Pronet Advertising points out the huge growth at USA Today, since it implemented social media functions (like recommending stories and submitting photos) into its website. This story, though, has implications far beyond big media outlets -- it also effects your small organization.
As a direct result of these community-focused changes, the site has seen a staggering 380% increase in new user registrations, in addition to a 21% increase in unique visitors, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Not only have the registrations and visitors increased, but there has also been exponential growth in user-interaction with the site. . .
Not only does this show the strength of social media and its ability to create community and engender user-engagement, but it also shows the versatility of the medium and its adaptability to any space, no matter how old or truly novel. (emphasis mine)The value of social media is not only for media outlets like USA Today. It's important that you and your organization enter the social media space that already exists, even if you don't create your own. Sites like Digg are built on user-submitted stories. There's no reason the stories of your organization shouldn't be among them. As long as you're telling real, engaging stories, instead of issuing crappy press releases, your organization can benefit from the explosion of social media. Best of all, social media brings together people and allows them to interact -- and that's exactly what you want as you seek to spread the message of your organization.
Technorati Tags: socialmedia, nptech, nonprofit, journamarketing, PR
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I help clients use new media to better engage the people they most want to reach. This blog is about all the kinds of things I work on, but it's my personal blog, not an official Learfield one.