For those paying attention, there are lessons to learn from United State based journalist, Simon Ateba whose mode of online journalism practice is instructive in many ways. There are opportunities for willing journalists to excel despite the digital disruption of traditional media practice.
First, you can launch your own website or blog and bring to bear on your new assignment, your experience working for traditional media as Simon Ateba started with after working in PM News for years.
Running a website is however not just a halfhearted attempt of remaining relevant, but a serious business enterprise like the big media you used to work.
If you can’t run a blog with the right content on a daily basis and promptly don’t waste your money setting up a website.
It is not copying and pasting from other websites but going after normal and premium content many are not paying attention to. You have to work harder than when you used to just write a few stories and maybe features and get paid.
Forget that you used to be a senior editorial staff and become the crack reporter you used to be if you were one. Get what sports papers used to call red hot world exclusive story or interview for your website to get the attention it deserves.
Readers want informed analysis on current issues and not just breaking stories they can get everywhere. They want information they can use to improve their standard of living. They want data-based stories with the context of what all major policies mean for their continued existence.
You need multi-media content like Simon Ateba did from the beginning and market your website as aggressively as you can offline and online. You must have a good online presence yourself to share your links.
You must know how to optimize your content to be more visible on search engines or else you will be producing content for bloggers or websites who know what this is all about.
Content is king, but if you don’t know how to tweak your content, tag the right persons, share on major platforms, use the trending keywords and hashtag and engage your readers you have a lot to learn.
You must learn website operations instead of depending on some funny website designers to upload content for you and even be able to design a website like Simon Ateba who knows how to dismantle a website you think is okay and add new plugins and many more.
If you depend too much on web designers by being the Executive Publisher, you will either pay much more than you should for basic things you can do yourself or one day lose your website if you refuse to pay. Have control of your back-end login details if you know what that means.
If you started with a website that bears your name as Simon Ateba did, you should know when to step up your game and have a more corporate name like https://todaynewsafrica.com/. To make money from website, you must know more than re-writing stories you get from other websites, you must learn from the occasional tips Simon Ateba shares about understanding hard technical issues like algorithms, Facebook advertising revenue model and Google Adsense to earn the dollars you are expecting to earn which is not coming as early as you expect it. We did at The Nation Newspaper and can confirm that our @facebook revenue is growing more than before.
More importantly, you cannot afford to hide in one corner of the world and expect to have a website that is worth your while and experience. You need be daring, dream big and to go out to the big assignments and people need to know that you are there like Simon Ateba does up to major assignments like White House, United Nations and IMF Conference.
If you make it to the assignments, you have to go for more than the routine stories and speak to the high, mighty and those on the sidelines like Simon Ateba. You must get exclusive reports and pictures like that of the governor who must have been jet lag and slept off during the UN deliberations which were one of the high points of the coverage of this year’s UN meeting by Today News Africa.
You must be ready to hold the microphone like Simon Ateba did in the photo for this post for a video recording no matter the location even if all you have done all your career is writing for a newspaper. Remember your website has the capacity for multimedia. Your text content must be accompanied with pictures, videos, infographics, maps and many more to become viral.
You don’t have to like everything about Ateba, what is important is that there are a number of things to learn from his approach to running a standard website after years of being a print journalist.
I can go and on, but will like to stop here so I don’t reveal all the lessons I have learnt from Simon Ateba which I need to be ahead of my corporate and individual competitors! now and in the future. Don’t worry if you can’t speak French like Simon Ateba that gave him the opportunity to translate for heads of states and other delegates at one of the UN sessions, master how to use English to produce various kinds of contents to attract more readers to your website.
Thanks to Google, I can end this unsolicited free of charge counsel which ordinarily I should be paid for with a French greeting. Bien joué Simon Ateba Check google like I do most times for the meaning of bien joué and thank me for teaching you an additional word in French than Bonjour which you reluctantly learnt in French class in secondary school.
