Social Presidential Race, Newsweek Fans Flames, Gannett Buys Blinq

The Content Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Obama and Romney on Social Media

AdAge posted this nifty infographic which shows just how well Obama, Romney, and their campaigns are doing on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

The winner is clearly Obama, who has 18.5 million followers on Twitter (compared to Romney’s 850,000 followers), 27.1 million likes on Facebook (Romney: 4.1 million likes), and is in 1.94 million circles on Google+ (Romney’s in 882,000 circles).

Both politicians are focusing mainly on domestic policy on these sites: Obama clocks in at speaking about it 50 percent of the time, while Romney mentions it 40 percent of the time.

Newsweek’s Controversial Tumblr Image

AdWeek’s Charlie Warzel reports that Newsweek is getting a lot of flack after posting an image of a coat hanger on its Tumblr, meant to be a comment on abortion.

When visitors log onto the Tumblr, they are greeted with the coat hanger as the cursor. In less than two hours after being posted, there were more than 150 comments on the coat hanger.

This was the second controversy this week for the Newsweek: The first waves were created when it posted a column about Barack Obama by Niall Ferguson.

Gannett Acquires Blinq Media 

Gannett, owner of USA Today, has bought Blinq Media, which oversees social media campaigns for over 600 advertisers, according to ClickZ.

Blinq is know for its local campaigns, as well as its stake in the various social media channels. Gannett already owns PointRoll and ShopLocal, a social media firm and an online circular, respectively.

The Worth of Journalism in Digital

At the core of the debate over digital and print journalism, and which one is better, there is the age-old question that needs to be answered: “What is journalism for?”

Matthew Ingram of Gigaom dives into the topic, and looks to figure out the worth of digital journalism. “How does a mainly digital media entity determine whether it is having an impact or not — or having the kind of social impact that we have come to associate with journalism?,” he asks. “And if it can’t answer that question, then why do we need it?”

This is a must-read for any journalist or digital content creator.

Condé Nast Succeeds Overseas, but Not in the States

Over the past few years, publisher Condé Nast has been forced to close operations on a few of its magazines including Elegant Bride, Cookie, and Gourmet. But, during that same time, business has been booming overseas, in markets like Italy and other parts of West Europe, Russia, India, and China, according to AdWeek.

Some of that financial growth can be attributed to the fact that overseas, on newsstands, publications cost more, while advertising is not as big of a deciding factor in a magazine’s success or failure.

Blast from the Past: A Digital Content Prediction from 1992

Check out Claire of NewsCred’s latest post, in which she talks about Robert G. Kaiser’s prediction about the future of digital content 20 years ago.

He said, “More interesting are packages of text, photos and film that could be used to create customized news products at many different levels of sophistication. At the top end, such a product might contain the text (or spoken text) of a Post story on the big news of the day, accompanied by CNN’s live footage and/or Post photographers’ pictures, plus instantly available background on the story, its principal actors, earlier stories on the same subject, etc. All of this could be read on segments of a large, bright and easy-to-read screen (screens are also being improved at a great rate).”

When Should Marketers Send Emails?

There are a lot of differing opinions about when it’s best to send an email. Linda Formichelli of Copyblogger delves into these myths, and finds that it depends on the industry and the audience.

There is no good time for everyone, for every single business, to send out an email. She suggests running tests before deciding on the best time to send it.

“My take is that you never know when someone is going to be at their computer and ready to buy — so why knock yourself out trying to figure out “the very best minute” to email? And why apply a hard-and-fast ‘waiting’ rule, when you’ve got something of value to pass along to your audience?