Natural Networking

By Henry Dubroff
Janurary 5, 2009

When I joined the staff of the Denver Business Journal in the summer of 1995, two things struck me as very different from my life as business editor at The Denver Post.

First, several Colorado CEOs - and not just their PR people - began to return my phone calls. More than one of them said they were just not comfortable talking to me at the Post because they were afraid of the daily newspaper’s “agenda.” Now that I was the guy in charge of the newsroom at the DBJ, they were willing to open up a bit. That dialogue sometimes led to scoops or exclusives.

Second, we had a nascent events business that would drive me crazy for several years. Every few months our advertising department would sell a new sponsorship to somebody and we’d transform into hurry up mode to produce an event. Some of our efforts were a bit amateurish but with house ads and a phone blitz, we could draw several hundred people to a breakfast or after-work reception and sometimes it was actually fun.

The point of this is that business journals have had a natural basis for creating social networks in the business-to-business field before the term was invented.

That’s partly a function of the business journals’ niche audience. Originally, it was comprised of business owners and service providers - financial services types, insurance folk, lawyers and CPAs. But by expanding their reach to include nonprofit CEOs, political types and small business advocates, business journals have created a natural network.

It is a network that John Garcia of California-based Angel Strategies describes as the core of civic leadership in most metro areas or as he puts it, “the movers and shakers, the political junkies and the SOB’s.”

Thanks to the digital revolution, today’s business journals operate networks that are far beyond the primitive efforts we started Denver before the era of email, blogs and Plaxo.

To be perfectly clear, the vast majority of business journals have not yet created their own versions of LinkedIn or Facebook. That day may arrive soon enough now that American City Business Journals recently made an investment in ThePort Network Inc, a social networking site.

But the networking aspects of most business journals are extremely robust -between our paper databases and personal connections we are well plugged into the paper trails and rumor mills.

The print edition with its in-depth reports remains at the core of the operation but there’s a cycle of connection with readers that includes six to 10 events per year, regular contact via e-mail and an interactive web site that allows people to email the staff or post on blogs.

Most business journals have active email lists to distribute news headlines and links to stories on a daily basis. We can even send out breaking news bulletins and beat our competition at the dailies or even on the wires.

We use the same or similar email lists to announce awards events, sell tickets and even sell our digital versions of Top 25 lists. There are all ways of reinforcing a connection with the core news product.

Most business journals produce between six and 10 events every year, honoring dealmakers, family businesses, top performing companies and up-and-coming leaders, who might be the next generation of subscribers. At The Pacific Coast Business Times, my newspaper in Santa Barbara, we don’t have the benefit of a big IT department to support these efforts.

But we form partnerships to create and maintain our network. For example, we use Constant Contact to maintain our email lists, eliminate duplications and keep us in compliance with the ever-changing rules on email solicitation.

At the core of all this fancy stuff is a really solid, timely news product that tells people things they don’t know about what’s happening in their community. That and the sense that the awards we present have editorial integrity, drive the enterprise.

On a national level, The Wall Street Journal has been drawing on the star power of its reporters and CEO panelists, to build events that look a lot like business journal affairs writ large.

But regional daily newspapers have not seemed to be able to find their way to create effective networks. As they cut business sections and financial news staff, the social network of the business journal is going to become a more and more powerful tool.

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism