Matching New Media to Your Content and Users

As alternative media options proliferate it is important that companies strategically select the best media choice for their users and content and potentially consider multiple media delivery paths (with appropriate content adjustment) to optimally service their customers and users. With the rapid growth of collaborative Web 2.0 tools, leverage of customers/users for robust content creation can be exploited.

The following represents feedback I recently provided to an inquiry on this topic (specifically with reference to teleseminars). There is no one “killer” communication media and teleseminars are part of the bag-of-tricks that companies can exploit. Teleseminars (participatory audio only broadcasts) are closely related to podcasting and provide content for future podcast downloads. Teleseminars can be very effective however one must assure that the medium and content are a good match and that the target demographics of your user base make sense for this medium. Specifically on podcasting interesting research has been done by Edison Research, the Pew Internet and American Life Project, and eMarketer. The research shows that podcasting is growing as a medium (current market use/penetration is modest however expanding so there is much upside) and new monetization options are being established as well so it is clearly "current" technology. Advertising options are expanding (note potential Google support of podcasting with Adsense in 2008) and business is still playing with different financial models depending on the nature of their core business.

I have seen effective use of teleseminars and podcasting by professional associations and alumni groups where free teleseminars are used as a membership benefit which encourages one to pay your annual dues (the Harvard Business School Alumni Association is exploiting this capability very effectively). Teleseminars are also a very useful training vehicle (again depending on content) that can be part of a paid multimedia delivery offering. Finally advertising can be incorporated into a podcast download (or front end a teleseminar) such as Public Radio does with its' podcasts or the teleseminar can be one of several cost effective content creation vechicles to drive users to your website for future purchases or to support on-line ad revenue traffic.

Just as "Video Killed the Radio Star" was a point statement versus a complete industry shift in the TV/radio media wars teleseminars are a growing and useful vehicle as part of a complete communication/client delivery strategy.