If your target audience is young, rich, and well educated, you need to advertise where they are watching TV online. According to Nielsen Analytics:

“Gerbrandt’s report states that Americans with access to broadband video are younger, richer and more educated than the rest of the public.

“Of all U.S. adults, almost a quarter (24 percent) have a college degree or greater. But the number increases to 35 percent among adults with broadband Internet access at home. And while only 17 percent of American consumers have an annual household income of $100,000 or more, that wealthy contingent accounts for fully 28 percent of those with broadband connectivity.

“They’re young, too. The 18-to-34 demographic represents 34 percent of those with broadband connectivity in their households, and the 35-to-54 demographic makes up 45 percent of those with home broadband access.”

The work we have done with online video has been incredibly exciting. It’s a new frontier for both audience and advertising. Those willing to take the leap will reap the benefits.

Following up on my post from yesterday about the evolution of content online, here’s a quote from Associated Press CEO Tom Curley during his speech at the Seoul Digital Forum Thursday:

“As we consider the digital future though, let’s be very clear about one thing: Technology may change how journalists work, but it has never changed what journalists do.”

Just what is it that journalists do, exactly? Other than your favorite punchlines, here’s his answer:

“Speaking truth to power or acting as the watchdog of the powerful is one of journalism’s enduring values.”

I would argue, however, that these “enduring values” are not the exclusive domain of journalists but rather our civic duty as citizens and consumers. Anyone who has experienced bad customer service is more than happy to “speak truth to power” to get a refund, exchange, or just tell their friends not to use that service. The key difference, obviously, is that journalists traditionally have had exclusive access to megaphones (print or broadcast) loud enough to share their message.

With Technorati’s estimate that there are now 82.6 million blogs online, there are a whole lot of megaphones out there. Curley didn’t answer the question of how they deal with that, and ironically the AP writer covering his speech didn’t ask…

Of course that’s not breaking news. But what is exciting is how that online content has evolved from the product of professional writers to semi-pro bloggers/ vidcasters. In this process, an interesting question arises: If content is king, then whose content wins - the professionals or the passionate?

Professional journalists bring style and discipline while the citizen media brings passion and raw, often breaking, news and opinion. Bloggers are witty and compelling. Professional journalists are often more calculating and organized.

Ultimately, the real winners will continue to be those professionals who have loosened the proverbial tie in order to blend their training and experience with passion and personal interest in their topics. The Politico, a new Capitol Hill newspaper/news site in Washington, has attracted many top tier journalists in part due to the editorial flexibility and creativity the paper brings to the online/print media mix.

Salon.com was one of the first to successful unleash professional journalists on a less structured environment with well-written, opinionated news pieces online.

Print journalists, even broadcasters, have been trained to operate within the logistical limitations of their medium, from print deadlines to get a story to layout and on to the presses or a TV/radio segment. As the Internet has erased these boundaries, new training and techniques are needed as well. And often, the writers best suited to produce content online are those who were never trained for the old media.

Too many times, as small businesses, we fail to think about paying for marketing services. As Forbes points out, sometimes that can be a fatal flaw in our planning.

While keeping a lid on marketing expenses is critical, at some point you have to pay up if you want to drive sales.

While competitors invest in online and traditional marketing, some business owners insist on doing it themselves — especially at professional firms. If you fall into that trap, consider this analogy.

You and your wife are building a new house. It’s your dream home and you’ve spent months drawing the plans yourself without assistance from an architect. You then start pouring the foundation, one bag of concrete at a time without a cement crew. The foundation is a little crooked, so building the frame yourself gets complicated quickly. Plus the rooms don’t quite line up right since you changed the floorplan at the last minute without updating the architectual plans.

This scenario doesn’t make sense does it? Doing your own marketing doesn’t make sense either. As professionals we think we can do it all ourselves. Architects think they can do their own accounting. Accountants think they can do their own legal. Lawyers think they can do their own marketing. And while yes, in theory anyone can spend $95 and build themselves a website, it’ll look just as ugly as the house you built on your own.

So whether you hire Flat Creek or one of our clearly sub-par competitors, bring a marketing professional to the table as you talk about your organization’s future or as you look for ways to sustain growth. It will be well worth the investment.

Denver, Colo. – Flat Creek, a strategic marketing technology firm, today launched What’s News Colorado (www.whatsnewscolorado.com), a new online endeavor to give Coloradoans a one-stop shop for local news throughout the Centennial State.

“We’re very excited to have this opportunity to bring together local news from across Colorado,” said Allen Fuller, Flat Creek’s Managing Partner. “The client’s vision was to feature important stories we often miss, those on the front page in Craig or Fort Morgan. Through the use of new technologies such as RSS we were able to combine Colorado’s best news sources and enable visitors to get a quick glance at what’s going on across the state.”

Read the full release here…