Juan Saldívar is CEO of SWStrategists( @Juan_Saldivar)
In a time of full connectivity, active collaboration, home office expansion, collapsed access costs to content and code and audience fragmentation, TV, radio, magazine, blog and web editors (or publishers) must rethink how they will train themselves and shape up to keep their jobs.
Most people among this group of professional expect to receive top management leadership and support in making a career move with frequent lectures, off site training and tradeshow participation. Truth is, all this efforts are not only not enough but media organizations will not have the time, in some cases vision, or the interest to train you, give you access to resources and knowledge of your skills (before you are fired) given that the new media model will work in a very different way in the near future.
So, if you plan to keep your job as an editor or publisher or if you have editors or publishers under your responsibility I recommend you follow these 5 survival rules (as well as producing high quality content).
1. I am aligned with the new business model vs. I challenge the obvious.
Yes, as an editor/publisher you must always think about the bottom line and how content can be produced, published and monetized. If your boss believes that you are open and helpful to permanently extracting more value from how content sources and rights are negotiated, how efficient content and campaigns can be displayed and how flexibly (and onDemand) all business variables are adjusted you are on the right track.
2. I build communities vs. only ratings, circulation or page viewers.
Reaching out to fragmented audiences will become exponentially more complicated and expensive in the coming months. So, make sure you capture as much as audience data,bi-directional opt-in followers through newsletters, promotions or services. Broadly speaking, your value will be measured by the size of our follower base. Think it of it this way. What is cheaper? to keepa friend or to make a new one? In this field I strongly recommendmultiple reading, talking and attending to loyalty, social media, social marketing and…
3. I think transmedia vs. “I love paper” or radio, TV….
Forgetting about the channel will be the most important DNA change in media moving forward. So, it becomes essential to be the first and most effective at producing and commissioning brands, or shows, magazines, articles and content that are deployed in multi media owned, syndicated and earned social media channels. I know it is complicated to argue with your boss if he can only monetize one channel or if he does not get the digital talk.
Also it may seem fruitless to do transmedia work if your organization is not rewarding you for the additional work. Truth is, people that do and push towards transmedia first will be the ones that stay the longest.
4. I am concerned with my advertiser needs and marketing budgets vs. I only sell spots on my channel.
Who do you think should plan the full deployment of your show or magazine on other platforms events, licensing, TV shows, etc.? It may well be that the editor and publisher may think of better ideas than someone from the sales team. Moreover, these ideas could likely get you a raise.
It is clear that all advertisers have assigned buckets of money based on channel reach and more and towards lead generation. Also, advertisers face channel and marketing services fragmentation, combined with an incremental opportunity and challenge to make “big data” oriented decisions in as much as possible .
So, teaming up with the revenue teams in drafting one stop shop and rich ideas will not only improve how your content product performs financially, but also improve it’s fit with the advertiser branding, selling, research or product testing needs.
5. I measure, test and adjust all the time.
Without measuring performance corporate staff cannot see, and often misjudge, what we do as publishers or editors. Also we cannot measure how successfully our brand or content is performing, adjust it accordingly and make it highly competitive. So, building a useful, and flashy if possible, dashboard within your organization and team will enable you to control your work, performance and key business indicators.
As long as you truly believe that this is part of your DNA and not something forced byyour boss… you are saved.
If you believe these tips do not apply to you because you are different…mmmm. Perhaps you should open a Bar.
Juan is the founder and CEO of SWStrategists, an advisory firm that provides critical counsel to clients in the marketing, media, entertainment and technology industries. Juan boasts over 20 years’ experience in the entertainment, consulting and e-commerce industries, as well as in the strategic development of leading interactive platforms in Mexico, the US and Germany.
