Enthusiast media, aka niche consumer, is my favorite sector because it prioritizes depth over scale, and its KPIs are different from general consumer media's chasing eyeballs for advertisers. Instead of being dumb pipes driven by vanity metrics and anecdata, they can build self-sustaining communities with deep engagement that offers diversified revenue streams, including valuable intersections for marketing partners seeking strategic, long-term relationships. In its ideal form, enthusiast media (and some B2B verticals) combines community engagement, editorial integrity, and paid content into a diversified suite of relevant products and services which simultaneously minimizes its reliance on advertising while optimizing its effectiveness for savvier marketing partners.
Tag: Social Media
Facebook Isn’t The Problem, YOU Are
Facebook doesn't view publishers as valued partners and never has, despite so many helping it grow and engage a worldwide audience, handing over tons of invaluable data along the way, not just from engagement on Facebook itself, but from their own websites too. All for free! Facebook has transformed that invaluable data into billions of dollars of advertising revenue every year while steadily throttling publishers' ability to reach their own audiences without becoming paid advertisers themselves. It's an objectively and diabolically brilliant model that I simultaneously admire and despise.
YouTube, Algorithms, and Sponsored Content
As broadcast and cable TV fragmented into hundreds of channels serving various overlapping demographics in search of the occasional mainstream hit, and streaming competitors leveraged nostalgia and cheap licenses to fund their own original mix of niche and mainstream content, YouTube was quietly "democratizing" video content the same way Blogger and WordPress did years ago, to similar effect.
What’s Good, Publishing?
For an allegedly liberal industry, publishers do a much better job of packaging and peddling the worst aspects of conservative punditry (along with celebrity memoirs and coloring books), while truth, history, and “diverse” perspectives and experiences are often dismissed as having limited commercial potential regardless of their cultural value. Many are sitting on a treasure trove of great content and access to a roster of truly creative people with timely and compelling insights and ideas that could literally change the world, but we’ll most likely just see a few anthologies cranked out to modest acclaim, with minimal marketing and zero cultural or financial impact.
Audience Insights, Content Marketing, Dumb Pipes – FOLIO: Show 2017 Takeaways
I was excited to attend my first FOLIO: Show in ages, and after a slow start that included HTC'S awkward plea for VR content and some uninspired Facebook examples, things picked up with some great presentations from National Geographic, Harvard Business Review, The Foundry, and Revmade. While I didn't come across anything particularly new, there were some solid takeaways that I found helpful and heartening.