Are Deals still being driven by shares, posts, likes and other social media features in an era of Groupon and Living Social Super Bowl ads? Yes, definitely, according to Second Street Media, which held a Webinar with The Washington Post last week to discuss social media and deals strategies.

Referrals, “like-gating” and brand building via social media are key to building up customer lists and pumping up sales volume, notes Second Street Director of Affiliate Success Matt Chaney. Social media has been an inherent part of deals success from the beginning,” he says. Getting consumers to “like” a deals site and follow them on Facebook helps work- around email fatigue – or at least, reinforces email offers.

Deal sites, however, need to follow up and provide something in return for the likes. Chaney cites Edison/Arbitron research showing that 58 percent of consumers expect something in return for a “like.”

NBC 7 in San Diego boosted their likes by 60 percent with a contest around “San Diego’s favorite Voice.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch boosted their signups by 36 percent with a “Name the Rally Squirrel” contest. ABC 15 in Phoenix boosted its likes from 8,000 to 88,000 with a giveaway of Guitars featured on the CMA Awards.

Webinar special guest Molly Urciolo, Marketing Manager from The Washington Post, said The Post’s Capitol Deal site adds 1,000 likes each week. The Capitol Deal has done especially well with “Get Yours Free” deals in which customers are incented to push a certain number of sales by their friends –typically three –so they get a free one. Twelve percent of The Capitol Deal’s revenues come from “Get Yours Free.”

Urciolo likes to post deals on FaceBook the night before emails are sent out; or post exclusive deals for the FaceBook audience. She also takes the page seriously as a community, posting topical subjects on local sports teams, or events; and running contests, or sweepstakes. She also recommends adding new posts two times a day.

Last November, major players in the newspaper industry bought Travidia as the cornerstone of a new shopping strategy. Travidia had been mostly known for its print to digital circular business, but it had recently repositioned itself with FindnSave, a new shopping platform that included digital circulars, along with inventory search via eBay’s Milo.com, and slots for deals, offers and coupons.

Investing newspapers represented local titles reaching 80 percent of the U.S. population. They included Advance Digital, A. H. Belo Corporation, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., Cox Media Group, The E. W. Scripps Company, Gannett Co., Inc., GateHouse Media, Inc., Hearst Corporation, Lee Enterprises, MediaNews Group, The McClatchy Company, and The Washington Post Co.

Today, FindnSave announced the appointment of Ben T Smith IV to lead the effort as an outsider more wedded to consumer preferences then to newspaper sales requirements. Smith is the founder of Merchant Circle, and previously served as CEO and founder of Spoke.com, a LinkedIn-like social site for professionals.

In a discussion with BIA/Kelsey, Smith noted that FindnSave will have to be both a social experience, utilizing tablets and smart phones, as well as a “lean back” experience. “Shopping is not a lean forward and search” medium, he says. “It is a series of destinations.”

Smith says he plans to bring his experience as a Silicon Valley insider to bear, and in fact, will move the company’s headquarters from exurban Chico CA to the Valley. “Six or seven person teams make things happen,” he says. “We’ll have a series of teams, including mobile talent and people with a bunch of social DNA. There will also be a series of Apps addressing very specific demographics.”

Ultimately, FindnSave will serve “two constituencies – and newspapers aren’t one of them,” says Smith. “The constituencies are consumers and major advertisers. People looking for 49 cent chicken aren’t the same people who are flipping Nordstrom or Macy’s ads,” he observes.

The New York Times and other news organizations have been hampered by the short cuts of HTML and hyperlinks, but are now reclassifying to provide more structured, fluid data in a major development with massive implications, notes New York Times VP of Research Operations Michael Zimbalist, who keynoted Day 2 at ILM East. The benefits are immediate in terms of SEO, but longer term, provider richer product for consumers, notes Zimbalist.

“Information has become increasingly granular or structured,” notes Zimbalist. Each unit of content has extensive machine readable metadata about itself.” Fluid information can move more easily among machines and people.

In the case of The New York Times can now process the 300 pieces of professional content that it produces every day — a brick of compiled information — into multiple formats, including things such as personal editions and slide shows. “You are reaching underneath the databases the power the Web to do new things,” says Zimbalist.

The key is to move the surplus of names to strong identifiers that are linking to data cloud driven bymeta data. The Times, for instance is embarking on moving all its data to DBpedia, which drives Wikipedia, Freebase, which is owned by Google, and GeoNames.

To date, 29,000 names have been recontextualized for a new semantic platform – a “super librarian “ –, which includes 39 percent of people (“Edgar Allen Poe”) , 31 percent of organizations, 76 percent of locations (“Park Slope”and 14 percent of descriptions. “The future is bright for librarians,” jokes Zimbalist.

Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, Google Maps and Zagat ratings and reviews.

Previously announced ILM East keynoters include Groupon Vice Chair +++ Ted Leonsis; American Express SVP of Social Media Leslie Berland; CityGrid Media CEO Jay Herratti; New York Times Research Ops VP Michael Zimbalist; and New York Magazine Digital GM Michael Silberman.

Mangtani joins Google Channel Sales BizDev Head Christine Merritt at ILM East. Merritt will provide Google’s perspective on its emergence in the local ecosystem, and the most effective way to work with Google as a partner.

The next wave of Deals is, in general, a key focus for us at ILM East, along with mobile local media, social local media, video local media, hyperlocal and locally targeted national advertising.

In addition to the keynotes from Google Offers and Groupon, we have a special Day 1 session dedicated to the next wave of deals, featuring EverSave’s Jere Doyle; Find n Save’s Christopher Tippie; Closely’s Perry Evans; and Boomtime’s Bill Bice. That session will be followed by a broader view of deals and ecommerce, which featured NextJump’s Charlie Kim; Cartera’s Jim Douglass; and Bundle.com’s Jaidev Shergill.

Other recent adds to the program include The Boston Globe’s Lisa DeSisto, who joins Boston.com VP of Digital Products Jeff Moriarty as a presenter; and MIT Sloan Associate Professor Catherine Tucker, who gives the low down on the effectiveness of local social media.

Before the show, we’re making a special trip to The Boston Globe’s R&D Lab (Limited Space, RSVP required). Or come to Andrew Shotland’s SEO for the Enterprise session, which also features SEO Expert Will Scott and Advance Digital Media VP John Denny. We’re looking forward to a great show.

Venture Capital
•David Hornik, Principal, August Capital
•Scott Maxwell, Senior Managing Director, OpenView

Mobile Local Media
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Doug McDonald, Director, dotMobi
• John Valentine, VP, East Coast, SCVNGR/LevelUp

Hyperlocal
• Merrill Brown, Principal, MMB Media
• Josh Fenton, CEO, GoLocal24
• Zohar Yardeni, CEO, Main Street Connect

Social Local Media
• Geoff Cramer, CEO, Social Made Simple
• Adam Japko, President, Digital Sherpa
• Jeff Moriarty, VP, Digital Products, Boston.com
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact

Video
• Juan Delgado, Managing Director, Americas, Perform
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications

Deals and Promotional Ecosystem
• Bill Bice, CEO, BoomTime
• Jere Doyle, President and CEO, EverSave
• Perry Evans, CEO, Closely
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave

Transactions
• Charlie Kim, CEO, NextJump
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Retail Advertising, Cartera Commerce
• Jaidev Shergill, CEO, Bundle

National/Brands
•Adam Epstein, President, AdMarketplace
•Pete Gombert,CEO, Balihoo
• Steve Sherfy, Local & Mobile Search, GroupMSearch
• Karl Siebrecht, President and CEO, AdReady

Elections 2012
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360

SMB Marketing
• Dave Galvan, President, Schedulicity
• Maria Kermath, Director, AT&T Ad Solutions
• Randy Parker, President, SMBApps
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Reply.com

Sign up now (and hint: reserve your room earlier rather than later).

Until recently, the European deal market was basically a year behind the U.S. But NimbleCommerce CEO Prashant Nedungadi argues that “they are beginning to catch up.” Nedungadi says they’ve graduated to more advanced platforms, and are more committed to driving revenue.

Some European newspaper publishers, for instance, are outpacing local Groupon and Living Social results. European consumers have also been proven to be quite similar to Americans in deal buying habits.

Nimble’s work with European local media publishers now accounts for 35 percent of its business. Nimble’s client roster includes the Sweetdeal sites for MeCom, the giant European media conglomerate with operations in The Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Sweden. MeCom has 1.2 million subscribers and 40 paid titles. Nimble also has partnerships with four of the U.K.’s five top newspaper concerns: News International, The Guardian, Trinity Mirror and Johnson Newspapers.

In general, Nedungadi reports that Nimble is profitable, grossing $100 million worth of deals last year. He is projecting a gross of $250-$300 million for 2012 – a projection enhanced today by the announcement that Nimble will power the Digital First newspapers (formerly Media News Group and Journal-Register) .

While there has been a big shakeout in the deals space, Nedungadi feels there is still new opportunity in the space. Deals are “a really important platform,” alongside coupons and other advertising, he emphasizes.

