CrowdCheck

More than $14 billion in digital co-op dollars is being left on the table, writes MFM’s Mary Collins, who offers some strategies for attracting them and better inoculating against potential dollars lost to ad blocking this year. Among her tips: look to use social, mobile and video advertising and provide a holistic, 360-degree view to potential clients.

Social and mobile media can be lovable and annoying, and it’s the annoying part that holds the most opportunity, says Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell. Methods of how to capitalize on social and mobile will be laid out the firm’s Social+Mobile Show Me The Money conference this month.

Responsive design may be a positive step in the right direction for the media industry, but there are some tech-based business considerations around the move towards responsive. “While the future of the Web is seemingly shifting towards the responsive route, there are still many tech-related questions that need to be answered to ensure it’s the right solution for one’s business,” says Icreon’s Devanshi Garg. Part two of a two-part CrowdCheck on the benefits and challenges of responsive design. Read part one here.

The time when media companies will no longer be associated with their legacy formats is fast approaching and content management systems will need to adapt to the trend toward convergence. CMS and online video entities will need to provide access to their publishing interface across three channels: desktop Web, mobile Web and mobile app. “Where the editor is publishing from will no longer be a meaningful distinction,” says Timur Yarnell, CEO of BIM.

Despite the perception that the under-30 crowd is leaving newspapers and their websites behind for other digital news outlets, studies are finding that the newspaper is still a vital source of information for the millennials. Some 57% of those ages 18-34 read newspapers, in print or online, during the course of an average week. “There is no question that members of the younger generation tend to be more active in using digital media to seek and absorb information they consider relevant to their lives,” says Newspaper Association of America’s Jim Conaghan. “Newspapers continue to refine existing methods and invent new ones to reach younger generations through their digital platforms.”

With the deals space focusing on unique opportunities such as concerts, sporting events and theater deals, local media companies find themselves perfectly positioned to use the recreation and event categories to showcase their market know-how. “Local media companies know their markets better than anyone through existing relationships with outdoor concert venues and activity centers,” says Second Street’s Matt Chaney. “These relationships are key as event organizers and venue managers look to unload unsold inventory quickly. Local deals sites are the perfect vehicles for this kind of last-minute inventory clearance.”

TV stations need to study their audiences’ behavior to build engaging second-screen apps that truly meet their needs. Bryce Moore: “Fail to put the audience first and you end up creating products because you can, not necessarily because anyone needs it.”

The daily deals arena may have had some well-publicized knockouts lately, including the firing of Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason, but that doesn’t mean that deals don’t hold a wealth of opportunities for local media. Matt Coen (pictured), president and co-founder of Second Street: “Local media companies are well positioned to own a large piece of the deals market thanks to their unique assets of loyal audiences and established brands, local sales forces and multimedia promotional reach. Today, it has become apparent that local media companies enjoy another key advantage over pureplays: economies of scale.”

For local media companies, a good social media design requires a good strategy and that needs plenty of research and planning. The Victoria Advocate‘s Jessica Puente: “You need to think about your organization’s ultimate goal. Are you a small, local newspaper looking to expand your reach? Are you looking to target a new audience? Is your company looking to you to make up for a lack of advertisers or to create an online community with high engagement?”

Mobile is a beast that is never sated and to ignore it puts your company at risk of falling far behind the competition. KMOV’s Bryce Moore: “The greatest challenge (or more of a concern) for news operations is that users have frighteningly high expectations for their mobile devices and the content within them.”