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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post

Reflecting America: Michael Smith on putting the public back into NPR

Illustration by Rebecca Ustrell

From the narrative-changing storytelling initiative, “Driving Change From the Inside“,  a look at the DE+I movement in organizations across the country.

CHECK OUT THE FULL SERIES: Summaries, Key takeaways, and Video Highlights

One wish that I have for America is for more organizations to have the clarity of logic, depth of commitment, and force of execution happening at NPR as they address their businesses challenges and needs concerning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

In January of 2020, NPR President and CEO John Lansing made audience diversity NPR’s number one priority. Since that time, the organization has shared its progress across workplace, content, and audiences. This includes a three-year strategic plan that opens with the words “NPR must change to survive.” To get a first hand view into this progressive change agenda, I had the privilege of sitting down with the Chief Marketing Officer of NPR, Michael. The conversation that unfolded might be considered a masterclass on establishing a long term DEI strategy.

According to Michael, the business imperative for DEI is simply “believing in the strategy that to serve a more diverse America, you need to have a team of people whose life experience is more in line with the customers that you’re serving.” That sentiment is shared from NPR CEO, John Lansing down through the organization.

“NPR came out of the Great Society program of the 1960s, where the government set up the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped launch NPR and PBS. Their mission was to create media resources that weren’t being fed by the commercial media.”

Back in 1971 when NPR launched, their audience was in line with the United States. About 80% white and 20% diverse audience, similar to the country at the time. Today, their radio audience is still about 80-20, while the composition of the American population has shifted to 60-40. And, of course, the country has made a massive switch to digital in the intervening years as well. In order to get back in sync with America, NPR has been prioritizing efforts to make the network younger and more diverse. 

Michael says that NPR has a fiercely loyal audience, because their values align with those of the audience. However, he says most Americans are not even aware of NPR. “We know from research data that only 30% of all Americans have actually even heard of NPR, which is maybe surprising to people who are big fans of the brand. There’s a huge swath of America that we need to make aware of the great work that we do, and a lot of that audience are younger and more diverse people.”

As impressive as NPR’s DEI strategy and tactics are, so too is Michael Smith. The second son of  “immigrant strivers” from Jamaica as he describes, Michael was raised by a single mother, gained admission and scholarships to Stanford University. Now, he is living his childhood dream of being a leader in media and entertainment. 

“I’ve always had this feeling of being the new kid and being outside, and I think there’s something actualizing about the power of being able to have your voice heard, even if it’s not being heard in your day-to-day life. You feel like if you’re making media content, you can be heard by the world. So I think that’s what drew me to it.”

The beneficiary of an 1980s minority-focused internship program at the San Francisco Chronicle Foundation, Michael, like myself, took advantage of internship opportunities designed to address diverse pipeline issues. I benefited from a program at Viacom that still exists, which recruits and trains underrepresented media talent. Throughout our conversation, Michael offers insights from his four decades of navigating the media industry, from an intern to founding the Cooking Channel to the CMO of NPR — as a Black man.

His story is inspiring to anyone who is interested in a career path, but lacks the immediate familial access to knowledge and mentorship in that industry. His combination of hard work, curiosity, creativity and agency provides a blueprint any individual can follow to manifest their professional dreams.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation, curated to help any individual or organization seeking to adapt to societal change and create a safe space for employees of all backgrounds, orientations, races, and beliefs. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

To read the full interview and to follow the developments of “Driving Change” follow us at Curiosity Lab. 

1. Understand the business imperative 

Listen and learn:

This is NPR’s “number one priority. To really diversify our audience to better reflect and serve America. We’ve always been about making a more informed, and more culturally enriched population through our content, but we haven’t always done it. Our commitment right now is to very much reflect all of America, and put the public back into National Public Radio.” 

“It’s really one big thing, which is just believing in the strategy to serve a more diverse America. You need to have a team of people whose life experience is more in line with the customers and service users that you’re serving.”

“If you think about when a brand like NPR started in the 1970s, the country was about 80-85% white. If you think about who the listeners were, most of whom were in colleges, who were in corporations, and all kinds of institutions, it was 80-90% white. We’re at a time now where it’s really changed. For the first time in some states like California, the majority of kids who are in elementary school are of color.”

Act:

Change or risk extinction. It appears NPR sees something that many organizations are failing to prioritize. If you cannot relate to your audience, then you will eventually lose them. Our nation has become more diverse and our nation’s media (and other organizations) need to adapt to meet their audiences’ expectations and sensibilities. Once you identify the core business case for diversity, it unlocks the license to infuse DE+I goals intrinsically into your business strategy, goals, and roadmap.

2. Get educated on the headwinds BIPOC employees face

Listen and learn:

“I know from my own career, when I got out of college and business school and was working on Madison Avenue back in the ’80s at Young & Rubicam, a popular and famous agency. There were only two African-Americans, me and one other gentleman, in the entire company – account management – and they had, I think, about 800 different people in account management.” 

“One of the things that I had noticed when I was younger is that a lot of senior executives in media: If you looked at their family backgrounds, their fathers were also in media. Or they had brothers or cousins, or there were the people around the dinner table when they were 12 or 14. Their dad was reading The Wall Street Journal and talking about what was going on at work. They just had certain insights that people, especially BIPOC people, we just didn’t have.” 

“In terms of discrimination, I think that the biggest thing that I’ve faced, and I think a lot of people of color have faced, is being underestimated, undervalued and marginalized in terms of what people think your potential could be.”

Act:

In today’s job market, if you wish to foster safety and retain high potential BIPOC employees, it is unwise to ignore the effects of race and privilege. Creating lasting inclusivity requires the hard work of building trust and connection for team members to explore privilege and bias. Peer to peer storytelling can be effective when appropriately moderated and as bonds of trust in organizations are strengthened. Ongoing people-manager training, community gathering, and proactive mentorship programs can help to close the trust gap, and reduce missed opportunities between employers and underrepresented talent.

3. Make long term investments in BIPOC pipeline

Listen and learn:

“When you think about diversity and inclusion across U.S. companies, there are two things going on, and they’re both related to this question of the pipeline. One is getting more people into the pipeline. Two is once they’re in the pipeline, making sure that they actually make it through and thrive.” 

“You see, what C-Suite leaders need to do to really make diversity a reality is, first get true buy-in to why this matters. Not just the moral reason behind it, but the business imperative. Because your audience is changing and you’re gonna become a dinosaur if you don’t reflect the people you’re serving outside of your company. You gotta get buy-in at first, and then understand the nuances of the situation. It’s a combination of bringing people into your organization, but more importantly, what do you do once they’re in the organization.” 

