The Essence of Local / Niche Publishing
What is the core asset of the media publisher?
Who are you now?
In an online roomful of media publishing innovators (the Media Data Collaborative), this question was asked.
What is the core asset of the media publisher?
The resounding answer: Trust.
If you believe this is true, this carries huge ramifications. It’s one thing to believe this. It’s entirely another to operate the organization with self-consistency, from top to bottom.
Several years ago, in a conference room full of publishers, a wise man (shout out John Palumbo at RI Monthly) asked this question:
In this age of information coming from thousands of sources besides the local publisher, who are we now?
In the years to come, this is the question that will raise and sink media empires.
You are TRUST.
You are AUTHORITY.
You are a COMMUNITY.
You are the CONNECTOR of a tribe.
You are the VOICE of your niche.
There is incredible power in this role.
The Currency of Trust Coins
I believe we are only at the beginning when it comes to trust-centric publishers.
Imagine a piggy bank.
Every time you interact with your audience and give them value, you are depositing a coin into that trust bank. A “trust coin”.
Over time, you become a trusted source, not just for news and data, but for the community. You deposit trust coins into your piggy bank.
In recent years, we’ve watched large organizations with huge deposits of trust coins. They unnecessarily take sides. They over-rely on AI to generate content. They are spending, even wasting, their trust coins.
Trust has become harder to earn and easier to maintain.
This is where the niche publisher has an opportunity like never before. To wield trust.
Wielding trust isn’t cashing in. It’s leveraging it, reminding your community of it, and continuing to compound those trust coins.
Protecting the Piggy Bank
Trust is a long-term game.
It’s easy, tempting even, to cash in on those earned trust coins. To partner with the unscrupulous advertiser, send the newsletter of questionable value, or take a stance where the motive is dollars, not trust.
But the future of niche and local publishing is trust.
Keep compounding.
Keep giving your community incredible value.
Look to the bright and hopeful future.
Protect the piggy bank.
BONUS! Trust-Builders
We asked publishers in the space what they have done in the last year that has been effective at building trust within their communities.
Here’s what they said.
In a time with rising costs, it is tempting to reduce the quality of our product to save money. For a magazine, this could mean doing things like lowering our paper quality, reducing distribution, or hiring lower-cost freelancers. Our readers (customers) trust us to deliver the quality magazine they have come to love and, by extension, trust. Every little customer-facing cut in quality sends a message, even if received unconsciously. "Death by a thousand cuts" is an enemy of trust 0 find ways to reduce cost or increase efficiency that is not customer-facing.
Laurie Laykish at LocalLife
One thing I've done this past year is leveraging my existing relationships with our current community partners to elevate our publication as the mainstay locally-owned magazine in our community. The publication landscape has drastically changed over the past year with the introduction of new publications trying to enter the space, competing publications changing ownership, etc., so I have been really reinforcing to our current partners that our commitment to the community hasn't changed, our owners haven't changed, and that I personally (part of a younger generation), hold steadfast to the commitment of building up our community. It's a reminder to partners in the community that I have not just professional stake in the game, but I am personally invested in our community, and people have really resonated with that. Word spreads fast in this area, and by reinforcing those points to the right people, we can continue to expand our network to new partners who share the same commitment that we do.
Robinson Valverde at SRQ
I don't have one thing that we do to build trust. For us, it's intrinsic because Trust is one of our Core Values. Our Core Values are written to point three ways: internal, audience and client. We look to these principles to guide us when making decisions on hiring, employee evaluations, content choices, brand positioning and more.
Logan Aguirre at 417 Magazine