how to become a happy (german) digital publisher in 29 easy steps

Online Publishers Association, 22 June 2012

How to become a Happy (German) Digital Publisher in 29 easy steps

Jochen Wegner . jochen@wegner.io . http://wegner.io . 6/2012

1. Stop waiting for the next big thing*.

* The Web, Display, Search, Local, Social, Mobile, Tablets, Paid, girls pinning pictures

2. Embrace complexity*.

*Since there is no next big thing, you will have to deal with many small things to be successful.

3. Pick your battle*.

*Don‘t fight too much against: Google, the sheere mechanics of the internet, your users, your publishing house, other digital outlets, copyright infringers

4. Thou shalt not lie*.

*Especially in the course of the battles listed in 3.

5. Be serious about digital.

6. Fix your organization*.

*In 9 of 10 cases we see, digital business fails due to trivial organizational issues. Simply put: if there is no real digital management, there may be no serious digital business.

7. Play.

8. Fail*.

* Establish a culture of failure. Your product and IT people should have the feeling that they don‘t loose their face if they fail from time to time.

9. Be post-agile.

10. Be more product centric.

11. Think first about your journalism...

12. ...then think about content development.

13. Embrace Google. (See: 3.)

14. Do your homework. Finally.

15. Think about SEO more strategic.

16. Measure. Measure again.

17. Live social.

18. Embrace Facebook.

19. Act wisely.

20. Ignore Twitter. (Hell yes, it‘s cool.)

21. Learn to love G+. (Hell yes, it‘s ugly.)

22. Don‘t let your own community run dry.

23. Don‘t blog. Publish.

24. Your core tablet strategy shall be straight and simple.

25. Publish many apps.

26. Charge.

27. Sell a good service. Not your content.

28. Find (hybrid) subscription models.

29. Be simple and straight*.

*Especially when you think about product marketing, content models, multi platform, subscription models, payment.