“I give a lot of credit to, as we talk about diversity, to the San Francisco Chronicle Foundation, which is a newspaper foundation that had created a minority internship program back in the 80s. The idea was to help kids of color get exposure to the business. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I would have gotten my foot in the door at the TV station that they owned. And then that led to other internships that I got in the industry and started my career.”

Act:

Content is king and content companies are the king makers. In the cases of media and advertising, as the cost of creating content falls and new platforms for brands and storytellers emerge, the competition for all talent is increasing. In order to create long term demographic shifts, investments need to be made that recruit and support the retention of candidates over an extended period. If you aren’t investing in BIPOC talent, stand back as players from all sectors win the love of the talent and audiences that you covet.

4. Measure the impact of investment in DE+I

Listen and learn:

“We measure our social impact on how many people we reach with our content, and how much of a change we make in our society through that content. When we look at NPR historically: We had about 80% white audience, 20% diverse audience, and that was similar to the country. But if you look at us today, our radio audience is still about 80-20, and the country has changed to digital. So we realize that we’ve gotten out of sync with America, and so we’ve been re-doubling our efforts to make the network younger and more diverse.”

“We’ve had great success in podcasting, because that’s the platform that younger people really resonate with. It’s on demand. They listen on their smartphones. We found that our podcast content, whether it’s shows like How I Built This or Planet Money or Code Switch, or It’s Been a Minute, those shows actually have about a 40% to 45% people of color audience.” 

“So we see the path forward. Which is to make content and put it on the platforms where younger people are. We have another series on YouTube, which is another place where young people love to go. It’s called Tiny Desk Concerts, and it’s basically live concerts featuring a wide variety of diverse artists. And that series is bringing in young and very diverse people into the NPR fold. So we just feel like it’s about those series.” 

Act:

Numbers don’t lie, unless you want them to. For NPR, by focusing on goals of attracting a younger and more diverse audience, they were able to implement strategies that are yielding the processes and connections necessary to produce the content that appeals to their desired audience. Whether your business goal is to appeal to more consumers, employees, clients or potential partnerships, identifying the business imperative for diversity, equity and inclusion and measuring it clearly, is the most effective tactic of assuring your moral goals remain linked to your business health regardless of leadership or cultural changes.

Watch or listen to highlights of Michael Tennant’s conversation with Michael Smith

About the author

Michael Tennant is a founder, writer, and movement-builder dedicated to spreading tools of empathy and helping people find their purpose. Before founding Curiosity Lab, Tennant spent 15-years becoming a media, advertising, and nonprofit executive, and delivering award-winning marketing strategies for companies like MTV, VICE, P&G, Coca-Cola, sweetgreen, and Oatly.

Tennant founded Curiosity Lab in 2017 and created the conversation card game Actually Curious. Actually Curious became a viral sensation in 2020 during Covid-19 and the rise of the racial justice movement for helping people build meaningful connections and to tackle the important topics facing our world. 

He has channeled his business success and momentum into a sustained movement supporting BIPOC and other underrepresented communities through speaking, writing, leadership, mentorship, consulting, partnerships, and talent-pipeline programs.

Innovation

How The Texas Tribune aligns product and editorial for audience retention

As McKinsey reminds us, great products result when companies build bridges between technology innovation and audience preference. It is critical to deliver a holistic experience across functions and every stage of the customer journey. In media, aligning teams to develop data-informed products that engage audiences is more than a pathway to excellence. It’s essential for survival. 

However, it can also be expensive to support. The record number of newsroom closures in 2020 offers unsettling proof that quality content cannot be the only draw. Organizations need to combine content and experience in new ways that decrease friction, increase satisfaction, and adapt to how consumers want to interact and where they are in the journey. 

Continuing with our series of DCN video interviews, I talk to Millie Tran, chief product officer at The Texas Tribune. A local news success story, the Texas Tribune has built a sustainable business, employing more than 60 journalists through a range of revenue sources, including thousands of paying members. 

Drawing from her experience at the Tribune, as well as The New York Times and Buzzfeed, Tran shares how the Tribune aligns editorial with the back-end processes to adapt content and coverage to what most readers find most useful. She also reveals how her team harnesses audience data and innovative news modules and visualizations to drive a 2x increase in homepage views and keep readers coming back.

Watch the video or read the full transcript below.

Transcript

Peggy Anne Salz: Product is the new marketing, but it’s not a new focus. It is gaining new significance as content companies’ perfect ways to draw from their data, to customize content and measure the results. But what are the business benefits? How can you individualize flagship products to drive views and longer sessions?  How should you focus efforts and investments? Tough questions, yes, but we get the inside track here today from The Texas Tribune on Digital Content Next.

I am your host, Peggy Anne Salz, mobile analyst, content marketing consultant and frequent contributor to Digital Content Next.  Of course, DCN is a trade association serving the diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies globally.

So my guest today is the chief product officer of The Texas Tribune. So it is a perfect match with our topic. That is where she leads audience, engineering, data, design, marketing, and communications and loyalty teams.  Before this, she was deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times and before that global growth editor.

I am so excited to have her here today to talk about how she creates a holistic and successful product. Millie Tran, welcome to Digital Content Next. Great to have you here.

Millie Tran: Thanks for having me Peggy. I am excited to talk.

Peggy: It is a great topic. Product is so important, and I would like to start by understanding the alignment between product and the newsroom.

So, just thinking about your day-to-day routines, strategically and in practice, what does that look like?

Tran: I love this question. You know product can feel really opaque.  I think traditionally we think of product as sitting in the center. But at a news organization, the news is the product.

So that alignment between product and the newsroom really manifests in the alignment with me and our editorial director Stacy-Marie Ishmael.  I would say we are constantly in communication. And one of our core functions in each of our roles is just making decisions, making a call under conditions of uncertainty, conflict, complexity and increasing and sometimes unknown interdependencies.

We make a decision over here it can affect two things over there. And we are in a process of constantly anticipating those downstream effects so we can make the smartest decision based on our strategy.  The balance between editorial decisions, product decisions and revenue decisions.

How I see my job.  I think it is a mix of people, process and product. And I think it has to be in that order. It has to be that you understand people, their roles, their jobs, their skills, to work together most efficiently and effectively to build that product.  