One opportunity is for smaller sites to verticalize, in part by doing deals with larger publishers. The challenge is “to get publishers to work with each other. The platform has to evolve into a network,” he says. A second opportunity is to more effectively target email addresses.

ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of do-ers and innovators that are transforming and re-defining the local space.

Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon Vice Chair/Amex Board Member/Sports team owner/AOL mastermind), along with keynotes/interviews from Jason Calacanis, Leslie Berland, Jay Herratti, Michael Zimbalist and Michael Silberman.

Other highlights of the 2 ½ day event includes a pre-conference rundown on Local search run by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide; a full plate of Top BIA/Kelsey research and forecasts; a special Venture Capital panel; and innovator panels on Social, Mobile, Deals, Video and Hyperlocal (the latter co-moderated with Merrill Brown.)

KEYNOTES/KEYNOTE DISCUSSIONS
• Ted Leonsis: Owner, Monumental Sports (Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards;) The Vice Chair of Groupon;, Board member of Amex, former Vice Chair of AOL; Author, The Business of Happiness
• Jason Calacanis: CEO, Mahalo; Investor. Calacanis’ career has been at the cutting edge of local and social media and reflects all the big trends, from his development of The Silicon Alley Reporter to Weblogs (AOL), Mahalo, and the creation of TechCrunch50 and Launch.
• Leslie Berland, Vice President, Social Strategy, American Express. Berland’s a major deal maker deeply involved in Amex’s mega FourSquare and Facebook deals.
• Jay Herratti, CEO, CityGrid Media. Herratti always gets top rankings at our events. He runs IAC’s super quad of the CityGrid Media Network, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon and InsiderPages.
• Michael Zimbalist, VP, Research Operations, New York Times Co. Zimbalist leads the NYT’s 12 person research unit. He’s deeply immersed in cutting edge social, mobile, tablet and video efforts.
• Michael Silberman, GM, New York Magazine Silberman is the mastermind of NYMag’s development of a super set of verticals catering to the “New York state of mind.”).

FEATURED SPEAKERS
• Bill Bice, CEO, SpaBoom
• Merrill Brown, co-founder. MSNBC.com, Court TV
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Cartera Commerce
• Jere Doyle, CEO, EverSave
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Adam Japko, CEO, Digital Sherpa
• Maria Kermath, Dir.,, New Tech & Sales Apps, AT&T Advertising Sales
• Mark Josephson, SVP, AOL Local
• Charlie Kim, CEO, Next Jump
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications
• Randy Parker, President, SMB Apps
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact
• Andrew Shotland, Publisher, Local SEO Guide
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Product and Corporate Marketing, Reply.com

Join hundreds of senior level local executives at ILM East for the local community’s best networking and insights. You can register here for earlier bird rates.

Internet Pioneer Ted Leonsis

For newspaper publishers and newspaper readers, iPad apps tend to be nice-to-have but not especially important. Given the choice of rich newspaper apps like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, I actually opt for the browser versions over the apps: I can see a lot more content at one glance; they’re updated more often; and they load faster.

But I’ve found that newspaper apps for “lite” newspapers much better. USA Today’s headline and short story format is perfect for the iPad. The Washington Post (not such a lite paper) has a great iPad app, too.

In early December, The San Diego Union Tribune –a truly lite newspaper but with good local news and features– also launched an iPad app. The result is vastly superior to the print and browser version of the newspaper. More than 11,000 downloads have already taken place.

The UT’s iPad launch coincides with the elevation of digital chief Mike Hodges to president and COO, and today, a rebranding of the newspaper company, which recently changed hands, to UT San Diego. The new name also does away with the dated “Sign On San Diego” city guide moniker.

An announcement on the company’s website notes that “We will now use one company name and logo on all of our media products and communications: U-T San Diego. This change marks a new era in our company’s history. It will help us unify our print and digital products under a single brand with a clear and consistent expectation of quality. SignOnSanDiego.com is now UTSanDiego.com, to match the nameplate of the newspaper and our newly released iPad app.”

Hodges, a digital real estate marketing vet prior to joining Freedom Communications and then The UT, has been responsible for several new revenue initiatives. These include a heavy emphasis on the local daily deal, bolstered by the acquisition of Discover SD, an events guide and deals platform for a younger demographic.

Hodges notes that the iPad app was specifically designed to have an entertainment orientation. “The primary time that people are looking at it is after 6 PM , when people want to lean back after dinner and watch TV. They’re often reading the App as well,” he says.

The App, designed by MindGruve Interactive, is geo-enabled for traffic and Surfline surf reports. It features a FlipBoard-like news page, along with drop down “sections” for easy access.The sections include a full graphic on the Daily Deal – it shows up very well. It also prominently highlights features that were obscured in print and on the website, including arts, photos and videos.

