Pondering the question as this incredible film screens again tonight.

Tagline for Stephen King’s screenplay? ‘Miracles do happen’ and on the face of it, we might just see a few yet. In time.

In a week which saw the juxtaposition of the first annual Golden Twits awards in the UK for top tweeters alongside concerns over the threat posed to British creative industries from filesharing, it seems hard to see anything miraculous evolving for many media types in the current online climate. Jobs continue to be cut, journalists continue to leave the industry, the media platforms continue to lumber forwards. Where, oh where, are the miracles?

If we follow The Green Mile, miracles arrive from the most unusual sources.A scampering mouse, a gigantic lifer on death row.

For example, the growth of digital agencies and their focus on utilising content in the development of search engine marketing: the days of putting content online for the sake of it seems to be a dying activity. The gigantic lifer on death row can be likened to traditional media operations, whilst the scampering mouse could be a social media start-up, offering hope and new revenues.

The lesson is this: miracles can happen for our hard-pressed journalists, but they have to be carefully sourced.

And for these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to be discovered, both newly-graduated journalists and experienced Hacks alike need to be adaptable, open-minded and above all, willing to accept things they cannot necessarily see evidence of.

Such as social media: it doesn’t seem to represent anything other than a time-consuming fad to many hard-nosed, traditional media types and online marketers. The ROI isn’t immediate. Bin it. Lose the platforms and re-invest in what’s been done before.

However, what these old-school diehards fail to see is that for a miracle to work, it needs nurturing. Devotion. And time.

Time to engage, grow, and excite audiences. Time to allow offers, services and products to be introduced. Time for social media channels to become the miracle opportunity which a select few organisations and individuals are starting to see presently.

In the dark? Wondering how social media can be your next content-based miracle? Thinking it’s just a waste of time?

Watch The Green Mile – the mouse has all the answers.

The proliferation of social networks represents both an opportunity and a threat to many. Therein lies the juxtaposition of ‘We know our audiences are there, but how do we engage them?’

Here are some low-cost, high-impact ways in which you can engage audiences using social media:

Community-building

Social media networks are useful for attracting, engaging and building a community of loyal audiences. This can be powerful for online communication efforts on a number of levels, including talking to existing audiences, building rapport with potential readers and advertisers, and linking them together to increase a sense of community.

Many communicators have used Facebook, with more than 300 million current users, to set up fan pages and inform their audiences of products, services, news and offers.

Product Research

Social networks are a powerful research and development tool. The collection of people mixing and exchanging news, information, spending patterns, dialogue and feedback can give you a wealth of information for current and future products and services.

This can be delivered through crowdsourcing, or direct one-to-one contact with established readerships.

Customer Service

Social networks are a powerful research and development tool. Social media networks can provide a plethora of opportunities, and without an expensive marketing research campaign behind them.

Twitter, for example, has been leveraged by a number of companies, such as Zappos, which set up an account on this social network specifically to deal with customer service queries. Their Twitter account is followed by more than 1.3 million people.

The company has 400 employees, all of whom have Twitter accounts and who contribute to the company’s Twitter feed. This has helped to bolster customer service, provide an excellent point of contact for customers, and also to act as a showpiece for the firm’s outstanding approach to servicing customers both online and offline. It has also helped to increase revenues over time.

Marketing & Promotion

One of the biggest benefits of social media networks can be the speed, ease and global efficiency with which new products and services can be launched. Routes to market, via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iTunes and blogging, can be leveraged effectively and in a timely manner.

Competitions, product launches, service initiatives, online forums and polls – there are countless ways social media networks can be utilised to add value to an audience online whilst increasing the buy-in.

Transparency

At a time when traditional advertising has less impact than at any previous point, and customers are able to voice poor service or treatment instantly across social media networks, the ability to show transparency via social media networks is a great credibility-builder.

The days of purely broadcast messaging as we know it are coming to an end.

The audience, particularly the increasingly social media-focused customer, now requires a rapid response to queries, great service, information to be readily available, and not to be sold to.

In short, transparency wins with the modern audience.

Is your social media engagement reflecting this?

Not sure, but it’s looking like the traditional PR providers are on their death knoll, according to recent reports.

Such as this article from PR Twitterati and non-traditionalist Mark Borkowski, highlighting that tools such as Sidewiki are pushing the Ab Fab brigade to the brink of extinction. Not that he cares of course – his kind of PR is contemporary.

Then there are the new breed of PRs, such as We Are Social – instigators of the Innocent Drinks Twitter feed and much, much more. I can imagine traditional PRs reading this new kind of PR delivery and quite literally crapping themselves when a client mentions the words ’social’ and ‘media’ in the same sentence. Great work, and totally audience-focused for Innocent.