Salz: I love that because first of all you have people first, that resonates with me and you are thinking about not just the output, not just the articles, videos, podcasts, whatever it needs to be.  You are focused on an experience. What you yourself have called a more holistic product. I would like to understand what you mean by that. I think you have also tweeted about that as well.

Tran: Probably. Speaking of tweets, I was just reminded of this tweet that Margaret Sullivan shared the other day about how she is a big fan and supporter of local news.  But the websites are so horrendous, and I think that neatly ties up with what you are asking. Holistic to me means the whole experience.  All of those things you mentioned, those modules, articles, videos, podcasts. There are micro experiences to each of those things, but all of those add up to the overall user experience.

When I say holistic user experience, I also mean not just the engineering, not just the CMS, it is also the design.  It is also the way we write headlines, for example. So it is organizationally something we want to provide our users.  I know even the ads we consider putting on our website, are not random ads that are offensive and distracting to the journalism.  If you go to our website, you will see right now the ads are very relevant to someone interested in Texas, for example.

Salz: That is very important because relevancy, as you said, it is the entire experience, and it has to fit together. What are the systems I am even interacting with or working with in the first place? It goes far beyond CMS is what I’m hearing.

Tran: It is, and I would say we have a great tech setup here, our CMS is homemade, so that is our engineering team’s biggest product, and that powers our website.  We have our data visuals team who are doing one off projects that we can test and learn from.

So we have a way to experiment with new products and a nice process to build it into the broader systems to make it easier. It is this nice feedback loop of experimenting, learning, and then integrating it into how we just do our work.

So our journalists and editors can also make these things easily because that also informs the work product at the end.

Salz: I want to get back to the whole idea of delivering a product, a product is the new marketing. We said that at the top and it is a success when it either acquires audiences or deepens the connection with existing ones. What is it at The Texas Tribune? What is your audience approach? Is it acquisition or retention or maybe, something else?

Tran: That is a great question.  I think it has to be both acquisition and retention.

One of our big strategic priorities right now is double and diversify.  Doubling our audience and making our audience reflect Texas, be more representative of Texas.

I often think about our membership. We want to grow the number of people who are supporting us through small dollar donations. The way to increase the members is to either have more people come to your site and then you have this natural conversion flow.

A percentage of our total readers are members so there is this natural conversion flow already. So you get more members by increasing the number of people who come to you or you increase the effectiveness of converting them.  So at every point, do they come back, do they potentially sign up for a newsletter? We have seen that newsletters are our most effective channel in membership conversion. So: getting a reader to donate to us.  I think it is about putting both of those things into a framework that helps you understand the costs and benefits of each at every point.

So, I think it is about having all the data, putting it in a model and framework that helps you balance all of these things.  I don’t think you can just choose one or the other. Having that broad view will help you make better decisions.

I said that is a quantitative framework and to loop back to what you said about product is the new marketing. I think people subscribe to things. They support organizations, they support brands for reasons that we can’t always quantify.  It is really important also to understand the emotional connection that someone has to your product and your organization, your brand.

I think in addition to having that quantitative framework, you need a way to understand why people are supporting you.  I think that goes back to an organization’s mission and values.

Something that I am really proud that we do is have our journalism free to publish for kind of any news organization.

When you support us, you support Texas overall having a better news ecosystem.  I think people, that resonates with people. I think understanding that resonates with people is really important, even if you cannot quantify it in that model I just talked about. To your question it is balancing the acquisition and retention, but also balancing the measurables and immeasurables.

Salz: I like that because that is exactly it, it is very holistic. It is about looking at what you can measure, and we will talk about that in a moment.

There are events, there are metrics, there are things you want to optimize too, but you also want to optimize the experience. That is thinking about the people, the audience, what resonates with them, what did they appreciate?

Now I would love for you to unpack that. Maybe you can give an example, walk us through the homepage because that is where the conversions happen.  That is where the conversations happen.

Tran: Yes, so let me just pull up my homepage for you. This is The Texas Tribune homepage. There are two things on here already that I can talk through that we just launched within the past year during my time at the Tribune.

So this navbar is something we launched and what you’re seeing here, by the way, these little green numbers are live audience data. We use Parse.ly for this so we can see in the last 10 minutes or whatever time period, what people are clicking on. We can see what is of interest, what is resonating with people, that will inform, not necessarily decide, what we choose to feature.

Going back to what I was saying, about our two teams, the data visuals team, which is in the newsroom and then the engineering team.  This navbar was code that was in a previous, I think it was in an election page, a way for us to highlight different topics on that page. We ended up pulling that code and the engineering team made it a part of our core CMS.

So we took something that was a one-off, we learned about how people used it and then saw a need for it.  There are so many coronavirus stories that we did not know how to surface all the different lines and angles. We knew that we had the code. We took it and then the engineering team built that feature into our CMS. Now editors can just choose their own topics each day and highlight the most important.  I think that is a great example of the culture of experimentation, it is a culture of learning and iterating.

When the most people are on our homepage, we want to optimize for the most important things that they should see.

That was one quick way that we did that. Another way is this coronavirus in Texas model you will see here.

I think the beauty in all of this again, is the flexibility and adaptability. It’s actually not a coronavirus in Texas model.  It is a model to feature any kind of series that we choose.

You can imagine this not being here. If you are scrolling through, it would take so long to see all the relevant stories in one place. This in itself is such a great product because it does a lot of things. It gives you the latest coverage in a very skimmable way.  So you are not having to scroll so deep because most people don’t, and again, that is understanding the audience behavior and making it a better product, given that information.  We also have feature coverage, so it is not just chronological, it is our editorial priorities.

I talked about newsletter subscribers and having that module there is really important to us because if we can get people to subscribe to our newsletters, they can become part of our email universe and therefore eventually hopefully become a member.

Salz: Absolutely. You can re-engage with them and talking about engagement you have some other modules that you were showing me in prep that I was very interested in. How you turned a news story into a module. Can you walk me through that as well?

Tran: Yes, absolutely.  This is a story that we did, late last year about how Texas has made it easier and harder for people to vote in the pandemic.

You will see if you notice the order here.  This was not the original order and what we did was make sure that we were tracking what people were clicking on, so we can get a sense of what people needed to know most.  We ended up moving that question about when was the last day to register to vote first.  And again, I think that’s just being responsive to reader needs, working with our newsroom, working with our engineering team, working with our data visuals team to really have an integrated news driven, but reader informed product. And you’ll also see here there’s fiscal support, right?

