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Widgets should be a huge part of most media companies’ strategy in the years ahead, as a way to spread their content around the web widely. (aka, the Distributed Web.) Here’s an interesting widget example from Pulse360 that comes with built-in advertising and revenue sharing, so that there’s incentive for lots of websites to carry the widgets.

This particular one is called the CBS 4 Denver network, and includes content from Channel 4’s news operation in the widgets in either video or story format. Topics include Denver news, sports, politics, lifestyle, arts and culture (standard local news fare). Website owners that choose to carry the widget select from among the general topic feeds. Continued

Here’s more good advice from Newspaper Next 2.0 (American Press Institute). As the report points out, in most newspaper markets, less than half of local consumers are frequent newspaper readers and as little as one-quarter or less of local businesses are newspaper advertisers. The latter figure is the result of most newspapers 1) not having ad programs that are affordable and effective for very small businesses, and 2) newspapers not bothering to court the smallest businesses in their communities. Continued

I encourage you you to check out the American Press Institute’s new report: “Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond ‘Newspaper Companies’.” There’s some great advice in this free publication, and this week I’ll be pulling out a few tips and featuring them here.

Principal author Stephen T. Gray’s primary message is that newspaper companies need to stop being “newspaper companies” and start being “local information and connection utilities.” It’s an important and optimistic message — that newspaper companies needn’t be pessimistic about their futures, but rather should look at the incredible range of opportunities spread before them. But to have a positive future, they need to stop being “newspaper companies.” Continued

Today’s tip is, perhaps, a bit bizarre. But don’t dismiss it out of hand! There’s some serious logic to why newspapers and local news organizations might want to open up coffee shops. Seriously.

Credit for this idea goes to Greg Harmon, a media consultant with Belden Associates. He’s pushing the idea to some of his newspaper clients that they should turn some unused space in their buildings into Internet cafes open to the public, as a way to connect with readers more directly and openly. Harmon explains: Continued

Does your news organization have some celebrities on staff? Perhaps a star columnist, a sports reporter who’s well known, celebrity stringers (athletes, politicians), etc. Maybe the editor or publisher is a “star” in the community.

Today’s tip will put those people in what may be an uncomfortable position: Have them dive in to discussion areas and article comment threads on your website. Get them to engage directly with the online audience — regularly. They should answer questions; express opinions alongside users … just “mix it up” and start talking. Continued

Have you thought about why social networks (aka, social utilities) like Facebook and MySpace quickly attracted tens of millions of users, and got them addicted? No need to think too hard. It’s because 1) people like to talk about themselves, and 2) people like to talk to their friends and know what’s going on in their friends’ lives. The social networks serve those needs. Bingo! Multi-billion-dollar businesses are formed.

It’s about the people

News organizations need to take some clues from this. I’ll write plenty of future tips covering lessons that can be learned from social networking, but for today I’m going to focus on one small thing you can do… Continued

I’m getting requests to include more marketing advice on this site, and I’m happy to oblige. Here’s a marketing technique that people in traditional marketing and traditional media often overlook: Establish and work on having a relationship with your audience. Ask them to talk about themselves, and stop talking so much about you.

Let’s face it, it’s human nature for most folks to want to talk about themselves. Journalists may be in the business of talking mostly about what they know, but the opportunity with the Internet is to get the audience talking too. So to build and grow the modern audience, you need to give them — at every reasonable opportunity — the ability to talk about themselves, share what they think, and ask you questions. Continued

One of the most striking things about today’s media environment is the low barrier to entry for publishing and trying out new entrepreneurial ideas. Open-source publishing systems push the price for competing against big companies close to zero for the “little guys.” They often can add advanced, cutting-edge features to their blogs and websites for free or just a few bucks by using the latest widget or plug-in. The great irony is that those small players often add features before big media companies get around to it. Continued

In yesterday’s tip I talked about e-mail sub-lists as a marketing tool. Here’s another bit of e-mail advice: Personalize your e-mails to improve open rates.

It’s been demonstrated that inserting personalization variables into outgoing e-mails’ subject lines significantly increases the number of people who open an e-mail. We all get so many messages — many of them spam that slip through our spam filters — so it’s important to have strong and relevant subject lines that entice recipients to open your messages. You may have a brilliantly thought-out e-mail communications program for your audience or member base, but if they don’t open your messages, that’s a lot of wasted effort. Continued

Let’s talk a bit about e-mail lists. Probably you’re already collecting e-mail addresses: Folks sign up for your newsletters or news alerts, or simply sign up for accounts on your site that are necessary for contributing content or posting a comment.

Alas, you’re limited in what you can do with those lists. You of course send them what they’ve requested (newsletters, alerts, or maybe personalized news reports). But you have to be really careful about anything else you send those users, for fear of being accused of spamming them. Continued