Now, that’s not only a lotta T-shirts, that’s a lotta views-and what are 8 million views worth to a media company?  Well, that depends—who are all those people?  What do they want, what do they do, what do they buy, why are they on the site they’re on, and do they want to be there or are they just passing by?  Not too long ago, though, online value was pegged almost exclusively to big, fat, unfiltered, unwashed reach-the more the better, right?  (Say—take 6.69 seconds and look at this video of the world’s fastest cup-stacker—after all, more than 1,200,000 viewers can’t be all wrong, right?)  

So while these examples might be a bit silly, the story they tell goes right to the heart of the online business today:  we have moved beyond the days of pure mass as measured by reach and have entered into the more valuable and enduring realm of engagement.  At InformationWeek, the millions of people who use our online products and services every day have made it clear to us that they don’t have time to bounce from one big noisy site to another and another—they want sites that have specific appeal to them, that reach out and connect with them, and that cause them to make the decision to give certain sites the most valuable thing they have:  their time.  That’s engagement, and that’s the future of the web.  In this context, the new math looks something like this:

Reach = what’s new? 

Engagement = what’s new? + what’s important? + what’s most valuable? + what ties into my daily work flow?

In upcoming posts, we’ll be looking at some examples of sites that are doing a good job of going beyond the buzz of reach to the value of engagement.  If you’ve got some examples, please send them my way at bevans@techweb.com and I’ll evaluate them for use in future posts.  Cheers.

Scott Vaughan recently interviewed Dan Shapero, Senior VP of Marketing at Kaseya, an IT automation company. We discussed marketing ROI, research, lead generation, and why Kaseya chose to partner with the InformationWeek Business Technology Network.

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Now calling readers for feedback is a bit of an uncertain proposition.  I mean what if they tell me the site blows?!  Fortunately for me, that was not the case.  In fact, the Dark Reading team, led by Tim Wilson, has done such a great job producing content that the Dark Reading audience has grown by 58% just this year.   When I asked why they come to Dark Reading, the near unanimous answer was ”for news and analysis.”   Not surprising as Tim and team have made their mark by breaking news on the latest threats, attacks and vulnerabilities and then putting it all in context of what it means for enabling a secure or “trusted” business.  But beyond generalities, here are some of the insights the readers shared with me and how we are evolving Dark Reading in response.

Mark, an IT Security Director for a major mid-western utility, described how he uses Dark Reading this way, “I’ve got to stay current on the latest threats and vulnerabilities and Dark Reading does a good job keeping me informed.” Then he offered up that real world reality check, “Just because a new threat exists doesn’t mean I can rush to pull my systems down and implement a patch.  I have service level agreement with my users (sic: customers and employees) to deliver 5-nines up-time.  I have to manage a balance between protecting against threats and providing access to my users.”  Wow, that really puts a fine point on it.  When you boil it down, what IT security professionals deal with on a daily basis is managing the balance between protection and access.   As I stewed on this simple truth the image of the Yin and Yang symbol came to mind.  A transcendent symbol of balance as applied to IT security - on the one hand information security professionals must protect their business against all manner of threats, attacks, vulnerabilities and on the other they must enable access to the right information to the right people at the right time.  Hmm – the yin and yang of a trusted business, I like that. 

On my next several reader calls I tested out this yin and yang thang.   Rich from a biotech company laughed and said, “Sure, security is like religion” and then “But seriously, it’s too easy to be the bad cop.  You have to consider what it means to the business.  ” Monte who works in the online division of a major bank said “I walk that fine line every day.”  And so it went.  But of all the info sec professionals I spoke with, Phil, the CISO of one of the top IT consulting firms put it most eloquently: “IT holds the keys to the information kingdom.  You have to understand the threat and all of its vectors but it comes back to how you manage risk to enable the business.  You must balance the operational and the strategic.”

So, what does this all mean for Dark Reading?  Actually, everything.  For one thing, when you go to the site now you’ll see a new logo incorporating the yin and yang symbol with the simple tagline of “Protect the Business. Enable Access” to reflect the challenges that these security pros face every day.  On a deeper level, Tim and the editorial team will shift their content and coverage to map to directly to that new tagline.  As Tim puts in his blog post to readers about the site changes “you’ll also see more about how these threats affect your business — and what you can do about them. You’ll see additional insight on how security can be used to enable new business processes, not just restrict them.  And you’ll see more purposeful coverage of the day-to-day problems that security professionals face, such as compliance management projects and the growing movement toward risk management.”

So in a nutshell that is how I came to understand the religion of IT security and how we are evolving Dark Reading for our audience.   We are also introducing new ways marketers can utilize Dark Reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts on our new strategy.

Social Media Research Resources:  By billbaird on July 24, 2008

The InformationWeek Business Technology Network just announced the 2009 virtual event line up.  

• February :  InformationWeek-Green IT
• March:  InformationWeek, Byte & Switch - Storage
• April: bMighty.com 
• May:  InformationWeek - Virtualization
• June: InformationWeek- Cloud Computing
• July:  InformationWeek, Dark Reading - Security
• September: InformationWeek500
• October: bMighty.com
• November:  InformationWeek, Intelligent Enterprise
• December: InformationWeek, Dark Reading -  Security

Our Attendance Rate was at 45%, which is 15% above the industry average.   We also broke our own record with Average Time Spent in the Show, which was nearly 3 hours for this event  and the industry average is only 1 hour, 30 minutes — That’s a true testament to the quality of the content that InformationWeek and Dark Reading featured, and the engagement opportunities available for attendees inside the virtual event.

10/23 InformationWeek Dark Reading Security Virtual Event Top line Stats*
Total Registrants: 2488
Total Live Event Attendees: 1106
Attendance Rate: 45%      
Avg # of Logins per user: 2
Avg time spent in show: 2 hours, 55 minutes         
Avg # of booth visits per user:  12
Avg time spent in booth per user: 6 minutes
Avg # attendees per scheduled editorial session: 337

For more general stats and usage data, check out our Tech Marketing Best Practice Research Study on Virtual Events or attend our webcast The Hottest New Media Apps for Engaging B2B Buyers.

*Based on scrubbed data – Techweb/UBM, sponsor companies, competitors, test logins, and vendors have been removed from the statistics.

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