Editor’s note: In a new, ongoing series, INMA is profiling our most engaged members — our super fans. At a time when we have less face-to-face time, we hope this gives members a chance to learn more about each other. Today we profile Niksa Gopcevic, Styria Media Group AG’s digital strategist.

As digital strategist for Styria Media Group AG, one of the important lessons Niksa Gopcevic has learned is that it’s important to study industry champions — and then find how to apply their successes to his own situation.

Leaders at Styria Media Group AG understand their users expect the company to be as good as global platforms like Facebook and Twitter, so they focus on making products geared to what readers are looking for. That focus on product and user experience has become Gopcevic’s main focus, and he “works extensively on making our product something our users would use gladly.”

When he isn’t working on improving the user experience, Gopcevic can be found taking day trips with his family traveling around the stunningly beautiful country of Austria. INMA recently caught up with him to learn more.

INMA: If you had your career to do over again, what would you want to know in the beginning?

Gopcevic: How quickly media business is going to change and how much will social media impact our business models, audience, etc.

INMA: What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning?

Gopcevic: Well, there are exciting days and there are also very boring days in our industry, but the last two years showed us all how quickly things get from business as usual to complete improvisation. This uncertainty is a good motivator to get up and go see what today is all about.

INMA: What is the craziest job or project you’ve ever done in media — and what did you learn from it?

Gopcevic: Trying to reconfigure our custom in-house built CMS to become a financial institution platform for communication with bank users. Well, let me just say, it’s much better that we stick to news media publishing! Every industry is different, regardless if they publish content.

INMA: What success within your company are you most proud of right now?

Gopcevic: Successful transformation of two of our 150-year-old print brands into what looks like (for the time being) a sustainable digital business.

INMA: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your career?

Gopcevic: One must learn constantly; things change. There are no certainties, work hard … look up to industry champions and never ever underestimate others.

INMA: What is your favourite thing to read?

Gopcevic: Business books (recently read, Post Corona From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway and An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel) or novels (e.g., Lee Child or David Baldacci).

INMA: What do you find the most challenging/interesting about the news media industry right now?

Gopcevic: How to transform our business from being dependent only on advertising into being able to have a sustainable reader revenue model accompanied by high-value ads and different services for our readers.

INMA: What are you most excited about in 2022?

Gopcevic: Hopefully an exit from the “pandemic mode” into a new reality mode: i.e., hybrid work, first-party data, challenging social media about fake news, etc.

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