Content Marketing

8 Ways Old Media Companies Can Avoid The Sinking Ship

Jordan Kurzweil, co-CEO of Independent Content, recently published a heated rant on TechCrunch arguing that paywalls, antiquated ad models, and sinking ship mentalities are the last things publishers should be thinking about. “Stop rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, grow a pair, and change your businesses,” he argues.

Though his solutions hardly save journalism, he does offer some excellent tips that are useful for publishers, content creators, and techies alike:

  • “Ask: If content is your conduit, what can your audience do, and what will give them more value once they have engaged with your product?”
  • “Keep your good editors. They are some of the sharpest, most creative people on the planet.”
  • “Consider your most cherished asset – content – as currency, not the end-all, be-all, but a means to an end.”
  • “Technology and content need to be seen as one and the same, each working with the other to delight and engage your users.”
  • “Consider pure-play digital products and platforms you have the brand permission to create, and that leverage your current audiences to build new ones.”
  • “Require real-time and forensic reviews of content and headline performance to teach your editors social and search engine biorhythms – so they can learn what their audience wants, and what content connects with them.”
  • “Nudge writers off the cliff into the cacophony of social media, and redefine enterprise journalism to encompass not only reportage, but also building an audience of followers, and responsibility for driving traffic to their own work product.”
  • “Be aggressive; invest in your own technology and talent – and buy what you can’t cultivate.”

Read Kurzweil’s full thoughts on TechCrunch.

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