Wondering what a traditional PR looks like? Check out Rubella Pymley-Bowles from Ostentacious PR for a few clues. Awful.

Let’s face it – editors are pulling sources of news and articles from a multitude of areas now, including social media channels. The availability of news, comment, and public interaction means that the Press no longer ‘relies’ on PRs to fill up empty spaces offline and online when deadlines draw nearer. That’s right, PRs – the Press don’t need you, even if newsroom numbers have been cut.

Another important fact for those buying PR is this – the “It’s who you know” argument – so often rolled out by PR firms to newly-signed clients – is less and less relevant: let’s be honest, most media contacts are shifting weekly at the moment, let alone staying put on a publication or news site online for months on end. Those days are relegated well and truly to pre-Recession.

So, the death of PR? Maybe the end of a certain type of PR. As an editor, I’m not sorry to see it go. I welcome in the new and say a goodbye to the bad old days when up-their-own-arse PRs controlled far too much content supply into the British media.

My predictions? More and more media channels will open up, leading the Press to work with fast, reliable, non-pretentious distributors of information. Contemporary PRs have nothing to fear. Old school Ab Fabs? Time for a career change, I think.

…short and simple – check this for information. Superb.

At least, according to this today.

Actually, in part I agree: many of the traditional publishers in the UK observed the coming of digital and internet-based publishing, blogs, twitter, and the numerous online innovations, instead remaining focused on the print options only.

The readerships, as consumers, have voted with their feet and mouse clicks, and more of them are migrating to free content online than ever before: the hundreds of redundant journalists across the UK lay testimony to this.

But still, in spite of overwhelming evidence indicating that newspaper management needed to engage the audience, the reader, the market, in the places they choose to get their news, what have many done? Continued observing, done nothing, introduced no innovations, given minor allowances to the digital age by copying content from print to the web…and wondering why readerships walk.

Let’s not forget one simple economic fact: when a product or service no longer serves the market, it becomes obsolete.

And so we see the current state of the British newspaper industry. They forgot to nurture the relationship with readers. And then bemoan the state of advertising and consumer interest when the paginations keep plummeting on a daily basis.

It’s all about listening to the market demands and repsonding accordingly. It looks like for some it’s too late. As we all know, when you lose their interest, readers rarely ever come back. This simple business rule applies to the publishers too.

Had an interesting meeting with Chris Brown, Editor and Founder of new regional online news site Bristol247.com yesterday.

Here’s a guy that’s got it right – for the readers, advertisers and online consumer in general. Great service and fantastic business model. Plus, a genuine, sparky, fun, professional, switched-on, and digitally-savvy commercial editor.

Not just that, but the site offers something new, refreshing and contemporary  – not just a re-hash of newsroom content, as you’ll find here. At last, an online content portal for news-hungry readers looking for objectivity, plus great advertising opportunities.

Bravo. Nice Tweeting from him too – check it out here.

And I, for one – and as an ex-Northcliffe Newspaper Group Editor – welcome the dedication, drive and determination which today sees the launch of Bristol24-7, the brainchild of ex-Western Daily Press journalist Chris Brown. Bravo.

Its mix of news, opinion, sport, business and comments offers a direct competitor to the grinding online effort rolled out some time ago by the Bristol Evening Post, which is largely a hotch-potch of editorial taken from the newsdesk journalists copy anyway.

The original and online-focused content delivered by Brown could well prove to highlight that the targeted, intense, community-based hyperlocal approach will win through after all. I wish him every success in this exciting news venture.

At least, that’s what the top brass at Journalism Online are predicting from their latest paid-content business model.

The story on the Guardian’s Digital Content Blog makes for interesting reading: not least due to the optimism, foresight and unshakeable belief the Journalism Online founders have in the model, but also in their faith in the micro-payment niche which appears to be growing in poularity amongst online publishers. This has, I think, real implications for all businesses looking to increase revenues, attention and loyalty via online content and associated offers: heck, look what it’s done for Apple.

What I am really pleased about is the simple fact it all comes back to quality content.

Certainly, judging from his inputs at the Association of Journalism Education Event recently.

The comments and insights from this veteran journalist were particularly relevant for newly-qualified and long-time hacks alike, covering politics, technology, the internet, social media and hyperlocal reporting. I found this especially pertinent:

“Start going where there aren’t many hacks, because that’s what will interest people. It’s now more possible to do that than at any other time. It’s an incredible time to be somebody who can retrieve, prioritise, order, create and write in a way that makes it irresistible to read or listen to or view.”

Not an endorsement of citizen journalism, rather a nod to the time-honoured tradition of actually uncovering News.

Wise egg, that Jon Snow…heading off to his Twitter feed now.