So April Hinkle who’s our chief revenue officer was able to take it to market and get funding for it.  Again, this is just one way that we really tied in, the newsroom, product and revenue.

Salz: You more than doubled your views to the homepage in just one month.

So you went from 400,000 in February to more than a million in March, obviously breaking news, very important. We’re all talking about COVID, but that number is also consistent. So you keep them coming back.  We talked about how that works when there’s news, breaking news, but of course it’s not a static world out there.

So I’d like to understand how you adjust to make the changes in the editorial product accordingly to keep that number as high as it is.

Tran: We found that our readers who visit the homepage are just also more engaged with us, right? They’re more loyal. They visit an average of 2.3 pages versus 1.4 of all visitors on site. They stay on the site for longer to 2 minutes, 45 seconds compared to 1 minute and 10 seconds for all visitors.

So they are more engaged. They’re reading more, they’re staying longer. So I really want to retain this audience. If this goes down, that would be a huge red flag to me because there are people who have come to, I would say, depend on us.

So I think it’s one, meeting that editorial promise and mission.  And then two, it’s about making that experience better. And that’s all the things we talked through about making the homepage, you get more information in one glance, it’s fast. Speed matters in page loads.

And going back to your very first question about alignment between news and products, that’s one way to bring together that news promise and also making the best product experience for that person looking for information.

Salz: Of course, there’s another side to this. There are the challenges, you see it everywhere. Local newsrooms are crunched, even closing down. I’d like to have an understanding about the investment and staffing necessary to achieve what you’ve been able to do.

Tran: I’ll always say that it begins like starts and ends with the journalism, but I think just as important is having the kind of architecture and infrastructure to support that journalism.

So I think it’s really important to invest just as much in the scaffolding around the journalism to enable that journalism, with a continued focus on the reader and I think it’s important to say also the revenue.

And in terms of investment, we’re hiring two people right now for our marketing team because that marketing function actually serves several parts of the organization.

It serves our republishing strategy. It serves our event strategy, which has a direct line to revenue. And it serves our membership strategy, which has a line to revenue.  Thinking about all the things that make things you see at the back end possible is really important. So that’s where we’re focusing our investments for this year.

Salz: I’d like to just think about going forward in a different way. You talk about holistic product and I’m looking at this all the time, what is the next big thing? Although I have to say we have a lot of work to do on the existing products we have.

We haven’t really nailed it in apps, but we are talking about AR, we are talking about voice, both are poised for explosive growth.

So let’s talk about what other innovations you might be looking at or ways you want to make your product or plan to make your product more engaging, more accessible, and increase of course engagement retention in the process. What’s on the horizon?

Tran: You mentioned AR, that’s definitely not in my roadmap.  But voice on the other hand, that is more plausible.

With voice for example we have a pretty robust suite of audio products already. We just rebooted Point of Order which is our podcast with our CEO, Evan Smith ahead of The Texas Legislature being in session again. So I think it’s about aligning what we have currently to build off on and then really sizing the opportunity for us. Again, I’m really laser focused on understanding the ROI of every investment, predicting and modeling the outcomes of that. And I think in doing that you’re balancing high risk with high reward.  And I think not everything will fall into that. But you also don’t want to limit yourself in not taking those risks. So anyway, to your actual question… I’m thinking about all of it and hoping that we can make the smartest decisions that aligns with our strategy, with the information we have.

Salz: I think you will, because of course you have these very specific guidelines. You’re thinking about people, you’re thinking about process, and you’re aligning to create a holistic experience. Some of these will play a role. Some of them, of course, maybe not. But all of it will be very interesting to watch as it goes forward.

Thank you so much for sharing Millie, for speaking about what you’re doing at The Texas Tribune, showing it as well in your homepage and giving us a little peek into where your thinking is going into the future. Thanks again for being on.

Tran: Thank you so much Peggy. This was great.

Salz: Thank you. And of course, thank you for tuning in and taking the time today. In the meantime, of course, be sure to check out all the great content here on digitalcontentnext.org or join the conversation on Twitter @DCNorg.

So until next time, I’m your host Peggy Anne Salz signing off for Digital Content Next.

Industry-Research

Publishers prepare for 2020 with technology investments

Digital publishers see rays of hope as they continue to monetize premium content, transform business strategies, maximize technology investments, and increase revenue diversification. Just over two-thirds (69%) of digital publishers expect to see an overall revenue growth in 2020 according to a new report, Publishers Bullish on Talent, Tech and Growth in 2020, from Folio. Of those publishers expecting revenue growth, a quarter anticipate double digits. Only 4% of participants expect revenues to decline. This research is based on 182 surveyed industry professionals accompanied by eight in-depth executive interviews.

Growth expectations

Respondents report the top three categories for revenue growth are digital advertising including branded content (58%), live events (43%), and marketing services (38%). In addition to revenue growth, audience growth is also expected in 2020. Twenty-eight percent of publishers expect a 10% growth in audience while more than one-third (36%) expect single-digit growth. 

Audience development is more than just chasing clicks on digital platforms. It’s about learning your business ecosystem and how the pieces work together. Executives cite email (54%), social media (53%), and events (44%) as the strongest performers for audience development. 

2020 priorities

Publishers recognize the need to invest in the video side (35%) of their business as well as back end technology and operation systems (34%) for content management and advertising businesses. Publishers, especially traditional magazine businesses, see video as a very lucrative way to reinvent their content strategy and distribution model with attractive advertising packages at high CPMs.

Executive interviews

Catherine Levene, President, Chief Digital Officer of Meredith Corporation, participated in Folio’s executive interviews. Meredith charted its course in preparation for 2020. Levene said Meredith is keenly focused is on innovation. This includes technology investments, including a new content management system and a first-party data and insights platform.

She also mentioned Meredith’s investments in video production and distribution and new content-to-commerce capabilities. Levene sees a win-win for their audience and advertisers, “We are creating content and experiences that drive engagement and are offering predictive advertising that achieves results for our marketing partners.”

Erin O’Mara, President of The Nation, also participated in the executive interviews. O’Mara described the digital business as more than just a website, it’s about super-serving the audience. A new initiative, “The Nation Classroom,” uses their archives to create robust teaching modules for high school student. The goal for this project is to be profitable as well as to make available to schools that cannot afford it. O’Mara see this initiative as an important step to extend a brand experience through community outreach.

