Is traditional media still traditional media after digitalization?

The ass decides the head. As a new media, it seems natural to say that traditional media can't work. Many traditional media practitioners often ridicule new media practitioners. I have worked in the traditional media for more than ten years. I have done every role related to the media, from the front line to the management, including reporter, editor, distribution, advertising, brand activities, digitalization and financing. The definition of new media has undergone earth-shaking changes in the era of mobile Internet. In this strange era, all the media are calling for the digitalization of new media, but News Corp.' s IPAD digital newspaper THE DAILY was forced to close, and the traditional media was in a state of confusion. I summarize it as three points.

First, the difficulty of mentality. As soon as the Internet was born, the hot word new media was born. The mobile Internet has swept the world, and the word "new media" that has been completely blown up by outdoor advertisements of toilet wall media has been replaced by "digital media". But it is this new word that makes many traditional media even more at a loss. It is more difficult to do the mobile Internet than the Internet. The first is that media leaders will not use the mobile Internet. New phenomena and new products emerge in an endless stream, such as mobile phone internet settings, APPSTORE downloads, ANDORID system not allowing money collection, media cooperation strategies of operators and so on. The speed of change and evolution far exceeds that of the Internet in those years. Many media leaders frankly "don't understand". The leader didn't feel it. For the new media sector, there is either a lack of clear instructions not to allocate resources, or a bunch of unrealistic indicators, which can not be achieved at all.

People from my old club, Xinhua News Agency, have often told me recently that now the club is going to talk about new media. From the speech of the president's general meeting to the brief communication of various departments, from the establishment of new media companies such as mobile video and mobile search, to unincorporated units such as domestic and international departments, Weibo and client operation are also required as the assessment contents, which shows the importance attached by the largest media organization in China to new media. In my opinion, the main reason for this sudden demand is that the sudden arrival of the mobile Internet era has once again changed the mode of communication. The traditional media, which has been trembling in the Internet age, has a more acute sense of crisis. What's more, from time to time, a global magazine like Newsweek will come from the other side of the ocean and only publish digital "horror" news without printing paper.

In China, Xinhua News Agency is still such a behemoth that all publications and institutions are self-evident. Unlike 10 years ago, when the Internet era came, various media apps appeared rapidly, much faster than self-built websites. What's more, I look forward to seeing Apple become a digital profit weapon. Learn more, think about the prosperity of mobile newspapers and wireless music in those years, and find operators who are also forced to transform faster. Some seek the full cooperation of various institutions, and some take pains to rely on themselves. Many people are really anxious in this scary and seemingly full of opportunities. After working in a hurry for a while, I found that it was not so easy to make a profit and the users were not so easy to do it.

Second, the difficulty of making profits. How and when to make a profit? This is a question that I am often asked. Many bosses are pioneers based on VIVA, and I always hope that I can give a clear answer and introduce some resources to let them take a more reliable road. Unfortunately, my answer is usually this: even if Jobs is alive, no one in the world can give this answer. Yes, the DAILY, a digital media jointly launched by News Corporation and Apple, failed as the media application with the largest number of paid subscriptions on the IPAD. As a great social magazine application, FLIPBOARD, a 20 1 1 IPAD product, has just started selling advertisements, which is far from profitable.

In China, it has been difficult to charge for digital content. No matter how dazzling the IPAD magazine is, if it is labeled as a fee, users will immediately run more than half. So far, people in the industry know that it is exaggerated by the media to publicly say that charging in Apple Store makes a lot of money. For a magazine, the monthly income of several thousand is already very high. Although the reading base of telecom operators has earned billions in reading mobile novels, the paid media content represented by mobile magazines is still unclear because it started late. For digital advertising, I am used to the traditional media that rely on layout sales, and I am confused about the sales methods and product presentation of digital advertising. The so-called media doing e-commerce is not the strength of the media. Is it called e-commerce to make things in fashion magazines into external chains? It's all imagination Everything in the magazine is taken from the public relations department of the brand, so it is difficult to integrate with the retail system of the brand. The profit model and operation model used by traditional media people suddenly became useless to digital media.

Third, the difficulty of integration. Another question I am often asked by my peers in traditional media is: If there is a digital version, will readers still buy a paper version? Should paper advertisements and digital advertisements be done together or separately? Can the existing team be converted into numbers? Can you finance investment?

What kind of relationship should traditional editing, distribution, advertising and digital media have been puzzling many media. Many people subconsciously think that there should be a brand-new team to carry out digital business. But what kind of quality this brand-new team should have is a difficult proposition to judge. Because suddenly found that the original knowledge framework is not enough. If the new media department is independent of the distribution department, the two will generally fight. The slow growth of paper distribution is often attributed to the field of new media. The idea of digital media in the distribution department is still the idea of pursuing paid circulation. This is the digital thinking of the world-renowned Conde Nast Group in China. But it obviously doesn't conform to China's national conditions. When the advertising team sells mobile phone and PAD client advertisements, it is found that advertisers usually ask for gifts, and some advertisers use CPM and CPA's effect-oriented digital advertising sales model to ask for gifts. However, the advertising sales of traditional media find that they have to make up this course again, or feel that they will lose money and are unwilling to sell at all. What the content team has been thinking about is whether it is correct to produce new content for new terminals, new people and new reading methods, and whether it will adversely affect the content of paper journals and the existing editing methods. Or should we make a smaller version of the paper media content for the Internet so as not to affect the paper media? The traditional media, which has earned a lot of money, has been suffering from the lack of imagination in future development and cannot connect with the capital market. They want to use digital transformation to strengthen the concept, but find that this model is not round.

What shall we do? My answer is: seek in exploration.

If you don't think clearly, do it. It's better to think clearly. Mobile Internet is a revolution that will change or is changing the world. Everything related to it, no one has tried. When you think before you do it, you must be behind. The basic spirit of the Internet is to explore, try and innovate. Develop in failure and win in persistence. Therefore, it is not how to do it clearly, but the mentality of doing it: openness, devotion and persistence.

In fact, the mobile Internet, like the Internet, has two profit models: charging users and charging advertisers. It is generally called forward charging and reverse charging in the wireless field. In the field of traditional media, it is actually distribution and advertising. If you use new terminals and channels, such as mobile phones and tablets, and find that readers don't pay for your digital content, it is the failure of the distribution model and switch to advertising. The reason why advertisements didn't come up is that it takes time to develop the overall scale of mobile Internet advertisements. Traditional media rely on brand advertising, but once digitized, it will be combined with the effect. Immediately transferred by advertisers to the digital department, the effect of marketing evaluation. This evaluation system is still based on the Internet. For traditional media with poor user data, the advertising turnover is really low in value. In order to quickly learn the product characteristics and promotion mode of mobile Internet, it is very important to learn new ways of realizing sales.

At today's stage, let new media become an indispensable part of your media and enhance the overall competitiveness of the media. Let your own content be visible in all channels, establish a complete and separable advertising system, inject the genes of new professional teams, and always consider new media in the decision-making of leaders. As time goes on, we will see the power of integration. As for the specific prescription, different media have different ways. I won't list them here.