PROBLEM - Traditional broadcast media companies’ current online presence is often purely a support role for Radio and TV. When decisions are made about what direction the online presence should head the decision makers are focused on growing either the TV or Radio audience.

Let’s consider how this fits.

If the TV station needs to grow audience they don’t ask the Radio station to put all of its efforts towards growing the TV audience, and vice versa.

SOLUTION – Digital media needs to join the ranks of TV and Radio and be treated with the same level of respect. What traditional broadcast media needs is a Digital Development Director; a stong champion for doing what is necessary to grow the Digital Media the same way that TV and Radio work.

Instead of treating online presence as a marketing piece treat it as another product in your lineup.

The difference is that the Digital Media has the opportunity to compete on any number of different levels (hyperlocal up to global) while TV and Radio are locked into signal reach.

APPLICATION – How does this translate for a non-media based company?

First ask what your organization creates as a by-product of acheiving its core mission. The most common item that organizations have more of than they know what to do with is data. Data is something quite easily transferred to the digital world. By giving your data a second life as a product can you turn that into tangible revenue?

Most organizations also produce tools for getting thier jobs done. Are those tools something that can be translated onto the digital domain? Would doing so provide you with additional revenue?

Finally, what tools and resources can be created out of digital development that would benefit the original mission; or enhance it?

Stop thinking about your organization’s online presence as a marketing tool and start thinking about it as a product.

UPDATE: SEE HTTP://ELEPHANTSONBICYCLES.COM FOR WINNER.

I’m curious about what kind of day to day readership I’m getting and where it comes from. I can look at web stats, etc. but those don’t tell me much. I want to know how I am actually connecting with people and what you like/dislike.

A couple days ago I set up a Skreened Shop (it’s free, dead simple and anyone can do it) http://skreened.com/eob which has a couple blog related designs. I’ve sold a couple shirts already which is totally cool but what’s better is Skreened hooked me up with one excellent gift card.

So, how would you like to win this $20 gift card to Skreened?

You would! Alright then, all you need to do is comment below with the following information:

• How’d you find this post (direct, CU, twitter, facebook, etc)?
• Where in the world do you live, approximately?
• What do you like or dislike me writing about?
• Have you checked out Skreened.com yet?
• Anything else? Constructive criticism?

Cool, that’s it. I’m going to leave this open till Saturday January 11, 2009. This post is also going up on my http://elephantsonbicycles.com site so if you want another chance to win pop over there and have a look around. I’ll assign a number to each completed comment and draw one out of a hat; you’ll get an email from me if you win and I’ll post about it.

"Thanks AmyD for the sweet scarf I won from Ryan!"

An interesting thing has been happening in my online circles as of late. People are holding contests and giving out prizes. Why are contests and prizes interesting? Well, in this case it is because the people giving them away are doing so primarily for altruistic reasons.

Jeff Johnson of Urban Infill is giving away a months COTA bus pass as a way of promoting local public transit. He doesn’t work for COTA, he is merely interested in giving someone else a chance at using (and thus growing) the public transit system here in Columbus. Ryan Morgan, an insurance specialist, has taken it upon himself to gather various local made gifts which he is giving away via Twitter trivia contests. He doesn’t work for the businesses he’s promoting, he just thinks it is important that we support local business. Alvin Borromeo raffled off tickets to COSI, similarly he doesn’t work for COSI he just thought it would be nice to support a local organization. He’s yet another blogger doing something good for the community.

Now I’m not naive enough to believe that these contests weren’t also going to raise the profile of these individuals and their own projects but I don’t think that matters in this case. The prizes that they were offering are specific; they relate to building, supporting, sustaining the kind of community they believe in. When McDonald’s has their Monopoly Game every year they aren’t trying to promote community, they’re merely looking for increased sales. Bloggers could surely do something similar, and certainly they have at times, but instead of focusing only on increasing site visits these folks are focused on making a change.

Gandhi is famous for saying “Be the change you wish to see” (sorry, paraphrasing) and while I hardly want to elevate every blogger to Gandhi like status I think that is essentially what drives most solo bloggers. This desire to try and shape the digital world in the way that is most pleasing to us. For some of us we are now finding a way to extend that to our analog world as well. For some of us there is no difference between analog and digital worlds.

So what does this mean for you?