Today, United Business Media announced that it acquired the OBGYN.net website. I would have found the move interesting on its own, but combined with the company’s recent launch of a social media consulting division, DuesM, I think that the company is up to something, something good.

United Business Media (UBM) is global business media company that focuses on two principal business activities:  the distribution, targeting and monitoring of news and information from the world’s top companies, organizations and agencies through its PR Newswire division; and serving professional and commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry dealers, from farmers to pharmacists around the world with media products that integrate events, online, print and business information. UBM has more than a dozen businesses serving B2B markets.

The company is best known for PR Newswire and for its tradeshows, which include Interop, Enterprise 2.0, Internet World, and a slew of niche events such as Tissue World, Diet & Beauty Fair, HealthCare Summit, etc. With the OBGYN.net acquisition, the company will clearly continue the company’s expansion of its network of sites targeting physicians and related medical verticals, which fall into its UBM Medica division.

However, on October 14, UBM announced its launch of DeusM, a marketing organization that creates online communities for its clients. This is a particularly interesting leveraging of the company’s longstanding reputation in the marketing and public relations community via PR Newswire as well as its increasing move into virtual events and online communities. DuesM sits nicely at the intersection of these two areas of expertise.

According to an article by Direct Marketing News:

DeusM’s most basic offering is the Social Networking Amplification Program (SNAP!), which leverages existing social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. This option puts DeusM in charge of building a client’s social networking presence, developing and updating content, and seeking potential members and fans… contact DeusM … work[s] with the company to develop the marketing campaign to draw in readers, through e-mail lists supplied by the client or large-scale advertisements. The company then reaches out to writers and editors to create regular content for readers to check out and respond to.

I would suggest that any media company today give serious consideration to two key takeaways from UBM’s recent moves:

1. Based upon your core strengths, diversify, innovate, and evolve to survive. Even with two robust lines of business, the company continues to expand into virtual events and online communities to support its existing business lines and to generate new revenue streams.
2. Leverage your experience as generators of substantive content that attracts audiences and help companies do the same. As experts in these areas, media companies are uniquely poised to help organization’s master brand journalism and social marketing.