There’s still something special about Print

Last week, I had a great conversation with Eric Billingsley, a journalist with the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, that resulted in an interview on how local business can use social media to market themselves online.

I first saw the article was published this morning when it showed up in my google news feed. I’m always interested in seeing when my name pops up in the news and it’s especially interesting when the title of the article is: “Mr. Social” [subscription required].

I read the first 2 paragraphs (all that was available for free on the site), wrote a quick update on my Facebook Page, and then went back to work for the morning…

Dustin Luther: Mr. SocialHowever, around lunch-time, curiosity (ego?) got the better of me, and I headed down to the local newsstand to see what the article looked like in print… and sure enough, there’s a lot in the print version that never made it to the digital version including more of the interview and an interesting “snapshot” section.

With newspapers cutting back staff left-and-right, prominent journalists talking about the death of print, people debating what’s really eating away at the newspaper’s lunch, and great conversations around the role of social media in media, I thought I would take one blog post to simply say I still enjoy the hard-copy every once in a while.

And my interest goes beyond just the additional information and the “snapshot” section (both of which would be easy enough to digitize). It has more to do with the assumed credibility that goes with something being in print.

On a completely different topic, every interesting interview I’ve ever had with a journalist has come because a friend recommended the journalist talk with me… and this interview was no different. This time, Baron Miller (@baroncmiller) went out of his way to connect me with Eric, and I just wanted to send him a huge thanks for thinking of me! Baron and @KurtyD have done such an incredible job putting together the monthly MOTM meetings, that I always try my best to plan my schedule around their meetings.

And finally, in the interview, I mentioned that I use both a twitter account and a Facebook page to market my business online… You can connect with me on either of those networks here:

7 responses

  1. Interesting point you make regarding the “the assumed credibility that goes with something being in print.” Do you ever see that changing? What are the implications of this considering prominent journalists are consistently talking about the death of print?

  2. To me, getting something in print would feel like I “earned it.” Not that it takes no work to be mentioned online, but it just seems like more effort goes into a printed piece (or televised piece) then a quick blog mention on a site.

  3. Congratulations Dustin! That’s pretty awesome…

  4. This is great Dustin! Congratulations on the nice writeup, both in print and online.

  5. Congratulations Dustin. Thank you for sharing this great news with us.

  6. Thanks everyone for the comments…

    Sergio: Not sure why, but you ended up in the spam filter, and I just now unleashed your comment… Sorry about that! In terms of the implications of the “credibility” that goes with print, I think we’ll all continue to adjust where we give our credibility over the long run. For example, getting featured in the NY Times will always be a huge deal, whether it’s in print or online…

  7. Out with the old and in with the new, the internet and social media are the new school and people love it.

    Word on the street is…. it’s free !

    It’s self explanatory, “do i want to pay or get it for free”?………. Hmmmmmm let me think about that one.

    Print still does work to a certain degree, the people selling it will tell you that it’s the best thing ever….. for a huge price though!

    Credibility, you can earn with a rocking website too ! It takes time and effort.

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