The effects the recession is having on businesses are very different. Manchester Evening News has reported today it was about to cut 78 jobs. The overall job-cut figure announced by MEN Media is about 150, and all weekly editorial offices will also be closed. The production of weeklies will be switched to the main office in Scott Place in Manchester. This is certainly an invitation to revisit the adaptation of the traditional media to the demands of modern communications, specifically how the print newspapers and traditional PR are embracing the Internet.

At the same time, Daily Mail reported about a Taiwanese boy who won himself an island “in a Taiwan lottery aimed at boosting spending during an economic downturn”. Well, actually, before we all get too excited and envious, here’s a small print : “According to the terms of the prize, the boy and up to seven family members can visit the island five times, for trips that last a maximum of three days”.

The two quite opposite examples of dealing with recession. However, both openly demonstrate that recession is all about making cuts, be that VAT, staff, or prices. Which is precisely why 2009 IS the year for Social Media. The beauty of this has so far been in that Social Media is free. In a way, this is a classic “what you see is what you get” kind of thing, which made a lot of marketers cautious about adopting Social Media in the past. Because Social Media is often free, and the tracking tools, however bespoke, don’t give a complete picture, and the metrics of measuring the success of a campaign are not streamlined and vary, depending on the Social Media or Networks that are in use, there seems to be no beaten path to follow, and this effectively puts the potential adopters off. Another implicit fear associated with the use of Social Media is the resonance your brand activity is going to receive throughout the Internet. There are plenty of tools out there already that assist at “buzz monitoring”.

Myself, I strongly feel that 2009 is going to be the year of noise. We already see that articles on the use of Twitter are appearing with some astonishing rate, and some companies have already looked into monetising the service. Nevertheless, here at Lakestar Media we will be looking at measuring the success of Social Media campaigns, and by the end of 2009 there will have been a lot of intelligence to help streamline the campaigns and reporting, and to actually see the tangible RoE (Return on Engagement) of a Social Media campaign.