How Journalist Cherie Hu Is Rethinking the Worth of Digital Media With Neighborhood on the Heart

The digital media {industry} has confronted main reckonings during the last 4 months. With the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, tons of of publications have laid off a good portion of their employees. Then, because the Black Lives Matter motion resurged within the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, present and former media staff have spoken out — and high editors have resigned — over racist and sexist work tradition at firms such because the New York Occasions, Bon Appétit, Complicated, Okayplayer, and Condé Nast.

There are two themes connecting these occasions. One, many particular person writers and editors really feel undervalued for the work they’re producing relative to their friends. Two, conventional enterprise fashions for digital media — pushed by promoting, and subsequently by clicks and “eyeballs” — are proving to be outdated and woefully insufficient not only for sustaining most media firms, but in addition for ensuring proficient writers are paid their value and that readers’ must be knowledgeable are literally met.

On this tumultuous panorama, many particular person writers are understandably turning to entrepreneurship as a possible resolution — utilizing a platform comparable to Patreon to begin their very own publications the place they’ll name the photographs on their very own extra sustainable and extra equitable phrases.

As somebody who lately transitioned from making a full-time residing from freelance writing to working my very own, 100% membership-funded media enterprise on Patreon, I perceive the implications of those tectonic shifts in media on a visceral stage.

Some temporary background: From late 2015 to early 2019, I labored primarily as a standard freelance author, writing tons of of articles concerning the intersection of music and know-how for publications comparable to Billboard, Forbes, and Pitchfork. I additionally ran my very own music-tech publication underneath the identify Water & Music however didn’t make any cash from it. Slightly, it was a free means for me to get direct entry to my loyal readers and to maintain them up to date on my writing, journey plans, and ideas on music-industry traits.

It wasn’t till February 2019 that I took the leap to determine a Patreon membership to monetize Water & Music, and to form that channel right into a standalone useful resource for unique reporting and evaluation on tech and innovation traits within the music {industry}. Seeing the systemic challenges that I and lots of of my friends had confronted within the freelance writing world, I made a decision that I needed a distinct type of profession for myself — one which was funded by primarily direct reader funds, quite than by third-party commissions; that gave me full inventive management and possession over the creation, branding and pricing of my work; that supplied me extra predictable money movement; and that allowed me to experiment with totally different modes of recurring earnings.

1.5 years later, Water & Music is now a completely membership-funded, impartial media operation, and I’m making the equal of a full-time earnings due to the assist of over 700 paying members from around the globe. Not solely is my month-to-month income way more predictable than earlier than, however I’m capable of write and fee unique reporting on items that may in any other case by no means see the sunshine of day, for a extra area of interest, focused viewers. Most significantly, my readers, not advertisers or third-party publications, are actually my major clients and financiers. It is a uncommon type of relationship on the planet of leisure commerce publications, and one which I feel results in the most effective sorts of aligned incentives by way of ensuring my work is serving readers in the beginning.

To be clear, this type of work is just not straightforward. As a way to attain the milestone of 700 paying members, not to mention maintain it, I’ve to be snug appearing as the principle author, editor, writer, and neighborhood supervisor unexpectedly (a minimum of till I can begin constructing my very own staff). This sort of all-hats-on entrepreneurship is just not for everybody. However a serious good thing about being 100% membership-funded means I can develop my publication at my very own tempo, as an alternative of being externally pressured by site visitors benchmarks or 10x development expectations from venture-capital funding.

Whereas I definitely don’t have the answer to the way forward for media, there are two guiding rules which have helped me develop my very own publication to the place it’s at the moment, that I feel might assist different aspiring media entrepreneurs and editorial manufacturers wanting both to rebuild on this local weather or to begin from scratch.

The primary precept is the idea of worth as a dialog, not a top-down resolution.

Should you have a look at how worth is communicated on the fee pages for a lot of main publications, the main target tends to be solely on unique content material, and or limitless entry to content material, as the first profit. “Member-only emails.” “Unique, deeply researched guides.” “Limitless entry to all of the journalism we provide on any gadget.”

The underlying assumption right here is that the worth of a media firm comes solely from the knowledge it offers. However particularly for newer publications, this rapidly turns into a dropping recreation, for 2 causes. One, the cruel actuality is that individuals can get info from anyplace, and whether it is priceless sufficient, it should unfold rapidly past a paywall (sorry, however folks do frequently ahead “member-only” emails to their non-member mates). Two, seven out of ten U.S. adults lately stated in a Gallup survey that their belief within the media has decreased during the last decade. Misinformation is rampant in all circles of the information at the moment — political, scientific, industrial and cultural — so simply publishing an article with textual content is just not sufficient to claim your credibility; you want different, complementary mechanisms for constructing belief.

