Nwandu noted that the widely believed notion that people can make instant money without necessarily investing the required dose of hard/smart work before doing so is false.
Nwandu who was the former Artiste and Promotions Manager of Nigeria’s foremost Recording Company Sony Music and ex General Manager of two former Internet Service Provider Companies SIOtel Nig Ltd and Communication Trends Ltd stated this at the inaugural webinar of TheNewsGuru.com themed “Digital Media Gurus Speaks: How to monetise online media opportunities online.”
According to him,“The online platform is not an end to making money. It only provides a leverage to flourish especially for those who are willing to tap into such leverages. For me, I made my first money online two years after establishing CKN News. And that was just N5000. This was after two consecutive years of hard work in the online space,” the CKN publisher said.
Asked what the Guild of Professional Bloggers which he currently presides over is doing to curtail the excesses of fake and unverified news flying around mostly from bloggers, Nwadu said the Guild had inaugurated an Ethics committee to monitor news contents from blogging sites. He noted further that despite conscious efforts put in place by the Guild, the task of enforcing strict adherence was an issue as the number of blogging sites are well over a million.
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| L-R Lekan Otufodurin,Mideno Bayagbon,Emeka Oparah,Chris Kehinde Nwandu |
Also speaking, the editor (Online and Special Publications) of The Nation Newspapers, Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin said knowledge and creativity are prerequisites to making money online.
To make money online, he emphasized the need for people to apply knowledge and be creative.
Otufodunrin reiterated that despite the fact that the new media was here to stay, it however does not pose a threat to the existence of the print and broadcast media. He said rather, they complement each other to serve the readers better.
“The online media is here to stay and does not pose any threat to the existence of the traditional media. Rather, both arms of the media should be coordinated to serve the reading public better. Knowledge and creativity are prerequisites to making money online. You must be willing to go the extra mile to get investors’ attention. A reporter must add human interest angles to a story that broke yesterday to appeal to people to buy the papers today. People mistake the internet as a cheap source of making money. While I won’t say it is not, however, some degrees of hard and smart work are needed to succeed,” the veteran journalist said.
The Vice President Corporate Communications/CSR Director Airtel Nigeria and founder of Ethelberts, Mr. Emeka Oparah who also featured as one of the guest speakers at the event said brands across the world are always willing to invest and partner with credible, industrious and libel free media.
Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari today presented some literature on her NGO Future Assured Programme to First Lady of the Republic of Uganda, Hon. Janet Museveni who paid her a courtesy visit at the Presidential Villa.
Buhari spoke glowingly of Mrs. Museveni, who doubles as Minister of Education and Sports in her country, saying they share a common vision for women and children.
She stated that she was championing the return of community learning centres across the country to make it easy for women to acquire or continue their education, and had already commenced a Youth Education Empowerment Programme (YEEP) to train them to meet requirements for entry into tertiary institutions
He noted that despite the array of opportunities freely available online, not many are able to tap into it because they lack the basic knowledge to do so.
The Airtel boss noted that most brands look out for what they stand to benefit either on a short or long run before making any investment.
“Brands look out for credible, libel free media to partner with. You must be creative and industrious to get business engagements with these brands. No business operator will place advert or do other forms of business with a medium that is enmeshed in controversies. To be specific, you must dig deep into the activities of Airtel before you get an advert or partnership with us. You shouldn’t just think by using our press releases or coverage of the launch of a particular product, you automatically qualify for business partnerships with us. You must be willing to go the extra mile and this applies to making money online or offline too,” Opara explained.
The event which was moderated by the publisher, TheNewsGuru.com, Mr. Mideno Bayagbon also had in attendance the Group Managing Editor, TheNewsGuru.com, Mr. Jewel Dafinone, online editors of The Guardian Newspapers, Mr. Tonye Bakare; NewTelegraph, Mr. Michael Abimbola, The Sun, Ikenna Emewu and other seasoned media practitioners.
