Link journalism and the Washington Post

Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 is evangelistic about what he terms “link journalism“: selecting and sharing links to the best content around the web (either as an extension of your content or as a goal in and of itself) rather than being a pure content producer. Today he reviews the new Washington Post Political Browser, where staff writers and editors share links to the stories they’re reading around the web.

Eric [Pianin, politics editor for washingtonpost.com] acknowledged that washingtonpost.com is “late to the party,” but in fact the Political Browser puts the Post way out ahead of many other news sites — while many have begun to recognize the value of aggregation and links, most have been slow to act.

As Eric points out, it’s “not just aggregation.” (Heck, any algorithm can do aggregation — that’s increasingly a commodity.) What Political Browser has set out to do, according to Eric, is put The Washington Post “stamp of approval” on the choice of stories, and to provide “insight” into what’s important in the sphere of political news on the web.

Also looking beyond commodity aggregation, The Post believes, with good reason, that a lot people who are interested in political news and in the Post’s political reporting would find it interesting to get “inside the heads” of Post journalists, to see what they are reading and what is informing their reporting.

This is a great example of how a traditional media brand can leverage its reputation and trust factor to succeed on the web. I agree with Karp in that it’s ludicrous to pretend that competitors aren’t a mouse click or Google search away.

Is social media right for your site?

Folio posted a long roundtable discussion the other day about incorporating – and monetizing – social media on your site. Participants included Stephen Merrill of BudgetTravel.com, Jeremy Westin of Playboy Media Group and Ted Nadeau of CondeNet. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the subject. But for the time-pressed, here are a few key points:

• Nadeau points out that not only does social media offer an opportunity to deepen user engagement, but it’s a way to extend your content and brand beyond the “walls” of your website.

• According to several of the participants, we’re moving from an age of quantity to an age of quality, from valuing high traffic numbers to valuing quality traffic. This is especially important as online ad sales looks to improve upon the CPM model for gathering revenue.

• It’s all about the content and how you facilitate it. Stick to your brand.

• Community managers/editors/leaders are going to be the next wave of editorial staff and the next “cool job to have”.

• When working on user-generated content, it’s important to maintain editorial standards.

• We’re still in the early days of social media; “it’s all about careful experimentation,” says Westin.

Why should you increase traffic?

You’ve covered the essentials: you’ve got a website, and you have a staff member (several, if you’re lucky) assigned to work on it. Now you’re ready to work on increasing your site traffic. But have you thought about why?

This isn’t a trick question; there’s no inherent reason to build your traffic (unless you like to show off high Comscore numbers at parties). So before you embark on a traffic-building plan, it’s a good idea to decide why you want those higher numbers. That way, you can build a plan that meets your goals.

Some good reasons to build traffic are:

• Ad revenue (advertisers like big numbers)
• Building your brand (make a larger number of people aware of who you are and what you stand for)
• Creating “community” (also, generally, around your brand)
• Pushing print subscriptions (an old-fashioned site strategy, but still a common one) 

It’s likely that you agree with all of these reasons. But if you’ve got limited resources (and please, find me a Canadian magazine that doesn’t), it’s worth deciding what’s most important and focusing on that.

Why are you building your site’s traffic? Is it for the wrong reasons?