Therefore, to run a profitable editorial membership expertise that actually stands out in 2020, I feel there must be extra consideration of what sort of worth the membership can present to its readers except for only a catalog of articles. And within the age of social networking and file ranges of distrust within the media, together with readers in a dialog about what that worth seems like may be particularly impactful.

In my thoughts, the dialog round worth begins with pricing. Often, media firms don’t make the pricing of their work a dialog in any respect. As a substitute, they rope all paying customers right into a single tier, with little alternative for them to pay much less or extra relying on their monetary circumstances.

In distinction, I am impressed by music platforms like Bandcamp that implement a pay-what-you-want mannequin for music — i.e. giving followers the choice to pay as little as $zero if they can not afford something extra, or above the minimal worth in the event that they need to give further assist to an artist they significantly love. I bake this construction into my very own membership for Water & Music, with 5 totally different tiers starting from $three to $200, every providing a definite mixture of knowledge- and community-based advantages. This fashion, these with out a lot monetary wiggle room can nonetheless contribute to Water & Music in a significant means, whereas those that are keen to pay a premium have the chance to take action.

I perceive the simplicity tradeoff: Fewer tiers means fewer calculations that potential supporters must make of their heads earlier than deciding to pay, which implies decrease friction total. However I strongly imagine that my patron retention has been above common and my development has been constant thus far as a result of I provide a number of worth tiers, which implicitly turns worth right into a extra inclusive and illuminating dialog with potential members about what they’re keen to pay.

One other side of worth as a dialog is the literal dialog ingredient — i.e. facilitating the dialog round your work, not simply publishing it, as a serious supply of worth. In a world of social media, dialog arguably drives engagement and conversion to a paid media product simply as a lot as, if no more than, the product itself.

This brings me to my second tenet: Constructing a deeper neighborhood amongst readers, not simply with them.

One of many major advantages of my Water & Music membership is entry to a closed Discord server, the place members can community with one another, talk about the newest music and tech traits and provides one another suggestions on particular initiatives in a centered, off-the-record surroundings. Not like opponents comparable to Slack, Discord can host each audio- and text-based conversations natively throughout the app, which has enabled me to experiment with new codecs for neighborhood engagement comparable to weekly audio hangouts.

It is a vastly totally different setup from how the vast majority of editorial manufacturers take into consideration “neighborhood” at the moment.

Researchers will usually discuss with two totally different sorts of “neighborhood” interactions: Horizontal (extra decentralized, casual communication amongst members who deal with one another as friends) and vertical (extra hierarchical, top-down communication between a corporation, establishment or model and its viewers as an entire).

Often, media publications will solely take into consideration vertical interactions with their audiences. It is because, as mentioned above, they have a tendency to see their major worth as delivering or receiving info to and from readers, in a vertical method. Within the course of, the reader-to-reader relationship largely goes ignored. However constructing a neighborhood deliberately round a given model additionally means excited about the horizontal angle, too — i.e. about what neighborhood members will get from one another as a lot as what they may get from you. How will you empower readers with the instruments to guide their very own conversations concerning the subjects you uncover? Conducting this implies being snug with the model itself not being on the heart of the dialog 100% of the time.

For instance, I strongly imagine that as a result of my readership outnumbers me 700 to 1, my readers’ collective experience on music and tech is a number of orders of magnitude larger than what I’ll ever obtain. Therefore, I continuously ask myself: How can I spotlight the experience of my readers and make it a core a part of everybody’s membership expertise, quite than protecting the highlight simply on me? The previous is very essential within the context of an {industry} like music, the place real relationship-building and knowledge-sharing are vital property for anybody’s profession development and development. That is the place the multifaceted conversations taking place within the Discord server have been particularly priceless for members, who are sometimes exchanging actionable views and recommendation on the newest {industry} information impartial of my direct involvement.

The main rules I outlined above — treating readers as your major clients and financiers, treating worth as a dialog with these readers quite than forcing them right into a field and making horizontal community-building a core pillar of the model — has helped me construct belief and accountability into the guts of my enterprise.

On the next stage, cultivating belief must be a major purpose of any brand-new media publication at the moment. In a wholesome media ecosystem, there can be no one-size-fits-all resolution for the way that belief is cultivated throughout totally different communities of readers, however the best options can be baked immediately right into a publication’s enterprise mannequin, and develop far past simply content material for clicks as the first technology of worth.