The document discusses 5 ways to think about media in 2021. Niche media is thriving by focusing on underserved communities. Mass media has been unbundled with digital-first brands born in the last 10 years thriving by being small, agile, and adaptable. Successful media ventures start with small passionate communities. Anyone with a real audience can be considered media. While social media is a great discovery channel, platforms own the space and creators should develop their own intellectual property and platforms to directly serve their audiences and diversify revenue beyond advertising.

1. 5 Ways To Think About
Media in 2021
Hi, I’m Timi Siytangco 👋🏼
❖ Digital strategist for media brands large and small
❖ Freelance travel writer (except COVID)
❖ Founder, Foolish Careers, the community for
entrepreneurial creative pros in Asia

2. Niche media is thriving.
1 Niche does not mean small.
Niche means focused.
There are underserved communities that share your
interests, your desires, your struggles. Who is yours?

3. Mass media has been unbundled. Digital-first media brands
born in the last 5-10 years are thriving. They are small, agile
and adaptable.

4. The media ventures thriving today started
with small passionate communities.
2
Minimum viable audience:
the smallest group that can possibly
sustain your work.
Seth Godin

5. This approach scales.
Netflix:
2,000 taste
clusters
based on
communities

6. Anyone with a real audience can be media.
3 Likes
Views
Traffic

7. Audience:
Someone who will come back
to read or watch or listen
to your next creation.
Social media remains a great launchpad and discovery
channel, where you find your community, your first fans, and
they find you.
It has made it possible for a media startup or solo creator to
build a business, if not an empire.

9. But just
remember:
we are all
volunteers on
social media.
4

10. In our hearts, we imagine that our TikTok
profiles and Facebook pages are ours... And we
feel like we have a right to the space we occupy.
That is not the case. We may own some of the
things inside that space, but these homes are on
borrowed land.
Hank Green
OG YouTuber (vlogbrothers)
Co-founder, VidCon
Educational media creator
Author

11. This is what’s yours.

12. A new breed of creator tools make it easier
than ever to build your own platform

13. With your own platform, you get to serve your
audience, not the algorithm, and do so
sustainably.
5 Develop your own
intellectual property
Courses
Rights & licensing
Book deals
Merchandise
Your own products
Diversify your revenue
beyond advertising
Subscriptions
Membership
Paid events
Patronage
Affiliate fees

14. It is this alignment of incentives that makes
media thrive today.
Media can’t attract sponsorship, or charge
subscriptions, or sell tickets or things...
Without an audience who comes back
again and again and again.
Timi Siytangco
timi@foolishcareers.asia
linkedin.com/in/timisiytangco

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