Unless you become a media company in this digital world, you’ll die.
Unless you become a media company in this digital world, you’ll lose relevance.
Unless you become a media company in this digital world, you’ll lose the attention of those you wish to serve.

Linkedin purchased Lynda to become a media company. Apple+ is not a fluke. Unilever sells physical goods, yet it’s shifting its attention to digitalising its existence. Why?

Because unless you become digital centric, command attention, listen to how your customer’s needs & habits are changing and lead the narratives within your industry, you’ll die.

Without acquiring new digital assets, adding a marketplace, business pages & events, Facebook would have lost relevance by now. No business —including yours— grows by losing relevance. Relevance in a digital world must adopt a digital form and live where attention lives.

So unless you become a media company in this digital world, you’ll die. And no, four social media posts a week are not enough. As a matter of fact, just enough is never enough.

Where PayPal once lead in creative ecommerce solutions, they’re now copying  Afterpay for failure to listen to those who couldn’t afford instant full payments. They’re following, for failure to do enough.

Here’s another example. Banks. They monopolised the financial drum beat until the block chain presented an alternative. Guess who’s now trying to join the party late? Where these 2 institutions once led, they now follow.

Kodak led, then followed. Nokia led, then followed.

Big companies fail and industries get disrupted when they fail to pay attention to where attention is going.

Unless you become a media company and keep your finger on the pulse of culture, your business will eventually be left behind regardless of marketshare, size or geographical location.

Telco’s lost the monopoly on SMS when WhatsApp showed up, whether they were in India, England or South Africa. When AirBnB affected the Hotel industry in the West, Africa felt safe until it didn’t. When Uber ate taxi margins in the West, Africa felt safe until it didn’t.

It’s only a matter of time before the biggest and brightest in Africa receive their digital eviction notice from a business that’s more in touch with attention.

Now, you can choose to pretend you didn’t just read this, die in peace and become a case study, or we can get you started on the first stage to develop a media appendage than can keep your competition at bay and draw your customers close:

Quality content.