Editor’s Note: On Sept. 26 at 11am ET, Connectiv’s Digital Media Council will host ALM’s Matt Weiner and Joann Kropp talking about how ALM put its first-party data to work and created Audience First. The meeting can be attended remotely. Click here to register or email mkinsman@conectivb2b.net. 

Editor’s Note: See Questex CEO Paul Miller and Group President John Siefert talking about creating a new chapter for events and digital at the 2019 Business Information & Media Summit, Nov. 12 in Hollywood, FL.

For all the talk of digital transformation, the real transition for many B2B publishers was becoming events companies with media rather than media companies with events. Events typically offered better margins (especially attractive to PE-owners looking to boost revenue then flip for a tidy profit) and didn’t require the headaches of building infrastructure and new skills that digital demanded.

Editor's note: This is the eighth of an ongoing series profiling the 2018 SIPAward winners. See links to the others below.

"The big mistake that some brands make when they think about social content is that they see it as an extension of their traditional advertising and communications plan, which is all about transmitting. Social media requires engagement; it is about understanding that, actually, sometimes it's valuable just to be part of the conversations. You can only do that if you've taken the time to build an authentic brand personality."

"'If you build it, they will come' is bad advice. You want to identify your audience first, then go where they are." Bethany Chambers, director of audience engagement for North Coast Media, may have made some baseball fans shudder in the corn fields of Iowa with that quote, but hopefully publishing fans will pay close attention.

"If you find something that works once, do it again. A lot of times our own audience doesn't catch on the first couple of times we do something so why not try it a few more times. It's sort of like that saying, 'tell the audience what you're going to say, say it, and then tell them what you've said.'"

Suicide is ranked as the third leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14 and second among people ages 15 to 24 according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  Obviously, suicide and depression are a serious problem facing society. People who are contemplating suicide often feel helpless and reach out, but hearing and acting on cries for help doesn’t always happen in time. Tragically, many people who have struggled with depression and/or suicidal thoughts have used social media to post notes about their intentions to take their own lives or even live stream their suicides. In response, Facebook announced a few months ago that it would be taking more initiative in using its platform for social good.  One of Facebook’s tools to aide with suicide prevention is artificial intelligence. Facebook has developed algorithms that recognize patterns in user’s posts to flag them in case they are at risk of committing suicide.  Critics hav ...

"The digital business that we run today requires that we have a direct relationship with our users," said Meredith Kopit Levien, chief revenue officer of The New York Times. While The Times' proprietary app lives on millions of mobile screens, she explains that social is invaluable for driving sales. "We are most focused on that: building subscriptions and also selling advertising."

"There's an opportunity for publishers to repackage content, and not to [give away] content on social media," said Tracy Samantha Schmidt, principal of Socially Authentic, at an SIIA Marketing Boot Camp in Chicago last week. "Explore other ways to find value in your posts, so that [your customers] are paying for content."