@ IMC'10 Day 1: Challenges in a converged world and power of social media

Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) organized the Indian Magazine Congress (IMC), which was held on 6th and 7th of September 2010. It is an annual affair for the last six years. It is a platform for industry leaders to discuss issues that plague the industry and derive constructive solutions for the same.

"Editorial Challenges in a World of Convergence' was the first topic for the panel discussion which was moderated by Prashanto Kumar Roy, President and Chief Editor, Cyber Media. The panel boasted of reputed editors like Indrajit Gupta, Forbes India; Mohan Sivanand, Editor-in-Chief, Reader's Digest India; Saira Menezes, People and Jitesh Pillai, Filmfare.

The concern that was raised in this session was how editors were going to leverage content and brand across mediums. Other challenges included recruiting talent and training them to be savvy in a converged environment and creating content for the converged mediums that includes everything from print, online, mobile, events and social media sites. Prashanto Kumar Roy, the moderator for the sessions highlighted these challenges and spoke at length giving various examples like how BBC had regulated their content to be suitable across mediums.

Indrajit Gupta from Forbes began by saying "If we need to make a mark, then one has to think multimedia because today the readers consume multimedia" He went on to say how important it is to uphold the same values on all mediums and that every editor needs to understand what is going on in the readers life. "Magazines attempt to chase news like newspapers and television; however readers come to a magazine for insight and point of views. Every magazine must be sharp and in-depth, and must key in on the engaging value of magazines. We should give our readers an immersive experience. We have to train our team for multimedia", he further added.

While Jitesh Pillai, editor from Filmfare was also of the opinion that multimedia journalists were the need of the hour. He further said that these social networking sites induce audience reactions and responses which bring back the consumer back to the brand. He further explained how at Filmfare, this was carried out keeping in my mind the necessity of the period we are in today.

Although the other editors were comfortable with their content being available online, Mohan Sivanand from Reader's Digest insisted that giving away content for free is not the answer. He further explained his worries over the drop in readership if such a thing happened. He said, "We have a good website with a separate content for it, and that it is enough material to attract readers to buy Reader's Digest. Otherwise I am afraid we may lose circulation. Convergence has made life hard, but doesn't mean it is an end."

Saira Menezes from People rightly indicated that from the earlier 5Ws and one H of Journalism, one more has been added and that is "which platform?' She pondered about the differentiation in content that is required today, "We need about 2500 words in a magazine article and about 140 characters on Twitter, how are we going to manage that?" she said.

Thus the session concluded by stating the need for editors to be conscious and more aware in this converging world. And one needs to explore cross section of mediums in order to reach out to respective audiences.

The second panel discussion was about "Tapping into the Power of Social Media'. Prominent personalities like Kiruba Shankar, CEO ' Business Blogging; Mahesh Murthy, Founder ' Pinstorm and Managing Partner ' Seedfund; and Rual Suarez, Managing Director ' Zinio Internatinal graced the dais for this session. Kalli Purie, COO ' India Today Group Online was the moderator for this discussion.

Kalli Purie pointed out various aspects of social media like the fact that a lot of activities were taking place through these social networks, apart from the usual socialization through chatting, music and video sharing, even big life changing decisions were made on these platforms.

Rual Suarez pointed out that more than half of the population is a part of these networks, and everyone in the industry should take note of this because this identifies the most influential media. "The human need to be social will not stop, but now the question is social media becoming anti-social" he said.

Kiruba Shankar said by including people's reactions and views, one actually reaches out to the consumers in the true sense. "They don't care if you ask questions to somebody important; they will be more interested if you ask what they want to ask. Consumers want to interact and this must be considered", he said.

Mahesh Murthy spoke at length on how news is just a commodity and how the comments on the news are what sets one apart. "Having a large number of fans is meaningless, until or unless there is interaction. Please allow viewers' view on your journalistic views", he further added.

The value is around content and one must monetize audience. Reaching out to the audience on a one to one basis is what is crucial. Magazines must give their readers what they want. Today what is being searched online is not what the magazines are concentrating upon. Magazine owners were urged to invest more revenue in finding out what the audience is looking for. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]