#NECLive8: Nigerian Entertainers Need To Build Their Own Platforms -Tomiwa Aladekomo
Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO of Big Cabal Media, has urged Nigerian entertainers and creatives to own their own platforms.
The seasoned media practitioner, who has served in key management roles at organisations like Atlantic Records, Nigerian Breweries Plc and Ventra Media Group, stated this at the eighth edition of the Nigerian Entertainment Conference (NECLive), Nigeria’s biggest gathering of creatives and entertainment industry stakeholders, which was held on Sunday, April 25, 2021.
“Platforms are super-important in the media industry, whether it’s platforms like Spotify which allow creators to get paid, or platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter which accrue a lot of audience to themselves and become intermediaries between your relationship with the audience”, said Aladekomo. “You have to be careful with platforms because a platform like Facebook has shown us that they are happy to change the rules anytime, and so you come into the game, you start to build your audience on Facebook or Instagram, and then one day they say, ‘we are only going to show your content to only a tiny portion of the audience that you have’, and that becomes a bit tricky.
A current global trend is that more of the big platforms are looking for content from Africa, and particularly from Nigeria, so you have Netflix buying more content, you have Spotify signing up more Nigerian artists, trying to establish a presence on the continent. As creators and entertainers, you have to decide whether you want to place your bet on working with the big platforms, or whether you want to be creating your own platforms. It is very difficult to compete with a platform like Netflix or Spotify with the money they have. That being said, it’s not impossible, and sometimes, investing in technology and building your own platforms where you have your own way to reach your audience, is an important play.”
The media mogul also noted that artists looking to expand their income needed to invest in tech. In his words, “If you are an artist with a large audience, you start to think of how you can monetise the audience: how do you own the audience in a way that is different from what obtains on YouTube? There will be opportunities if you are looking at the tech industry; you can see an industry that is building a lot of ambitious and interesting platforms. The work that companies like Flutterwave and Paystack have done is that they have made it easier to collect money from their audience, payments are easier. As an entertainer, you have to think of opportunities to build things on the foundation that currently exists, so you can collect money from your audience and engage directly with them. You have to figure out if you want to rely on and work with the big global platforms to monetise your product, or if you are going to take a technology risk and attempt to build a platform that allows you to engage directly with your audience.”
To find out more about what was shared at Tomiwa Aladekomo’s power-packed session at #NECLive8, watch the video clip below:
You can still catch up on all the action, excitement, and key movements from #NECLive8. All you have to do is visit the NECLive page.
