If I were creating a blog, or a podcast, or a videoblog, and I was still thinking about how to make a living from it, I’d stop what I’m doing, and take stock. These are tough times, and the stakes are going up and up for companies gambling on a new media future. A turbulent landscape and some potential impending failures are only the start. Are you prepared?
Be a Production Company, Not a Show
If you’re doing audio or video, separate your brand from the show you’re creating. Pay attention to folks like Casey and Rudy of Galacticast using 8BitBrownie as their brand, and Steve and Zadi from JETSET using Smashface productions. There’s a reason for this. Should one of your properties do well, you might get the chance to sell it. Should it tank, you might want a platform and brand upon which to launch more shows. Structure any legal paperwork similarly. Don’t BE the show, be the production company.
Watch the Big Guys
Are people buying Internet video or are they hiring talent out of shows? Is it Amanda Congdon or Wallstrip? Pay attention by reading all kinds of blogs and other sources for more industry-facing news. You can’t just create merrily any longer, should you be interested in taking that next step up into the big leagues. (I should disclaimer this all to say that I’m writing as if you want to make a living off your media). Follow the trends, and try to react accordingly, even anticipate.
Improve Your Quality
The “gee whiz” phase of audio and video ends this year. You might have a small audience, but that’s probably all it’ll be. Produce something good, tight, well-made, that tells a story. Want bonus points? Produce something that can SLOT INTO something else. If you create cooking vignettes, consider creating them such that they could be placed inside a larger news show? Why? Because someone might be buying in that capacity, not seeking to fund your show outright.
People will buy if the material is tight, captivating, and serves a purpose. They won’t buy crap, even if you’re cute. They may buy you, but they’re not funding a show just based on your clever wit any longer.
Learn How to Work with Advertisers
If you’re still convinced that you want to run your own show and that everyone will come knock your door down, learn what advertisers want. Understand the demographics they need. Figure out (by asking other producers) what to ask for your audience. Decide what the value is, and decide if the value goes both ways. Does your audience want the products you’re being offered?
People creating media are in the business of offering their audience and their reach up for advertisers. That’s what they do. Is that the business model you want? Then learn how it’s really done. Use your library. Subscribe to Advertising blogs and newspapers. Learn the words, the way they see the world. It’s not how YOU see it.
Become a Businessperson, or Hire One
Loose deals won’t cut it any longer. If someone wants to do business with you, understand where the beginning, middle, and the end of the deal are. Otherwise, when things get really interesting later, you run the risk of getting into legal messes. I know too many creators who’ve found themselves in less-than-deisreable business deals, often because it started as a friendly agreement and then turned into real business. Cyndi Lauper said it, baby: money changes everything. Pay attention.
And if you’re not the businessperson, hire someone. Or become an employee somewhere that makes sense to your business. And read everything. EVERYTHING.
The Future of Internet Media
Blogging is still nascent to the outside world, but all the major print publications, the major TV media outlets, and several other creators of media are turning their brands more blog-focused, meaning that they’re pointing lots of professional talent at the same spaces where some of us have been toiling away happily in our amateur status. If you’re hoping to make money from your blog (at least through ads), this requires you to step up the game, improve your quality, or suffer quickly.
Podcasting in audio form still has some potential value, but with almost all traditional media sources rebroadcasting their radio properties as a podcast, the landscape is far more competitive than ever before. I can’t strongly recommend staying with an audio product, unless you have a very strong niche, and/or a strong strategy to distributing your product to a core audience (I’m writing that as a disclaimer for the Financial Aid Podcast, which doesn’t count because it has such a strong business plan of its own.)
Videoblogging is shifting fast, from a novelty to a strong category in need of strong production quality. If you want to do more than seem interesting, find your production quality, grow your niche products, and improve, improve, improve. Did I mention “improve?” Want to see a great product? Check out Crafty Nation. Produced by Jim Long and Verge New Media, I think this is a sample for what good video will look like. (I have dozens of other samples, if you ask).
Any Questions?
If you’re creating any of the above with the goal of quitting your day job and living as a new media producer, have I missed anything? Probably. I didn’t talk much about the tons of ways that B2B (business to business) could be tackled. That will come in another post for Tuesday. But what else?
What’s your take?
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Throughout the entire process, never forget that your potential audience is still learning how to navigate to this “new media”.
The biggest hurdle for most people is that they need an internet enabled device to access your content - that in itself is a major barrier for most people.
Over time, they’re getting better at it, but it does take time, patience, and understanding.
Just keep on building it, as they will come.
Firstly, thanks for the shout out!! I really admire what JETSET is doing with community. I think community is a HUGE part of this as well. All of the points you raise in this post are critical. I think the ability to evolve and grow in a shifting landscape is also vital.
Great thoughts!
Is it just me, or does it look like the game is going to get played on the old medias old terms? A lot of your very interesting thoughts and advice reminds me of the way that traditional media does business. Are we coming full circle now?
I don’t think that we are coming full circle necessarily. There are certain business rules that are tried and true. Big media have a long history of capitalizing on the obvious ways to do things. The brilliance of the new media seems to have been finding different ways to manipulate the same set of basic rules. Great product, delivered to a specific audience, for an agreed amount of money. What is so exciting about new media’s advantage is how easy it is for the smaller of us to change direction and continue to pull fast ones on the big guys. By the time they catch on, we’re over it and on to something else.
