All multimedia strategies strive to conquer as many users as possible, whom seek news and other content in the universe of social networks, which ensures a better positioning to increase the income and sustainability of the multimedia platforms.
The fact that digital media platforms earn their uprising profits through publicity ads that go after the masses and through subscribers who pay for exclusive contents, drives them to put greater efforts into strengthening their user-base.
For this, they’ve strengthened their monitoring and audience measurement tables, trying to identify the real preferences of consumption, favorite schedules, products that attract them most (be they videos, podcasts, interactive games, discussion forums or breaking news), and any other modality of “hooking” or loyalty.
Some feed themselves with what’s disseminated through social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, to reproduce or reconstruct content, while others privilege background articles, investigations and contextualized facts that help provide more information and knowledge, aiming to offer extra and valuable context to the shallow contents that flow through the torrents of these networks.
Printed newspapers that, at once, have digital media platforms, have achieved great success by focusing on the so-called intelligence products, thus getting subscribers who pay for exclusive access to these contents, causing the free information to lose relevance in the digital ecosystem.
The greatest news platforms of the United States and Europe, have registered impressive rates of increasing subscribers and revenues from advertisings, although the revenues from ads are still higher in the printed platforms than in the digital ones.
The secret lies in knowing how to balance what’s offered on both worlds, digital and printed, and in the ability to specialize the contents according to the age groups of the users and what their different social stratas demand.
An important factor is knowing how to take advantage of the strengths that mobile phones provide as first-class receivers of the contents that are disseminated digitally, as well as using the most popular technological applications to generate audiences.
Because business models have changed in the world of the press, all types of monetization and social engagement models enter the menu in this war for audiences, but the one thing that should never be lost is the golden principle that makes a high-quality journalism, which is based on the guarantee of truthful and reliable information.
That means, that this bet must focus more on the qualitative aspects than the quantitative ones, so that the latter do not degrade or endanger the former.
– Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 