Pierre Bellanger, founder and CEO of the French radio station Skyrock and blog network Skyrock.com, knows something about transitioning from a traditional media model to a digital one: Skyrock.com now draws 4.2 million unique visitors daily and about 7.5 billion page views monthly, and the group makes more than half of its revenues digitally.

At a conference in early June, Bellanger listed seven pointers for brands to establish and sell themselves online:

- Integrate collective intelligence: of particular importance to newspapers (see this interview with Bellanger), this means repurposing user-generated content such as comments or blogs in an add-value package for the brand.
- To be an individual: the brand should be engaged in the conversation with online users.
- Establish a relation of trust with users: this also entails getting rid of corporate and commercial communications, which online users can see through.
- Combine conversation and advertising: a 'chief community officer' should serve both to engage the community and drive profit.
- To remain useful.
- To remain polite.

Watch the video of the presentation here.

Bellanger was also a speaker at the 15th World Editors Forum in Göteborg, Sweden (video below).


Source: Skyrock - Mobinaute.com