Social Media Marketing and Newspaper Advertising: Pros and cons - Online Social Media

Social Media Marketing and Newspaper Advertising: Pros and cons

July 26, 2010 3 Comments

In today’s modern world, most people would rather get their news and reports from online sites rather than newspapers. You can get more relevant information for free from a website rather than from a newspaper which costs you money and which may have information that has become irrelevant because of developments in the story after time of print.

Social Media Marketing and Newspaper Advertising: Pros and cons

Patricio Robles has an article over on Econsultancy.com which says that social media marketing is less effective than the traditional newspaper marketing. He reports that Paul Williams argues on his blog that print advertising is targeted at the reader whilst it can be harder to target effectively online depending on the service used.

Other points by Williams includes that print media is well established, so for example if ten thousand people read the Sun and I buy an advert in the Sun, chances are ten thousand people are going to read my advert. If you post an advert on a site which gets an average of ten thousand visitors per week, I’m not necessarily guaranteed to get ten thousand views since people may not choose to visit the site that week.

The downside to investing in newspaper advertising is that newspapers are becoming a less useful source of news because of the easy access people can get to the internet through laptops or smartphones. If I can get today’s news on the train home through my phone for free, why should I pay for a paper?

Read the full article over on Econsultancy.com. Do you prefer to get your news from the internet, or from print media? Let us know in the comments.

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  • http://lidocg.com Lisa Morrissey

    You may be acquiring your news for 'free' from the web, but most likely a newspaper company has paid a reporter to investigate the story. Newspaper reporting is very necessary to keep the checks and balances alive and well in our democratic society. Newspaper companies are working very hard to maintain and create an advertising model that works for them, their advertisers and their readers.

    Long story short; newspapers – in whatever form – are trusted, valuable sources of information. Likewise, newspaper advertising for some businesses and industries is still a very beneficial medium.

  • Dave Hennessy

    Great post Jonathan. I do agree with Lisa's comment that newspaper advertising is more traditional and therefore more "trusted." Newspaper ads will continue to reach thousands of readers, but for how long? Newspapers seem less and less "relevant" as technology and the web continues to expand. There will always be certain publications around that will be able to hold onto a certain number of readers, but the web is where business is today. Advertisers and small businesses that wave off the work of establishing a presence on the web aren't maximizing their business potential.

  • http://www.oneandonlybrands.blogspot.com David MacGregor

    I can't agree with the assertion that people see every ad in a newspaper. Consumers are as like to have ad blindness in a newspaper as they are online with banner blindness. I still read a newspaper from time to time but I don't recall any ad whatsoever in the past year.

    That said, when I needed an urgent solution to mobile web from my laptop I noticed an ad for a vodem and purchased one that day. I attribute that to the way that we filter messages. People are adept at spotting friends and family in a crowd…it's the same with ads…we notice what interests us. If we responded to every stimulus we'd melt down from the sheer volume of data.

    The way that advertising in newspapers tends to work is subject to scale (big ads are noticed more), surprising content (we pay attention to things that interest us – and sometimes that's an ad) or – to take the classified model – by relevance (If I am looking for a leaf blower then a brand ad or a classified for a used blower will shine like a beacon).

    The medium is not the message. There are no certainties in advertising