Cision Social Media Team Tracks Newspaper Industry’s Online Transition

CHICAGO IL, January 23, 2009 — As the embattled newspaper industry raced to expand its online presence in 2008, its success at engaging readers and involving them in the news by establishing thriving blog networks provides some hope for 2009 and beyond, according to social media experts at Cision who have been tracking the phenomenon through the Cision Social Media Dashboard.

"Cision’s media database lists more than 10,000 influential blogs, and about 1,000 of those are hosted on newspaper Web sites," Jay Krall, Cision's Manager of Internet Media Research, writes on CisionBlog, adding that newspaper blog networks "have breathed new life into their coverage, and could represent the future of news."

The Cision Internet Media Research Team reviewed more than 500 newspapers' blog networks in 2008, ranking them by how many mentions and links each site received on the millions of blogs and social networks tracked by the Cision Social Media Dashboard. "The Cision Social Media Dashboard enables us to measure the ongoing 'chatter' that a newspaper's blog network creates on other sites across the web—providing a good indicator not only of how actively read the newspaper's blogs may be, but how influential they are based on their content being passed around and commented upon," Krall said.

Krall listed 10 of the regional daily metropolitan newspapers with highly active blog networks including Baltimore, Miami, Houston, Portland, Oregon, St. Petersburg, Florida, Birmingham, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Austin and Milwaukee. He added that blog networks were even more heavily trafficked at the nation's two national newspapers, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, as well as metropolitan papers in the major media hubs in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The newspapers in technology centers San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Boston also had extremely heavy blog traffic because they started blogs early to cater to their tech-heavy subscriber lists, Krall said. For the complete list of the top newspaper blog networks, see Krall’s blog post entitled ‘Top Ten Newspaper Blog Networks’.

“Newspapers see reader engagement and loyalty increase when they strive to be the first place subscribers turn to on the web by hosting blogs written by reporters and columnists, encouraging readers to comment, and providing links to special interest blogs and other useful web-based information resources,” Krall said. "Cision's social media team will continue to monitor the newspaper industry's digital transition and assess its success in holding on to their readers as well as expanding the reach of their content across the web."

Cision, the leading provider of media research, distribution, monitoring and analysis services to the public relations industry and other communicators, manages a media research database providing detailed information on more than 700,000 publications, reporters and editors, with more than 20,000 updates to the database every day. Cision recently launched its Social Media Dashboard through an agreement to integrate technology from Radian6 Technologies, the leading supplier of social media monitoring services for marketing, communications and customer support professionals.

The Cision Social Media Dashboard is a self-service, online portal that delivers real-time access to social media coverage, plus analysis and reporting tools that allow communications professionals to understand the impact of social media activity and to take action based on those insights. Cision also offers Social Media Daily Reports—detailed, twice-daily email reports that monitor all relevant social media coverage, with direct links to the online posts.

About Cision:
Cision is the leading provider of software, services, and tools to the public relations and marketing industry. Marketing and PR professionals use our products to help manage all aspects of their brands – from identifying key media and influencers to connecting with audiences; monitoring traditional and social media; and analyzing outcomes. Journalists, bloggers, and other influencers use Cision’s tools to research story ideas, track trends, and maintain their public profiles. Cision is present in Europe, North America and Asia, has partners in over 125 countries and is quoted on the Nordic Exchange with revenue of SEK 1.1 billion in 2010. For more information, visit www.cision.com.

For More Information:
Andrée Beckham
Vice President, Marketing & Public Relations
312-873-6434