• by October 3, 2011

The future of media is less about shiny new technologies and more about understanding, and then leveraging, strategies around how consumers, content and data interact with these tools of our new world.

Consumer Behavior: Devices, mobile apps and social platforms like Facebook make it fast and simple for consumers to create personal and public records. Consumers are using technology to create a "me-centric universe" and are documenting, curating and sharing their experiences -- as they happen.

In fact documenting the experience is becoming more important to some consumers than the experience itself. Flickr and Instagram alone hold endless examples of how consumers are creating these records and even curating them to create content.

This life-logging trend bodes well for marketers, but we should focus on engaging with consumers - not on earned media. A commitment vs. a campaign approach is a long-term, sustainable strategy. It's more respectful of the consumer and it usually results in more earned media than a short-term, transactional approach.

Content. Redefined: As media converges and consumer expectations change, paid, owned and earned media all hold potential as forms of content.

Traditional media are tapping citizen-fortified media to augment coverage as resources continue to shrink. This ranges from more recent models like Patch and Huffington Post to my own hometown newspaper. And at the same time, brands are morphing paid and owned media to create content of such high quality it's also augmenting traditional media.

P&G created its "Man of the House" site to provide content and community to an underserved target audience. And IKEA's web-only "Easy to Assemble" kicks off its third season this month, proving that a soft sell is acceptable to consumers - if it's done correctly. The key is helping brands become media instead of simply placing them around media.

Data's Future Potential: The data explosion from consumer-generated media and new forms of life-logging content (think: likes, tags, +1s and check-ins) has created a vast, undiscovered country for marketers. Facebook alone gets two terabytes worth of photos uploaded - daily.

Art and Science are critical to finding new ways to leverage this data and, more importantly, to learn from it. Zappos takes the zip code and SKU number from every order to show consumers what styles are trending across the nation. This is content created from data so granular it might be overlooked or considered off-limits to marketers. And it's all done without endangering consumer privacy.

The BBC's "How Many Really" project brings historical data to life by mashing it up with Twitter or Facebook data (upon a visitor's approval). It then compares the scale of important historical events or situations to the people and places each visitor knows via their social profile. Blending data to provide a new form of interactive content creates a deeper connection with visitors while bringing them a new perspective - wrapped in a history lesson.

Test & Learn = Adapt & Thrive All of the seemingly constant change across marketing is exciting - from consumers, content and data to business models, talent pool and technology. But change can be overwhelming or at best distracting.

The key to turning the challenge of media's future into a competitive opportunity is to test, and most importantly, learn.

 

Jim Price is president and CEO of Empower MediaMarketing. Empower is a marketing agency that helps its clients talk to and with customers through an integrated mix of media and they can be found online at @empowermm and www.empowermm.com.