Dagens Media is one of two major Swedish trade publications in Sweden about media and marketing (the other one being Resumé). Back in 2004 I sent a quick email to then editor in chief Rolf van den Brink which resulted in (probably) the first Swedish article about blogging from a marketing perspective. It was an interview with me, Mark Comerford and Tove Lifvendahl. Digital communications has now become such an integral part of the communications toolbox that Dagens Media today launched a separate website and a newsletter called DIG, about digital marketing. A blog called Digmar apparently has been around for a few months as well.
The initiative doesn’t at all take advantage of any of the ditigal tools that are available today. Dagens Media is asking for input, so here comes my initial thoughts.
1. Great idea. The more that is written about social media and the like, in traditional channels, the easier it will be for us to get the laggards onboard with digital initiatives. So even though a newsletter sounds so 1996, it might be just what is needed to reach the not already convinced.
2. The site will be exclusive for paid subsribers. I think that is the wrong way to go. This is the kind of content that needs to get legs and spread across the net. A few provocative thoughts here, a link bait there, and suddenly you will have half the Swedish blogosphere buzzing about your articles and giving you nice inlinks.
3. Comment number 2 leads into the social tools that should be added, the first one should be RSS. No news site should be launched in 2009 without RSS feeds. Since I realize that the paper needs to create some revenues somewhere, the feeds could be published as partial feeds so that readers need to go to the site to read the content. Not the way I prefer to consume feeds, but often a necessary step for most news sites.
4. Social bookmarking tools. Make it easy for readers to spread the word.
5. Google Friend Connect. Although I haven’t seen the effects of Friend Connect, it might be a good way to turn the site more into a community. Or Facebook Connect.
6. Wiki. Why not? There are tons of information that could be useful to store in a wiki: case studies, links, dictionaries, resources etc. One fresh example: the new list of Swedes on Twitter. These initiatives are starting all over the place. If Dagens Media are a tad bit creative, they can host all that information on the site.
7. Twitter and Jaiku. Join the conversation. We want to see the reporters on Twitter and Jaiku. And read their tweets on the site.
8. While you are at it, go for the whole enchilada – lifestreaming. We want to see your delicious links, your shared items in Google Reader – all of it. In other words: dogfooding.
9. Twingly. Show blog links. Give something back to stimulate blog linking.
10. Ning. Build a community with Ning. Jerry Silfwer created a PR community that quickly drew 300+ members. You could easily do something similar.
I am sure I can come up with more ideas, but now I need a cup of tea, so that’s all for now. Other ideas?