Teach Business Today — Issue #2

Hi there!

I hope you’re all healthy and staying safe in the trying times we are in.

Even though we are wrapping up our school years, I still plan to help you build up your resources for the upcoming groups we are lucky to teach.

I believe the following will connect with your subjects. They can be great discussion points to start a new course to shift their perspective or help them understand what is coming.

Let’s get right into it.

The Best Biz Takeaways This Week

Joe Rogan’s Spotify Deal

The battle for podcast supremacy is underway, and Spotify is trying to gain an early lead.

They’ve already made previous deals with The Ringer and Gimlet, but their most recent acquisition could be a tipping point.

Spotify purchasing the exclusivity rights to The Joe Rogan Experience gives them one of the most consumed podcasts available. If Spotify or other companies continue to battle for these rights, we could see a large divide in where we can access the information we crave.

This has been a big talking point with my students. We’ve looked at it from a few different standpoints:

• Does exclusivity rights actually give a company more value?
• What happens if the content we want to consume gets spread out to different mediums. Will we be less likely to listen to something because it’s in a different app?
• What if other industries, like movie theatre chains, did the same thing with production companies? What if a certain chain had exclusivity rights to a certain movie and it wasn’t showing in your area?

The decisions Spotify is making can have a major impact on consumer culture. It all depends on how far they want to take it.

Speaking of movie theatres…

The Future of Movie Theatres

Movie theatres are in a tough spot. Even if they can follow through with cleaning and social distancing protocols, many production companies have pushed back their release dates.

This has put movie theatre companies in a tough spot. AMC, the largest theatre chain in North America, is hemorrhaging money with no solution in the short term.

Perhaps the major tech companies are the saviour.

If companies like Netflix, Amazon, or Apple decide to purchase individual or chain movie theatres, we could see a major shift in our viewing experience.

Production companies could carry through exclusivity deals from their theatrical release to streaming.

Netflix/Amazon/Apple exclusives could get a theatre run for Academy Award consideration.

In-theatre partnerships with other brands under their ownership could happen, such as a Whole Foods-based concession stand.

When presenting this article, I had my students look at the above topics to see what kind of impact it could have on our entertainment industry. Additionally, what are the possibilities for premium memberships, such as an “all-you-can-watch” Amazon Prime membership?

This article really made my students think objectively about the future.

Has LinkedIn Lost Its Way?

I really like LinkedIn because it doesn’t feel like social media.

Because it stayed to its roots, I felt like I was part of an original group that focused on networking and business over GIFs and memes.

That is changing.

With the introduction of LinkedIn Stories, stickers, and GIFs, it has become the older person trying to act younger.

Its uniqueness had set it apart. Now it’s just one of the members of the group.

Although video is on a major rise in digital marketing, I believe LinkedIn is approaching this in the wrong way.

However, they are seeing what is succeeding on other platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat and introducing those elements.

And I believe it is mainly to introduce a younger generation to LinkedIn and keep them there.

If any of your students aren’t familiar with LinkedIn, this article gives you a number of lesson approaches. You can:

• Introduce students to the platform
• Compare and contrast the different options for social media
• Look at what makes LinkedIn unique and appealing to its current userbase
• Analyze the positives/negatives of this digital marketing move

Hearing the perspective of those who don’t use the platform would lead to some interesting discussions.

The Job of the Future is Content Creation

We are seeing huge spikes in social media use. More than ever, individuals and companies are turning towards consumer content to market their personal or professional brands.

I really like the concept of passion economy.

There are more opportunities than ever for people to monetize the things they love. If they can create it in a way that builds an audience, the opportunities are endless.

I treat this newsletter and my website as passion economy. Although I am not in it to make money, I still love building an audience to share my ideas with.

Many of our students are doing this as well. I have lost count at the number of times I’ve ruined a TikTok or an Instagram story by walking through a shot.

So instead of discouraging it, why don’t we educate them on how they can participate in the passion economy?

Showing students the opportunities they can have with a brand is important without pressuring or forcing them to do it. I encourage mine to think about personal branding, and some have seen success with it after high school.

We tell our students we are preparing them for careers that don’t exist yet, but so are they.

Students will be into this one. I promise you.

The Changing of the Guard in the Media Industry

David Perell was introduced last week but is back for good reason.

Do your students want to become better writers or online personalities?

David goes into detail on how he builds his media streams and exactly how he monetized it as well.

The power of the internet is unbelievable. Someone wanting to enter the media industry always had to work through publishers or companies. Now it can be done online to a more profitable scale.

These steps can be broken down into 10 mini lessons to teach students each step in detail.

Additionally, a lot of these skills are transferrable. I find that if students become better writers online, they also do in their other courses.

In the end, they’ll have the tools necessary to begin their own media empire.

Please leave a comment or send me an email at sean@seanhopps.com with any feedback you have.

If you enjoyed what you read and can think of others who would benefit it, I would really appreciate it if you shared it with others.

Take care! Until next week,

Sean

This newsletter was originally published on Substack at https://seanhopps.substack.com/p/teach-business-today-060120