Continuing on with our discussion about good content, I've come across some fascinating data regarding how customers in the world of semiconductor design are consuming it and what it means for social media. Let's start with a poll taken by a company I've been consulting to in recent weeks.
The company wanted to get some attention from a select segment of customers. The company estimates that their entire customer base consists of a few thousand people worldwide and they only need to reach a small part of that to be successful. So they were looking into ways to best reach them. Good content was a given in their estimation, but how to create that content and how to deliver it most efficiently was the question. They had an assumption on what would be the best path that I questioned so I asked them to do something: talk to your current and potential customer about where they get their information.
I've asked my clients to do this for many years, but no one has ever done it. They prefer to stick with assumptions. I was stunned when this new company took me up on the idea. And they went about it with a scientifically significant sampling. What they discovered verified what I was telling them about the media, but also came up with some surprising results even for me.
What was not surprising (to me) was that the publications they thought about targeting with their content barely registered or did not register at all with their audience. What was also not surprising was that EE Times and EDN were a virtual tie for first. I generally lump these two together since they are both UBM products and generally serve the same audience though for different purposes (more on that later).
What was mildly surprising was that Chip Design and Design-Reuse.com came in tied for third and that John Cooley's DeepChip did not register at all. I actually thought that the three would be much closer, but as I thought about it, what Chip Design and D&R focus on is generally a much higher level in semiconductor design. That's a significant bit of information (more on that later, too.)
What knocked me out of my seat, however, was what came in a solid second.
Linkedin.
I've been following Linkedin for quite a while. In fact, it was the first social media platform I ever got involved with. However, until the past couple of years, it just kinda sat there in my browser bookmarks. That changed in 2010 when I was able to help a client make a contact with a significant potential customer using my Linkedin contacts. In that process I discovered groups and now belong to and, in some instances, moderate 31. Some people have called my involvement scattered and can't imagine being able to follow that much, but the results of this survey showed my Linkedin involvement is not that remarkable. The respondents stated they get their dose of news and opinion from 20 or more different groups.
But none of that information is actually original content. It's based on content that group members have screened and found valuable... from places like EE Times, EDN and Chip Design.
In my last post I said that readers are using social media to filter content. This is a perfect example of how they are doing it. They are relying on peers and trusted sources to scan through the content and then endorse it. Most of the groups have moderation filters in place (people like me) who look at suggested content first before allowing it to be disseminated. The content comes from other trusted sources (like Chip Design and EE Times) and then can be commented upon by members.
And because Linkedin has carefully adopted the image of a businesslike site, you don't get a lot of socio/political spam.
Linkedin was, at one time, the realm of HR managers and job seekers. It still is very much that, but it has morphed into much more. It has become a curation site for business information and, as a result, has become an increasingly important channel for organizations that develop trusted content.
There have been a few articles recently talking about the fiscal value of Linkedin over Twitter and Facebook. Part of it is that Linkedin doesn't just get revenue from advertising, but also from subscriptions and job listings, keeping the overall cash flow positive. But the fact that it has proven valuable to business more than developing casual acquaintances has also kept it's stock value high (106 for LI vs 21 Facebook at this writing). It has kept is focus much narrower and is therefore more broadly valued. In that point let's go back to the issues of EETimes/EDN and Chip Design.
Fractured vs Focused Readership
The survey showed, as I said, that EE Times and ECN were in a dead heat for readers, which doesn't bother UBM at all, but the respondents said something interesting about EE Times: they approach the massive amounts of content in many different ways. Some read the newsletters only, some just one or two DesignLine pages, some the weekly digital version, some the videos, some the online front page. One even mentioned EE Times Confidential. The audience for EE Times is highly fractured. They can claim total readership in the millions but with so many channels, the chance that the content about your company will reach the eyeballs of your target audience is just a crap shoot. Not so much for EDN, however. The driving number of EDN readers say they go directly to EDN.com for their content and move from there. So getting front and center there means you get more potential readers for your material. The downside is it is tougher to get through the editorial filter of EDN than it is for the multiple channels of EE Times.
That being said, channels like Chip Design and D&R give access to a much more select audience focused on issues more specific than EE Times and EDN, and the name of the game in media for high tech is not quantitative but qualitative (Point of order, the survey showed that everyone who reads Chip Design and D&R also read UBM content).
Companies need to look at media non-exclusively. You can't rule out the big media names and you can't assume that just because you like a style of writing that everyone else feels the same way. My consultee was considering putting all their eggs in a single media bucket because they assumed that the bucket was the best possible choice. A careful consideration can demonstrate that obvious choices are not necessarily good choices and the best choices are those that take time and effort to foster. Social media can help, in a big way.