• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 4, 2013

Advance Digital has partnered with Echo to provide a digital infrastructure to encourage audience engagement and enable social sharing at its 12 local media properties, which include newspaper Web sites and local news sites, like OregonLive.com, Nola.com, and NJ.com.
 
The new cloud-based capabilities employing Echo’s App Management will allow Advance publications to create real-time social experiences around online content, with features including live newsfeeds from reporters and readers, crowdsourced content, and real-time discussions.

One such social content feature, “teams,” seeks to engage sports fans with news and expert opinion woven together with fan reactions and comments. So far, Advance has created social “teams” for over 50 professional and college teams, including the Cleveland Browns and Alabama’s Crimson Tide.
 
The Advance-Echo partnership is the latest in a series of initiatives from local newspaper publishers seeking to boost audience engagement and expand their digital marketing offerings for advertisers in areas like social media and search.
 
In August of last year, Gannett Co. announced its acquisition of social-media marketing firm Blinq Media to help build out its digital marketing services for brands and agencies, and in September The Dallas Morning News, owned by A.H. Belo, revealed a partnership with Slingshot LLC to launch a new social content marketing company, Speakeasy, to conceive and execute social campaigns and promotions for local and national brands.
 
More recently, in January, Cox announced that its newspaper publishing division has partnered with Adpay to create a new classifieds platform serving over 4 million print and online readers in a number of markets. In March, Media General launched a new marketing and advertising service called Advanced Digital Solutions that taps into a network of partners to give advertising clients access to premium ad inventory across various channels including display, mobile, video, email and search engine marketing.

Previously, Media General implemented a new content management system for its portfolio of Web sites and mobile channels from WorldNow, which is also providing national advertising sales support.

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