Changing Business Models: C-Suite TV and The Value of a Strong Brand

I don’t usually do self-promotion for a company I work for, but last week Piksel launched something that I think is noteworthy.

Jeffrey Hayzlett is a well-known fixture on the business conference circuit, the author of several well-known books and the host of Bloomberg TV’s successful The C-Suite show. He’s got a powerful social media presence: 65,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Facebook fans, with more following him through his website and things like the Hayzlett Book Club.

Which is important because last week, Jeff launched his own video portal, C-Suite TV, via Piksel. It’s a place to watch all his video content: his C-Suite shows, plus a new, self-produced series called MYOB. And what’s noteworthy is that in this model, Jeff gets to keep 100% of the ad revenue he generates. That should prove to be a very lucrative business model.

The reason I listed out Hayzlett’s social media numbers is that like many businesses or celebrities these days, Jeff has a built-in marketing machine in his social media followers. He can count on them to tweet and post about his new venture. And count on his own tweets and posts reaching a significant sized audience, one that is more inclined to actually visit the site and watch the videos.

This is an exciting new business model, whereby someone with a sizable built-in audience is able to take their content, light up their own channel, do their own marketing via social media and reap a profit from the ad revenue they produce. For certain types of properties, subscription and/or transactional models also make sense, as their fans are happy to pay for the content. I suspect we’ll be seeing many more people and brands taking this route in the future, seeking out ways to make money off of content that otherwise would be sitting in a vault.