Great subject Chris!
Very smart suggestion to build a brand as a production company. My past experiences prove Chris’ points, be very careful when negotiating business deals. My addition: think twice before going into business with friends.
It’s not that people have to act like big media or follow their lead, but if you’re looking to make a living, you’d do right to see where they’re spending their money, how they see the future. Then, you can choose to either be there to catch their money, or you can find a way to get your own money that they haven’t thought of yet.
My point is, it’s no longer okay to be doing this in a bubble and hope the money falls into your lap.
Media is media, old or new.
One other strategy to potentially pursue is to splinter your own content into pieces, rather than create bite size content. For example, ever since getting an ASCAP/BMI license, the Student Loan Radio sub-set of the Financial Aid Podcast is becoming wildly popular, so I may split that off as its own product, with its own feed, so that people who just want great music can get that too - but I don’t need to do any additional work.
I think a really important shift is that it’s *not* (necessarily) going to play out on old media terms. TV has lived & died (well not yet, but) by the tonnage rule of advertising: the more tons of viewers delivered, the more $$ sucked back into the maw. I don’t think “we” are ever quite going to be able to play that game.
Build & sell (talent concept, segments, etc.) to larger media bodies is just a variation on this tune. Sure, if you can grab yourself a nice “scoop” of somehow targeted eyeballs, and bring them to the party, you become valuable to “something bigger.” BUT
I think you buried your best point:
“(Financial Aid Podcast) doesn’t count because it has such a strong business plan of its own”
The money you seek doesn’t have to come from advertising. That’s just the way the game’s been played. We wanna make truly *new* media, we gotta figure out new ways to make new media profitable. I blog because I want presentations to suck less. That would be cool. I’d be excited to make a difference. But I also blog because I think my ideas are worth money. I want people to see how my consulting is different and useful, and to taste the product, as it were. I want to be hired for seminars, and coaching, and development work. And it’s working. This is been, by far, the fastest way to get potential clients excited about what I can do for them. That’s just one way content is valuable to me.
So people, there are probably as many ways to find $$ value in your content as there are ways to do your content. Rip your brains out and stretch ‘em a bunch. Be creative. Advertising, subscription, syndication & sponsorship have been great to radio and TV, but the game doesn’t end there. This is a new game
@Michael: the key is, who are “THEY” who will come. In a world where 1 of 20 or 1 of 10 or 1 of 5 of us are also producing content, who consumes it? Who has time to dive into your stuff? And how are they valuable? And UBER-important, how is your stuff valuable to THEM, however defined?
@randell YES!
What that you do has VALUE? To whom? Start by figuring that out. Dance accordingly.
I so appreciate these postings you do Chris, essentially telling the rest of us to wake up to a time like no other, and live with a charged up spirit, bravely deciding to be part of it. Your coaching here is good for all who are in business, for like it or not, “new media” has made the A team that continues to challenge us.
You pulled me into this article with your first sub-header to be a production company and not a show, for the work metaphor it evokes is a compelling one, and in the workplace coaching I do it will be very helpful - thanks!
Thos are awesome tips, Chris. Thanks for laying it down with such clarity. Forwarding this to friends right now… a MUST read for media creators.
@Laura - yes, the “THEY” are the “other” 19, or 9, or 4.
What is simple to “us” is only simple because we have a number of years devoted to figuring such things out.
Seeing things from “their” perspective is a trick unto itself.
This is the thing: the people with the money aren’t interested in learning what we think as new media creators. They are interested in us working with them on their projects. THEY have budgets and deadlines and needs to be met. WE are the suppliers in this case. We’re not on top of this food chain. And yet, we are the new, delicious candy bar for their old vending machine. Heck, sometimes we’re the new vending machine *and* the candy bar *and* the crowd of hungry kids with a dollar in our hands.
But that’s the thing. What we are not, in this equation, are in a position to just go idly along doing our own thing.
We can either A.) figure out how to play ball with the big team, or B.) be like Penn and make our company a fortune creating something of great value.
Great stuff Chris.
I’m enjoying your Twitters.
From one (native) Bostonian to another - THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT STUFF.
Tim
Thanks for the kind words — we’re definitely watching what the big players do, and we’ve also spent some time researching the emergence of cable television in the 80’s to look for similar patterns and opportunities. History tends to repeat…
Great blog post, as always…
Actually, there are 4 ways to succeed in this emerging market:
1) Find a way to play nice with the companies who have money (i.e., creating content for paying clients).
2) Find a way to make new money for an existing comapny (i.e., Financial Aid Podcast as an extension of an existing profitable business).
3) Find a new, undiscovered, untapped niche and exploit it first.
4) Find a new, undiscovered, untapped niche and exploit it best.
You don’t have to play by “old media rules,” but if you’re not going to, you’d better be exploring, striving, taking chances, persevering and finding all the opportunities you possibly can.
Otherwise, you’re just treading water, hobbyist.
Thanks for the comment Chris! This article was very helpful.