How to be a digital media company: A primer in 5 steps
- 1. How To Be A Digital Media Company In Five Easy Steps Victor Amani A Primer for Traditional Publishers
- 2. Why change? Why now? Keeping up with the Joneses – NOT a good idea unless you’ve got cash to burn. Market pressures – fine, but what if they abate? Will you ditch your Digital switch? Transformation is possible, BUT you must pace yourself.
- 3. Why change? Why now? Traditional publishing value systems will need to change. (Q: Do you have one, what is it anyway?) Can’t slash and crash this like some sort of short-term project. Commitment. YOU Must Commit.
- 4. Step 1: So what’s the deal? Popular news brands NOT always popular on the Web. Few regular updates, long news cycles, too deep, not ‘spicey.’ Textual, monolithic content. Few visuals. Site flow – restrictive.
- 5. Step 1: Culture/Values This Is YOU Dreamers Ambitious Consensus- seekingIndecisive RestrictiveReactive Solitary Compart mentalize d / Siloed Secretive
- 6. Step 1: Culture/Values This Is The Internet Proactive Utilitarian Collaborative Quick CasualOblique (Random) Creative Dynamic/ In A Flux Open
- 7. Q: Do you see THE GAPS? What should you change?
- 8. Step 2: Check your resources How popular is your brand? How’s your network? Local journos? Deploy them to create a niche-player advantage. Goodwill: Are you trusted, credible? Is your audience willing to pay for content? Corporate buy-in: Are your corporate overlords even talking ‘Digital’? Convergence?
- 9. Q: What ELSE do you have going for you? What assets/advantages can you leverage to turn your company into a DMC?
- 10. Step 3: What you need to do Change How You Work Urgency, speed, responsive reporting as cultural values. Links to: Decentralize Upskill, Empower, Step Back, Lead From The Middle. The Web is a democracy. Everyone is an editor.
- 11. Step 3: What you need to do Share Plans, Tips, Strategy. Collaborate. Don’t be resistant. Kill the silos. Speculate To Accumulate Spend. Buy Up, Buy In, Take Risks. It’s how Big Media gets into tech.
- 12. Q: There IS a LOT more you can/ought to do, so what else?
- 13. Step 4: When? How Soon? If you’re reading this you’re probably sort of late already. So GO! Now! Macro factors: Greater access to the net (12-15% of EA online), lower data costs, cheaper connectivity (cheap smartphones, Mi-Fi, unrestricted connection sharing). Are YOU taking advantage of ALL this?
- 14. Step 5: Emergent Digital Strategy BANZAI! ATTACK RETREAT REGROUP ADAPT DEPLOY