As Folio’s research suggests, there is no time digital media brands to standstill. It’s essential for media companies to take the steps to identify the key business and audience strategies and investment in them.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Mobile aggregators: The opportunity for referral traffic we’re not talking about

Referral traffic to content has risen in recent years due in part to a largely unknown channel — mobile-first aggregators. Here’s what we know about mobile aggregators, why they matter, and importantly, their growing influence over reader traffic.

What is the mobile aggregators story?

Mobile-first aggregators present a growth story — the referral traffic they send to publishers has doubled in the past two years. A significant portion of this growth is driven by Google Chrome Suggestions and Google News, which each grew more than 50% this year (and drives significantly larger shares of referral traffic than Twitter).

The field of global mobile aggregators is also growing. Tokyo-based SmartNews and China-based news aggregator TopBuzz have shown rapid expansion, driving an increasing amount of traffic to sites. More importantly, their growth has changed the traffic landscape. Smartnews and TopBuzz are both now sending as much traffic as Yahoo.

Why content creators should pay attention to mobile aggregators

Digital-first organizations are still in the early stages of understanding the primary drivers of subscriptions. However, effective strategies rely on identifying the behaviors content creators can (and want to) encourage that will ultimately lead to more reader revenue.

From our research thus far, publishers have had far  less success in converting readers from mobile-first aggregators compared to more traditional channels such as email. Connecting the dots is crucial.

Therefore, a deeper understanding of mobile-first aggregators can open up a whole new level of engagement, and by extension, a new reader revenue channel.

Next steps: Demystifying mobile aggregators

Based on what we currently know about mobile aggregators, here’s what content creators  should keep in mind:

Strategize around these new mobile referral sources

Overall, we see the mobile-first aggregators as more of a missed opportunity than an unsolvable problem. We believe content creators can take advantage of this mostly untapped source of traffic by understanding their unique impact and optimizing content accordingly.

Audience development tactics are needed

For too long, mobile-first aggregators have been categorized as a subset of the larger platforms (i.e., Google search) we know well. However, we believe they should be seen as their own channel, which would get publishers closer to segmenting (and therefore optimizing) key drivers of traffic.

It’s all about attribution

Segmentation of traffic leads to better attribution. The ability to uncover mobile aggregator-specific patterns and better track their impact. Moreover, it can clear the path towards leveraging the channel for higher engagement, loyalty, and conversions.

Our data shows that the growth of mobile-first aggregators has significantly upended the traffic source landscape. Publishers would be remiss to take this shift lightly, as they may be missing out on a major source of referral traffic in the long-term.

This also coincides with a trend we’ve long seen — the fact that mobile-first readers are demanding better experiences. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that aggregators have become this increasingly influential source of traffic.

Advertising | Perspectives

How publishers are rethinking audience in a user-first world

On September 25, Vox Media acquired New York Media — the company behind my former employer, New York Magazine. Vice Media acquired Refinery29 on October 2. And five days after that, news broke that digital media company Group Nine had reached an agreement to acquire publisher PopSugar.

The long-expected digital consolidation is finally upon us. Media companies, it’s clear, are looking to survive by getting bigger in an effort to increase revenue and better compete by way of sheer scale. By expanding their audiences, they hope they’ll be able to build a more sustainable revenue model.

But is that necessarily true?

There’s nothing wrong with chasing scale or growing your business through intelligent mergers. (Piano recently took that route too, acquiring Cxense.) However, for media companies, growing overall audience doesn’t necessarily mean increased engagement or enhanced revenue. Not unless a critical percentage of that audience is made up of loyal users.

Identifying (and keeping) loyal users 

At Piano, we often define “core audience” as those users who view at least 10 pages a month. If 5% of your audience or higher visits that often, that’s solid performance. However, if that number falls below 2%, there’s work to be done to drive deeper engagement and grow that share.

Building your core audience — and their engagement — is key to reaching your overall audience and revenue goals. And that starts with putting users at the center of your site experience. The media companies that Piano works with — companies that have made reader revenue the centerpiece of their businesses — understand that better than most. After all, they’ve realized that they need to build relationships if they expect users to pay.

So, what lessons can digital media companies learn from leaders in subscriptions? And what other opportunity does a user-first digital landscape present?

Understanding what your audience values

What do your most loyal users read or watch on your site? Which topics resonate with them most? Are their preferences different than those of mass, one-off users? 

A successful user-first strategy starts with knowing how your site’s core audience behaves and understanding what users are looking for when they get there. Both are key factors that contribute to subscription conversion, and audience data like this plays a large part in driving strategy. However, while data explains a lot, our customers find that talking to users is just as important. 

Asking users what they value about your content, website and brand, either through surveys or one-on-one interviews (ideally both) can give you an idea of unmet needs and what you could be doing that you aren’t yet. It helps develop an understanding on how they see you compared to a competitor and recognize the opportunity in those differences. And as you work to understand your users, you may begin to identify different segments of your core audience — along with the different content habits, demographics and benefits they gain from your brand. 

And that’s the kind of information that’s critical to the next step of building a user-first strategy: defining the customer journey.

Defining the customer journey

At Piano, we’ve developed a model for the customer journey that can be applied to both media and other types of business. It helps define the milestones of increasing user engagement and key conversions you want to drive along the way. This is what it looks like:

Of course, these generalized milestones are applied differently from brand to brand. Business Insider and The Daily Beast, for example, both use registration as a sampling tool. They offer temporary access to premium articles in exchange for registration. In that case the Known stage of the customer journey becomes an important milestone, with a set of specific tactics employed to target active users who might not be ready to subscribe, encouraging them to register and experience paid features.

That highlights another essential element of this approach: considering the “next best action” you want your users to take to move them from one step of the customer journey to the next, then using small nudges, “micro-experiences,” to move them along that path.

In a user-first world, building deeper user engagement means considering the value exchange between the user and business. What action do you want the user to take? What’s the benefit to them? What are you asking in return? If you ask for permission to track them, for example, does that enable you to improve their reading experience by only showing articles they haven’t read yet? Are you making that benefit clear?

GDPR and the coming California privacy rules require sites to ask permission for tracking, but few sites are doing more than disclosing what’s being tracked. There’s a missed opportunity to use human language instead of legalese and take it as a moment to build a relationship.

Lastly, the specific tactics also define the metrics to focus on. In the case of the two sites I mentioned above, the exposure rate (the proportion of users who see a registration offer) and the conversion rate (of those exposed, how many register) are both key metrics to measure and understand.