Notably, in an effort to keep it simple, The UT App doesn’t offer newspaper content such as comics, a television programming guide, letters to the editor, user generated content or local news – although Hodges says a major local initiative will launch in early January. Other Phase 2 items will include more in-depth, iPad-only content. It might also include more localized weather (the temperature in the San Diego region varies by as much as 15 degrees from one area to the next).

Much has been made of the iPad’s appeal for advertisers. The charter advertiser for the UT’s free phase is Cadillac. When the App goes to a premium model next quarter after an introductory period, sponsorship will be available for multiple sponsors on a premium basis.

Pricing for the App, however, is still being finalized. When it is introduced during Q1, there is likely to be an a la carte three month subscription for users who just want the App, especially those outside the San Diego area. My guess is it might be priced in the neighborhood of $5 a month. But there will also be bundles for people who want seven day delivery, or three day weekend delivery.

We’ll see whether The UT pulls the trigger on a firewall for the App. Several other publishers have announced plans to charge but haven’t done so.

ILM West is shaping up to be one of the great ones. Taking place Dec. 12-14 in downtown San Francisco, ILM West really reflects a sea change in local marketing from advertising to the new hybrid model of advertising and commerce (i.e. prepaid deals, reputation management, mobile app sales etc.).

We’ve made some big additions since our last update, starting with Google and Facebook. These add to the existing lineup, including our “rock stars” (Clear Channel CEO and industry legend Bob Pittman AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Media News Group/Journal Register CEO John Paton and Deseret Media and former Harvard Business School Professor Clark Gilbert), and major sessions on deals, offers, verticals and the whole spectrum of local trends.

We will pursue three unique angles on Google at ILM West:

1- The local efforts, under Marissa Mayer’s local team. Jeff Aguero, head of local marketing, will present on everything local, from Zagat, to Google Places, to the Big G’s new “Get Online” program for SMBs. These strategies have really developed since this summer.

2- The global reseller effort. Global Channels head Todd Rowe will engage in an in-depth conversation with BIA/Kelsey President Neal Polachek on all his efforts.

3- Google Mobile. Mobile and Local Search exec Surojit Chatterjee will provide insights into this critical area for Google as part of our All SoLoMo morning on Day 3.

We’re also going deep with Facebook at ILM West. Facebook’s new local leader Matt Idema is our afternoon keynote on Day 2, with a lot of new details and a progress report on the local and vertical strategies. On Day 1, we are also taking a special look at working with Facebook’s platform with execs from Trada, Oodle and Kenshoo Local/Social weighing in. Eager but not sure how to play with Facebook? You will be when ILM West is done.

The SoLoMo event on Day 3 itself is going to be quite the cornerstone for ILM West. Curated by the research teams from our Social Local Media and Mobile Local Media programs, SoLoMo features top line data; and indepth and fresh looks at SoLoMo implementations from leaders at Google, AT&T Interactive, Zaarly, PayPal, XAd, JiWire and AppStack (Steve Espinosa’s new project.)

You can see the full agenda here. And register here.

Remember: We are making a donation to the SF/Marin County Food Bank for all registrations that come in by Thanksgiving.

A big chunk of the newspaper industry has banded together to adopt Find n Save, a shopping platform featuring a single place to review deals, product inventory, weekly specials, “cents off” grocery deals and local ads.

Participating newspaper companies include many of the companies participating in the Yahoo search and national advertising consortia and the Zillow real estate consortia. They include Gannett, Media News Group, McClatchy, Advance, Hearst, Cox, A.H. Belo and The Washington Post. More than 200 newspaper titles are involved in all.

Find n Save was launched last year by Travidia, a newspaper services vendor that has specialized in digital conversion of circular ads as well as directory solutions. The consortia is purchasing Travidia as part of the deal.

The conversion of the multi-billion dollar newspaper circular business to the digital age has been a tough one, although potentially lucrative. Chains such as Radio Shack, Target, Frys Electronics and others have increasingly looked to spend outside of traditional newspaper channels as print circulation has declined.

Moreover, the way that shoppers look for information has dramatically changed due to the ability to search for specific products and deals on the Internet. Most online circular solutions have not been fully searchable.

Early versions of Find n Save have tried to meet these changes by offering a one stop, fully-searchable solution. The concept has been especially championed by McClatchy. As of today, the initial launch of Find n Save is live in 19 markets, and will be in 21 markets by the end of the year.

