alternative to a face to face talk or even a phone call, it makes me question the company’s maturity and reputation. It’s hard to respect a maturing business that is using the same proxy as pre-teens use to keep up with their friends.
I don’t mean to trash Facebook or online communication at all. Being updated with minute-to-minute news about everything that’s going on in the world 24/7 is a fantastic luxury. I simply believe that companies should depend on it for reasons other than mass corporate communication. Too many companies mistake social networking as the “hip” new way of staying on top of communication. Let your 12-year-old kids use the “hip” ways, let’s be adults.
Posted by: Andrea Leachman at February 26, 2010 12:20 PM
Dear Richard,
Jonah Bloom’s Breaking Media Company is fascinating. In fact, I had to check out the website myself after reading the blog. His innovative strategy of combining the styles of a social network site with a digital media site is the perfect blend for modern-day professionals looking for the latest news in their fields presented in an informal, casual fashion. The four publications deal with very different career fields.
Even the advertisements on the specific brand sites relate to the profession and could be useful to the reader. For the PR professional, the media kits for all four digital publications are easily accessible on the Breaking Media home page. This type of digital media site is a wave of the future. Catering the news to the individual means the stories are relevant, interesting and more likely to be read. In a world where the consumer rarely reads three lines below the headline, what more could we ask for as public relations professionals?
Posted by: Michelle Child at March 1, 2010 9:43 AM