In the Piano database, there’s a pretty wide range of exposure rates, but registration conversion rates are fairly stable — 2.2% for the bottom quartile and 3.4% for the top quartile. If you have enough audience, even a 1% conversion rate can bring in a lot of registered users. If subscriptions are a goal, then exposure rate, conversion rate, revenue per user, retention and customer lifetime value are all crucial metrics to consider.

Building user-first revenue

If you get the user journey and value exchange right, you open up a world of opportunities to drive revenue. For subscriptions, donations and memberships, certainly. But less obviously, direct, trusted reader relationships become more valuable for advertising too. 

That value hinges on publishers collecting first-party data and capturing user consent to track and display targeted advertising. Insider and Mediahuis in Belgium have each developed in-house solutions to create rich first-party profiles of users. Their approach primarily uses behavioral data on content consumption and extending their reach via lookalike modeling. They also allow advertisers to bring and match their first-party data to refine that targeting.

Diving a little deeper into the current ad landscape, increased privacy regulation and consumer awareness, plus changes in web browser cookie policies have made publisher-user relationships both valuable and essential. Valuable because publishers can build trust and encourage users to log in, allow tracking and even volunteer data in the right circumstances. Essential because without it, programmatic ad revenue drops, as browsers squeeze out third-party tracking.

Focusing on user relationships also opens up other product possibilities. Some other innovative examples we’ve seen: Austrian publisher Russmedia developed a gamified “Landlepunkte” points system to encourage user engagement, with points redeemed for swag, digital coupons and local event tickets. It dramatically increased user registrations, logged-in users and articles per user. Amedia in Norway turned 73 local newspapers and a national obsession with local professional soccer teams into a national live streaming sports network.

That’s the type of value a user-first strategy can bring. That and the loyalty obtained from users who intuitively know they live at the center of the experience you offer. No matter how big (or small) your company is.

About the author

Michael Silberman, SVP Strategy, leads Piano’s Strategic Services team, helping clients develop reader revenue strategies and drive success and revenue on the Piano platform. He joined Piano in 2018 after 10 years building the digital media business at New York magazine, and earlier, as one of the top editors launching and growing MSNBC.com in the early days of the consumer Internet.

Featured Post | Innovation

For Hearst’s Kate Lewis, data fuels strategy but the audience is in the driver’s seat

Reading Kate Lewis’s list of responsibilities as Chief Content Officer of Hearst Magazines boggles the mind. She oversees content strategy, which includes managing all of the company’s editors-in-chief and digital directors in the U.S., while working with its international network to coordinate global content.

Keep in mind that Hearst is a sprawling global publishing empire with 300 print editions and 240 digital brands. Lewis in charge of the 25 print and 25 digital publications in the U.S. The former has an audience of 89 million, the latter 108 million.

Kate Lewis, Chief Content Officer of Hearst Magazines

As though that weren’t enough for any single human, she also works closely with the product and technology teams, consumer marketing, and the division’s branded content unit, HearstMade – just in case she has some spare time.

Lewis is in constant motion. One thing is clear, to monitor this network of brands, she has become keenly aware of the value of data, which drives strategy across both print and digital. It also provides her with critical insights into the audience’s needs, desires, and expectations.

It’s all about that audience

Given her broad purview, Lewis has developed a core guiding philosophy (and great communications skills), which allows her to maintain a consistent approach while also considering each publication’s unique audience.

“Our approach is driven by our audience. What do they want from us, brand-by-brand, on every platform where we deliver content. We create and design content differently depending on the platform. And, of course, print is a huge platform for us. It’s where this all started! So, the thinking first will always be: ‘What does the audience want from us in this encounter?’ And yes, that is always evolving,” she explained.

As an example of that evolution, she points out that when she started at Hearst, they were very focused on Facebook to drive traffic. Now, they think about it as a way to get video views, among other things. “This kind of persistent change is something that feels digital in nature, but I think will be meaningful in the print world,” she said.

Digging the data

Back in the days before digital, it was hard to know much about your audience beyond subscriber numbers and some basic demographics. However, Lewis points out that today, print publications have access to the same data as the digital properties so that both can take advantage of it.

That means arming editors with as much information as possible. Hearst has a dedicated data operation called Hearst Data Studios, which feeds data across the brands. “This comes down to the efforts of our Hearst Data Studio, as well as an openness to sharing the data, the insights we have across our many, many brands.”

Beyond that, Lewis said that employees need transparency about how she is using the data internally to measure success or failure. “Sharing and being honest about wins and fails will be key. And truly defining, clearly, what a win and a loss is. My feeling is that content can rise from access to data, collaborative editors, and clear goals. We have established all the above amongst the digital team and I hope to add to what’s already being done on print.”

The future is now

Lewis believes that the biggest challenge on the content side of things remains distribution. And, she says that it’s getting harder to know your audience when it comes from many different sources. “People still hunger for content, big and small, but our direct connection to them has been somewhat obfuscated. It can be challenging to get in their face these days whether because of the decreasing number of newsstands or the increasing presence of social media. Our audience is huge but comes to us in many ways, not necessarily directly,” she said.

One way that media companies have tried to keep their audience front and center is through newsletters. Lewis acknowledges newsletters provide a kind of direct connection. However, she worries that consumer inboxes are becoming overloaded, which may sever that direct link. She sees chat as one way to fill the gap. “Chat is pervasive from grandmas to 10-year-olds,” she said. She also sees voice-driven media like Alexa and Siri also coming into play once they mature.

Ultimately, though, Lewis feels that everything boils down to audience engagement. It’s up to brands to figure out how best to keep the audience coming back as technology continually changes the way consumers interact with content creators. “Brands evolve based on generations and trends and the measure of good, and as the caretakers of the brands we’ll push them to be relevant and worth engaging with.”

Featured Post | Perspectives | Revenue

Snap rises as Facebook falls

For so long, Facebook has been the classroom bully in social media, with Snapchat taking it on the chin when Facebook copied Snapchat’s Stories format on FB, Instagram and WhatsApp. But now, the little tyke is exacting revenge as Facebook deals with blow after blow in the public arena: ongoing Russian meddling on the platform, incendiary posts inspiring real-life violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and a stock market plunge that encapsulates its challenges fighting misinformation. Meanwhile, Snap has been quietly rolling out new deals with publishers and making itself out to be a much friendlier space to do business.