For the newspaper industry, the question has been whether to get behind Find n Save, or Gannett-owned ShopLocal, which has many national accounts and has been similarly evolving. Gannett’s participation in Find n Save suggests they will seek to form a complementary solution. Another shopping solution that may prove complementary is AP’s iCircular product, which is oriented towards mobile users and may be seen as experimental.

To lead the new company, Find n Save has recruited former Yahoo Consortium leader Chris Tippie, who tells BIA/Kelsey that the advantage of the broad consortium is that it provides a truly national footprint, which is vital for circular advertisers. “Our goal is to have a Find n Save presence in every market in the U.S. For us, it is imperative to provide consistent delivery, uniform measurement and ease of engagement across all of our affiliate markets,” he says.”National retailers have been asking for this for some time.”

Tippie also says that it is much better that a one stop shopping approach be offered, even though deals, grocery coupons, inventory and national product ads might seem like unrelated items that newspapers just happen to sell.

“It is absolutely critical,” says Tippie. “Local newspapers provide terrific service to local retailers, and they provide a variety of different products. These are revealed to local shoppers in a variety of mechanisms. This provides a single interface that is searchable and optimized.”

Tippie also emphasizes that local affiliates have a lot of leeway around such issues as sourcing local deals. “We don’t provide a daily deals product,” he notes. “We just make it better” by aggregating and optimizing them. Sacramento’s Find n Save, for instance, had been providing both Groupon deals and local newspaper deals.

One part of the shopping solution that will require more work to be fully integrated is a local retailer directory. Some newspapers are earning revenue from enhanced directory listings, including one developed by Travidia that will continue to be sold by Find n Save. These will likely to continue to be developed locally by each company.

Whether Find n Save is ultimately successful depends on a number of factors. The biggest is whether the national retailers will adopt the platform and switch their circular budgets to it. Many have been developing their own capabilities.

For McClatchy Digital head Chris Hendricks, Find n Save represents a new beginning for newspapers. “It is pushing what we want to do as an industry,” he told us. “We are working together to develop solutions that work for advertisers and consumers.” Hendricks envisions future iterations, for instance, in the tablet space.

For newspapers, the 1/3 circulation/1/3 display/1/3 classifieds revenue model of the print days hasn’t made the transition to online, and there doesn’t seem to be enough time to right the ocean liner. But as a local media channel, newspapers have been written off before their time. Newspapers, of course, remain the single largest source of local content. As analysts, we like them as a giant laboratory for online services, with hundreds of different tests in different markets.

David Carr’s must read Sunday profile on Media News Group and Journal Register Co. CEO John Paton in The New York Times showcases an industry executive as “change agent”. The profile of the ILM West Dual Keynoter (along with Deseret Media CEO Clark Gilbert) shows Paton on a mission to capture the best of the newspaper model that still works, and to abandon what does not. In his first year at Journal Register, notes Carr, Paton’s efforts boosted digital revenue by over 200 percent.

It helps that Paton hasn’t always been an ink-stained wretch (that’s what we used to call industry people). While he started in newspapers, he also worked as the leader of Canoe.com, a large news site, during the first dot-com bubble, and then invested in Hispanic media, buying El Diario La Prensa in New York and other Spanish-language properties, eventually forming (and running) impreMedia in 2003.

“Mr. Paton has become something of a darling among media thinkers for putting his business where his rhetoric is,” notes Carr. “He issued Flip cameras to all the reporters at Journal Register papers, helped create a newsroom cafe that’s open to the community in Torrington, Conn., and has been pushing to dump ancient proprietary newsroom software in favor of free, Web-based publishing tools. He has financed a lab to foster employee innovation, and the company has formed partnerships with a number of Web companies to provide news and information.”

As Carr notes, what began as a tidy little experiment has become perhaps the single biggest bet in the whole newspaper business: The Journal Register and MediaNews are now in 18 states, with over 800 print and digital products, with revenue of over $1.4 billion and 10,000 employees. The second-largest newspaper chain in America is now being run by someone who thinks that print is, if not exactly dead, dying a lot faster than anyone thought. “

Carr also note that Paton isn’t talking to himself, having added sharp tounged new media advocates (and newspaper critics) such as Emily Bell, Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen to an advisory board.

“Mr. Paton hears all sorts of clocks ticking. His newspapers are mostly owned by hedge funds and investment banks, which are not known for patience, and part of the reason that the percentage of digital revenue is rising so fast is that the print revenue that it is compared with is dropping so precipitously,” notes Carr. ”Although he is something of an evangelist, he says he is also a pragmatist.”

We’re honored that John Paton and Clark Gilbert are doing back to back keynotes at ILM West, which takes places Dec. 12-14 in San Francisco. You can register here.