Anyone in the Media Field will tell you "media" is changing. Now with fast pace technology it is getting harder and harder for media professionals and journalists to keep up.
Online Media sites and the economic recession have played a vital role in the Media Career Field. Websites offer readers the same information at any time of day and at a faster pace. Not to mention for free! People, these days, prefer the computer screen, the cell phone updates and the social media sites over the t.v. scheduled news, paper, and magazines. Advertisers are also saving money during the rough economic times by promoting their businesses through online social media sites for free. Why pay for print advertising space or t.v. air time when more people can learn about a business or product through a facebook fan page?
So what can the Media Professional do?
The most important thing to do is to find your niche! Since advertising dollars are hard to come by because of a bad economy journalism and media professionals are losing jobs simply because there aren't enough dollars to pay their paychecks. Men and women who have been in the industry for years are having to start over and even go down new career paths because it is said "Journalism is dying." The fact is Journalism is not dying, Journalism and media are evolving and we, the people in the industry have to learn to accept change and try different things to keep the industry and careers alive.
Advertising dollars are no longer enough. The daily newspapers are no longer timely enough. The televised news shows are no longer the leaders for breaking news. It is all one click away on the computer. Journalists have to find their place, but more importantly find their place where they can make a living. What does the average man and woman want these days? They want to feel connected, they want the most amount of information the fastest way possible. They don't want to flip through pages trying to find the story they want to read, they don't want to read over 500 words, they don't want to wait until 12, 6, or 10 p.m. to learn more about the shooting that took place in their neighborhood, and they don't want to wait until the next morning when the newspaper lands in their driveway to read over available jobs when they were laid off the day before.
It's time for transition. We all know what transition is like. We had to transition out of a child and into an adult, out of high school to college, school to job and paying bills, single to married to being a parent. Our whole lives are based on transition so why, as professionals, are we having such a hard time transitioning our careers from the old way of journalism to new media.
Make a place for yourself in the changing career field. Spend an extra hour before or after work researching media trends. Learn the pattern of the trends to stay one, two or three steps ahead. Be organized with your own work. Work on a blog, then connect it to your social media network. Promote your blog or your online newspaper, magazine or business' website through social media to save advertising money. Practice public relations by networking with other companies through social media. See what your competitors are doing and posting on their websites and facebook or twitter pages. Make a connection with your readers or fans by having interactive discussions. Let your readers know that you need their help to keep going. If you establish yourself online then you have made a place for yourself. That is the first step to transitioning yourself from a writer or a journalist to a multimedia guru!
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