While it’s hard to compete with Facebook’s 1.47 billion daily active users, the story of Snapchat as the underdog fighting back is one to watch — especially as publishers tire of Facebook’s litany of problems.

‘Brand Safety and Control’

While Facebook consistently dominates tech news coverage, Snapchat also turned heads recently when it launched a private marketplace for advertisers akin to its own premium programmatic advertising marketplace. Now, advertisers can book space on specific shows and channels from a variety of publishing partners, including BuzzFeed, ESPN, and NBC Universal. Previously, brands could buy Snapchat ad inventory, but not target their advertising to specific publishers.

The beauty of this? Publishers can set their own ad rates, target only certain segments of a show’s audience, and advertisers can find more brand safety on Snapchat than they currently do with Facebook and Google’s YouTube. This is of course a boon for Snapchat too, as AdAge’s Garrett Sloane put it:

“Advertisers have been concerned about the type of content that appears on both YouTube and Facebook. Snapchat is trying to take advantage of the industry’s unease by offering a higher level of brand safety and control: Discover already operates as a gated community for professional publishers only, and the private marketplace now lets advertisers expressly select the shows they want while still using ad tech.”

On top of this, Snapchat is planning to sell six-second, unskippable ads in the private marketplace — meaning the chances of sustaining audience attention is even higher.

Broadening Discover’s Horizon

Snap also recently announced a new Discover partnership with an LGBT publisher — its first one — the U.K.-based website PinkNews. According to PinkNews CEO and editor-in-chief Benjamin Cohen, part of the incentive is that Discover is still a curated platform, meaning that accessing the humans behind the automation is still possible. Snapchat was also enticing in part because Facebook traffic for PinkNews— as is the case with many publishers — has gone down, Cohen said, and so he was looking to broaden audience traffic elsewhere.

The idea of working with a social platform like Snapchat that is actually willing to pay publishers became even more attractive for PinkNews. The partnership is also, undeniably, a win for Snapchat. It gains an outlet that will help the platform attract a young audience willing to push the boundaries of sexuality.

Indeed, it’s obvious that Snapchat is on the hunt to broaden its 191 million daily active users. In addition to working with traditional publishers, Snapchat has made a bigger effort this year to partner with digital publishers and social media stars that appeal to younger audiences. That includes Daquan Gesese, a hip-hop and pop culture personality with a huge presence on Instagram, and Fanbytes, an 18-month-old digital media company that runs four popular accounts on Snapchat, and operates a network of mostly 15- and 16-year-old creators who run their own accounts and publishing brands on Snapchat.

In May, Daquan launched his own Discover channel, and Fanbytes and Snapchat are currently trying to figure out whether “official” versions of its channels could be tailor-made for Discover.

More Flexiblity

But here’s what’s ironic about the Snapchat comeback: It wasn’t that long ago that Snapchat was ridiculed for a redesign that paired friends and family in one stream, and publishers and advertisers in another. Audiences complained, publishers worried.

“Content producers from eight publishers I spoke to said that the redesign had made their metrics go haywire,” Vanity Fair’s Maya Kosoff wrote. So it seems pretty natural that some publishers don’t necessarily see Snapchat as a particularly good long-term strategy if they can monetize better elsewhere, as one publisher anonymously confessed to Digiday last month.

However, it’s also understandable — decent, really — that Snapchat is letting publishers introduce non-exclusive shows to Snapchat Discover. Syndication is not particularly sexy, but even if shows have already aired on YouTube or Facebook Watch, this is a chance for Snapchat to build a Discover audience — and it’s a chance for publishers to ignite new revenue streams for its most popular intellectual property without having to create something original for each platform.

While publishers aren’t going to give up on a massive platform like Facebook anytime soon, Snapchat is getting back in the game on two counts. First, it’s actually the steady performer as Facebook struggles. And second, it is finally serving publishers in more ways while opening itself up to newer creatives. As with all platforms, there’s only so much trust publishers can give third parties who change their practices and rules on a whim, but it’s a good thing that Snap is trending up at just the right time – finally getting off the mat to give Facebook a few good licks.

Perspectives

Do more with less: 3 opportunities using more relevant data

Every day we’re reminded about the limited resources facing our industry, from the time people have to produce stories to the lack of insights we have about decisions made at the big platforms. There’s an irony then that it feels like there’s more data available to us than ever before. Yet many people still aren’t sure how to make the most of it.

Trying to improve business models, audiences, or content simply by adding more data doesn’t guarantee any success. Now, more than ever, the answer is finding the most relevant data—and making sure we’re uncovering all the available opportunities the data we have can provide.

Historically, some of this data has been hard to get to. The major technology platforms see it as theirs to wield. So, without major undertaking, it can be hard to piece the different types of data that audiences coming from Facebook, Google, your own editorial efforts, and untrackable sources actually show.

The Parse.ly data team, using Currents, looked at a recent major news story, immigration, as an example, to uncover opportunities for media companies that might have been missed in other data sources.

Finding the under-covered angle of the story

When Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy separated children from parents, #KeepFamiliesTogether picked up steam on social media. But how did that translate to attention for the articles publishers wrote, and what did people want to know more about?

Over the course of one week, June 18 – June 25, there were 590 articles about immigration getting attention in our network. And that attention was vast: 16 million views.

Data from Currents, June 18 – June 25

So many articles means the topic was well covered, right? Not necessarily. Take the topic of “asylum seekers” for example.

Only 20% of these stories were related to asylum seekers. However, they received over 30% of the attention. High traffic per story suggests this angle was potentially under-covered and under-promoted.

Understand the differences between referral types

So where exactly were people finding stories about immigration? The biggest source of traffic was social media, which drove one-third of traffic to immigration stories. Given how much the media industry talks about Facebook, this may not seem surprising. But this is actually about double the typical traffic the network sends to any given story. It also bucks the trend of Google as the dominant source of traffic.

Other important ways readers learned about this issue? Directly from news sites, no platforms needed. About one-quarter of the overall traffic to immigration articles was from editorial promotion: site homepages, section pages, and links within articles.

For the specific topic of asylum seekers, we looked at where else people talked about this topic:

Data from Currents, June 18 – June 25

Twitter sent almost as much traffic as Google to stories about this topic. And Instagram shows as a significant referral – one of the more surprising results of this data to me.  With data about what’s relevant to readers right now, and where, teams can be more pointed in how they spend precious resources, including their time.

Narrow in on what topics matter to different localities

Where people are paying attention to stories doesn’t just apply to places on the internet—search, social, etc. Readers’ physical locations impact attention, too.

