Reaching out to smaller communities

Last week I wrote about next generation content creation and said that we cannot place the sole responsibility of content creation on the mass media. While not discounting the vital role they play in this area,

we have to recognise the fact that the parameters within which they frame a story are different because they have to look at a broader audience.

Nextgen content creation has to take into consideration the digital platform that content is currently moving into. When one reads a story on the web, there are certain rules or what we may call must do’s that have to be followed. For example, it would be good to hyperlink a story so that if the reader wants more information on a particular word or subject under discussion, the writer could point them in the direction to further stress his point.

I have noticed that the mainstream media, and this includes several top of the range international magazines, will not hyperlink outside their site, probably fearing that they will lose their audience (these are the constraints I alluded the mainstream media to have).

Yesterday there was an article in the Daily FT titled ‘Sri Lankan Tourism and ICC Cricket World Cup 2011: Where is the digital and social strategy?’ The writer Thanzyl Thajudeen expresses his concerns on the fact that Sri Lanka Tourism has not made use of this cricket opportunity to promote the country as a tourist destination on Twitter or Facebook.

While this seems like a valid point (if the case maybe), I have to say that from a marketing perspective, social media is still approached from the angle of how we can engage with the world at large i.e. out of Sri Lanka.

There is very little thought given to how we might use the digital platform to connect within the island – Sri Lankan to Sri Lankan. Whilst it is important to use the medium to network with the world it is also important to get our formula right in connecting with each other more effectively in the digital sense.

Considering that we are a country with a very high literacy rate (meaning that most people can read and write), what is stopping us from being digitally connected? One probable reason might be that a large part of our population either don’t have or think they don’t have the means to do this.

But even if that problem is overcome, the issue is that there isn’t enough information of any value to them, available on the digital platform.

In next generation content creation we need to look at not only making technology more accessible but making it more relevant to the user.

The value addition to technology is not only making it affordable or providing technical upgrades free of cost, but also the provision of useful information at the end of the line which will help to empower people.

The mass media does not have the time to filter information as they are content creators on a much larger scale. It is not that this type of micro content creation is not being experimented with.

I see telecom companies advertising downloads such as music, dial tones, bedtime stories and jokes along with updates from mainstream media on SMS.

But this needs to be taken several steps further and recycling mainstream media news is not what I am talking about. We need to get down to the nitty-gritty and find out what news and information is needed by the masses to attract them to the digital medium.

This in my view can only be done through providing very focussed information that is targeted particularly and exclusively at smaller and smaller communities.

A project such as this would not initially have a profitable business model and that’s why it would probably have to be taken up by the corporate sector as CSR.

(The writer, a PR consultant and head of Media360, was previously a mainstream journalist in print and electronic media. He also edits a new media website.)