Two Reasons Why Publishing Is Hellish And The Solution For Brands
Everybody who works in the media knows that publishing is in a hellish state. When I got my degree in communications and media studies, we weren’t even allowed to include website citations in our essays — websites didn’t count. Only ten years later, my former classmates and I are the writers publishing on Snapchat, creating efficient AdWords campaigns, A/B testing newsletter subject lines and magically transforming data into stories that (hopefully) thousands of people will click on, share on social media, store in their memory banks and recall to purchase a new shirt someday.
It’s nuts.
It’s nuts for two reasons: first, publishing relies on advertising dollars. The level of complication that comes with pricing digital content, attracting sizeable campaigns, ensuring the campaigns perform, and retaining a client for ongoing business is monstrous. Especially when advertisers have cut their budgets altogether because they can’t decide where is best to invest. And also, why would a brand pay a media company tons of money to create and publish content when they could make it themselves, and market the content with social and paid media? Publishers and directors, and senior people in media everywhere are bending over backwards to try stave off this inevitability and their efforts are futile. It’s only been two years since tablet editions were “the thing” that would save publishing and tablet editors and designers went through the cycle of job prospecting > employment > layoff faster than most people can eat a sandwich.
The second reason that the publishing industry is in a hellish state is that nobody really knows what all this effort will equal. OK, publishing company, you’ve hired a videographer, an art director who takes nice photos for Instagram, you’ve opened up to *and are even willing to consider* native/integrated/advertorial content on your editorial channels, have a programmatic service that advertisers can buy into without speaking to a sales rep, and a custom content division for picking up the revenue slack where the traditional advertising department is falling short. Oh, and interactive maps. You have interactive maps. None of this means you’re going to win the game, but you get an E for effort.
In fact, we know who’s going to win the game: whomever commits to really interesting storytelling and then bridges that content to commerce. Everybody can play, but it’s going to be the really clever brands who win MVP (that’s my last sports analogy). When I say “brands”, I mean media brands, B2B brands and B2C brands — everyone is a player.
This article is really insightful and identifies two key qualities for every publisher to own: you can’t make shit content, distribute the shit out of it, and expect to gain an audience that trusts you. Readers are aware, connected and mutable, and they’ll go anywhere to find real, good stories. Compelling voices and your platform are assets, invest in them. Secondly, you have to build something great for someone, not everyone, and this is where I feel B2C brands may have a leg up — they already know their audience is finite. When you stop trying to reach everyone, you gain the power to communicate efficiently to the right people.
As for bridging great content to commerce, a number of clever media brands are already onto investing in the right talent: e-commerce editors — this new position is the holy grail for editors who are wondering what the hell will happen to their jobs. Gawker Media says one-third of their revenue is now coming from commerce. Hearst has hired 15 new ecommerce editors and, last year Condé Nast hired a ton of editors from Style.com (RIP) to develop VogueRunway.com, the publisher’s future commerce business. I can’t find a publishing company in Canada who is thinking about ecommerce editors yet and, trust me, I’ve asked.
The right talent for brands and publishers are people who can write, project-manage the process of making multimedia (like video), and have enough of a business mind to know commerce is at the core. It’s been a huge challenge in my career to find a publisher who will let me be a writer and a sales person at the same time. Canadian media brands don’t seem set up for e-commerce editors yet — they’re still trying to make traditional advertising work. But Canadian consumer brands like Shopify, Frank & Oak, Jenny Bird and Joe Fresh have taken huge steps in the right direction by investing in business-minded writers and their platforms.
If you have a brand or a company and are looking for a writer who keeps commerce in mind, I’d be happy to hear from you: Email Me.
Related articles:
I Need To Talk About Rachel Aust (Why Brands Need To Stop Caring About Reach)