The jury’s still out on web and mobile-first, social media is important, but Pinterest may be an also-ran.

A study by WoodWing Software at the end of the year shows print is alive and well, with a combination of all channels the favoured option.

The software company quizzed 125 participants between mid-December and mid-January on relevant publishing technology trends. Most came from the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

WoodWing says 59 per cent of the newspaper, magazine and corporate publishers plan a comprehensive multi-channel strategy this year. Some 22 per cent still focus on print above web and mobile.

In social media, Facebook (77 per cent), Twitter (61 per cent) and YouTube (53 per cent) clearly dominate, while the high interest in LinkedIn (32 per cent) is also noteworthy. With social media, 71 per cent want to increase brand awareness, while 42 per cent want to address new markets.

The study shows publishers, agencies and marketers realise they must address the variety of publishing channels, with only 5.6 per cent voting for web-first and 4.8 per cent for mobile-first, while 21.6 per cent vote for print as the key channel.

Social media is still dominated by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, with only 17.7 per cent planning to use Pinterest (Google+: 23.58 per cent, Instagram: 19.51 per cent), while 31.7 per cent rated Pinterest as not relevant (Google+: 18.7 per cent, Instagram: 21.5 per cent).

Some of the comments on expected trends reflect the participants’ thoughts and strategic approaches in more detail:

• Among the new models for tablet publishing, Flipboard and Zinio will succeed (corporate publisher);

• Sharing and recycling information (corporate publisher);

• Design once, publish to multiple formats (advertising agency);

• Channel-neutral authoring workflows; streamlining/improving efficiency of workflows that feed web, blog, mobile and social channels (magazine publisher);

•Shifting away from print replicated on tablets (magazine publisher);

•A combination of all possibilities – text, video, music and photo. The newsletter in magazine form (magazine publisher).

“On one hand, the results show that publishers of all kind have recognised the importance of providing their content via various channels,” says WoodWing chief executive Roel-Jan Mouw. “On the other hand, the broad variety of strategic approaches has also revealed that there is no royal road to reach the relevant audiences.

“In the light of these findings, we are pleased to see confirmation that publishing and DAM solutions should be open and flexible enough to support each and every publishing strategy and workflow.”