The move of the Evening Standard to being (almost) entirely online is the latest reminder of how digital has disrupted media and, in a little sidebar to that carnage, created opportunities for corporate communications strategies.

Like any good revolution, this all began with seizing the means of production. For anyone to be heard at scale, it used to be that you needed to access to audiences via a TV station, a newspaper or a radio station.

And that didn’t change with the internet, not immediately.

The ability to create content online remained exclusive for the first of the WWW generation. Only those with production platforms could do it.

When Internet 2.0 arrived, things begin to change. The ability to upload content directly to video platforms (YouTube) or content management systems (WordPress) and to social media (Facebook, Twitter/X et al) all meant that those who needed a voice online could create one.

And companies and organisations did just that – creating their ‘owned’ voices which bypassed the media but replicated the online media model:

- Create content on your own platform.

- Make sure it’s top of the search pages.

- Amplify and engage around that content on social media.

The end result is measured in increased web traffic and a growing number of social media followers.

But companies don’t own their followers and they certainly don’t own search – they are vulnerable to the emerging switch to AI-driven search and to shifts in algorithms designed to push them to advertising models.

So your digital communications model needs to broaden – and to pull in your users closer through more, better digital content.

Creating digital products – especially in video, but also podcasts, newsletters and more, creates a subscriber model. One where people will swap their data in exchange for being informed and even entertained. And ownership of that data (in a GDPR -compliant way, naturally).

Moving them along the spectrum of engagement – from searching for you; to following you to subscribing to you.

So make your content search-optimised by all means. Build social media audiences, of course.

But that third option of creating content that’s good enough to create that value exchange of data-for-information needs creativity and editorial skill - it goes beyond just sending out a pdf of results every quarter.

So if you want to pull your audiences closer with content and digital products, get in touch: digital@cardewgroup.com