By Osola Olaitan
Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on new media, Tolu Ogunlesi has advised traditional media in the country to take advantage of digital platforms if they want to remain relevant in the industry.
Ogunlesi who gave the advice at the on-going Social Media Week in Lagos said digital platform is shaping the taste of audience, but noted that none of the traditional media is focused on digital publishing.
He charged the traditional media, which he tagged the legacy media, to begin to explore the advantages of digital platforms, including having videos on their platform.
He noted that digital publishing takes different formats while digital platforms have varied effect with audience.
While some communities might be very in tune with Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, he said in some other communities, it could be just downloading video content and sharing it through phones.
Ogunlesi said that authors and creative minds should not be scared of their works being pirated or stolen on the digital platforms because what is most important at the initial stage is having their works in the public domain so that the audience could appreciate it.
“ It is when the audience appreciates the works that the benefits and monetisation of the works become an issue. Nobody would see and appreciate a poem or a creative work written in a book that is kept at home,” ogunlesi said.
Ogunlesi said that cost of access and speed are two key issues that are limiting the use of digital platforms in Nigeria adding that two issues will always continue to define the use of social media platforms in the country.