For stories about immigration, attention wasn’t at the same level across the entire country. Certain areas, including parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, over-indexed, represented by darker colors on the maps below.

Geographic data can also inform where a story gets distributed. If you’re pushing your immigration story out on Facebook and Instagram, geo-target cities or states where attention, and therefore interest, is already high. Or if your newsroom is part of a network that spans multiple regions, this information can help guide syndication strategy.

Don’t get more data. Get relevant data

It would be amazing if organizations had more of everything: more staff, more resources, more time, more universally accessible sources of data and information. But the reality is you have to pick and choose your data wisely. You need to use sources that can find opportunities for your site, instead of accessing the same list or information that everyone else uses can make the most of that data.

In the absence of time and resources, focus on making sure you have the right data at your fingertips. Pay attention to the data that’s relevant: what audiences care about right now, where they’re finding that information, what stories are related, and where the gaps are.

Perspectives

Double, triple, quadruple your high performing audiences with lookalike modeling

Marketing professionals, sales teams, and business owners are constantly chasing new audiences to target. This is only natural, as the more your grow your business and the more customers you reach, the greater your success. It is the core element of all business: the need to achieve stronger and greater consumer support.

But we all know that it’s not a “piece of cake” targeting new audiences, especially when they are beyond who you normally encounter or engage with. There are a lot of unknowns in increasing your audience targeting size. And marketers and publishers need to evolve with the technology around them.

While Lookalike modeling isn’t a term that is new to the marketing technology industry, it is still widely misunderstood. It is a tool that has been used by companies to expand their digital audiences while maintaining clear and relevant targeting practices. This piece will take a look into what Lookalike modeling is, how it works, and why it is so important for advertising campaigns.

What is Lookalike Modeling?

If you are looking to increase your targeting efforts with high performing audiences, the answers don’t lie in a mass chain of random messaging to consumers who have zero interest in your product. Instead, your focus should lie on your high performing audiences. What is it about your highest performing audiences that set them apart from the rest? Do they have common interests? Are they from the same geographic area? The best way to acquire new, high performing visitors is to focus on users who resemble your existing visitors, the users who have already shown an interest in your product or service.

Lookalike modeling is a process that utilizes machine learning to statistically analyze a given seed audience (already high-performing audience), identifying the demographics, characteristics, and different combinations of those and other data points. This creates new audiences composed of users that match these learned insights, which are continually updated.

For example, let’s say you’re are hoping to target people who are more likely to click on your ad or watch your video. Lookalike modeling uses machine learning to find more users who will take that specific action. This means your campaigns can scale to reach more people, with a high engagement rate.

How does Lookalike Modeling work?

Let’s say you are a clothing brand looking to boost online purchases for an upcoming sale. The first step would be to place a pixel – a small segment of tracking code – on your purchase confirmation page. This will allow you to track the behaviors of purchasers – during the current sale – as they move throughout the web.

The demographic and behavioral data points of anyone who completes a sale and makes it to the confirmation page can be ingested into a DMP platform and analyzed to identify which behaviors and patterns are most common among the audiences. Once those customer characteristics and data points are identified, you can use them create your new seed audience and ultimately engage with an even greater target audience.

It’s a truly incredible process that uncovers the hidden attributes that can optimize your performance for future campaigns. Icing on the cake? It’s all done in a centralized platform.

Why Use Lookalike Modeling?

Well, I guess the question would be, “Why not”? As an advertiser, when consumers within a specific audience converts, it’s a fulfilling feeling. And while you want to hold on to that high performing target audience, you still want to ensure you are growing your brand following.

By using a lookalike modeling tool, it helps you to identify a larger pool of possible customers. You can use the tool to seek audiences with behaviors that match up to your target audience, and so you have a greater chance to convert them. It’s essentially the same as building a robust profile of existing customers, only you are doing it for the audiences you have yet to reach out to and engage with.

In summary, Lookalike Modeling offers marketers and publishers a valuable approach to reaching new or current consumers in a cost-effective way, ultimately helping companies to grow the scope and reach of their businesses. Why not take advantage of your already high performing audiences and increase your brand awareness? As the industry continues to look for new and innovative ways to reach new consumers, lookalike modeling will help marketers stay true to their core and use what they already know to improve campaign success.

Perspectives

Unified communications: bridging the gap between B2B and B2C content strategy

When it comes to content creation, B2B and B2C are a lot more alike than most publishers think.

The philosophical and practical distinctions between these two types of content developed over decades and publishers have come to view them as being so different that they can’t be managed or marketed jointly. Nothing could be further from the truth. The digital democratization of access to content means that B2B and B2C publishers are no longer targeting different audiences at different times. Instead, all content – regardless of topic – is in competition for the same audience.

The smartest strategy for both kinds of publishers is to reconcile the differences between the two and gain the benefits of learning from the best practices of each. Here are four ways to start thinking differently about the divide between B2B and B2C content so that you can build a content plan that leverages the pros and cons of each strategy.

People First

B2C publishers consider readers to be “consumers” – not only of their content, but of the goods and services publishers are marketing. B2B marketers and content creators think of their audiences as entities: businesses, teams, or departments.

In the age of B2Me marketing, it’s time to start thinking of them – all of them – as people. Everyone who comes in contact with your content is a person with ideas, desires and problems. Content that helps inspire those ideas, stoke those desires and solve those problems will be relevant to all readers – whether they are watching a video on the couch on a Saturday afternoon or in the office reading an article about accounting software.

Luckily, your content is created by people who have a lot more in common with readers than you might think. Regardless of content format or subject matter, the first step in any content plan should be to encourage your writers and editors to focus first on who is reading and why. Thinking about the external impact content will have versus focusing on the internal process of creating it is the first step to building successful content strategies for both B2C and B2B.

Forget Selling. Start Relating

Once you start focusing on your audience early in the process, it will change the way you think about creating and delivering content. B2B content, in particular, has long been focused on marketing or selling rather than informing, educating and partnering with readers. When content is focused exclusively on customer acquisition, it’s a one-way conversation that offers little to the reader, but asks a lot in return.

In this way, B2B content creators need to get better at emulating B2C content strategies. Creating content that is relatable and engaging rather than promotional and focused exclusively on selling, builds relationships with readers first. Once you’ve established a bond with your audience that is based on first offering them something they need, you’ll be in a better position to start connecting in a way that is multi-directional and requires something of them in return.

Teaming Up

B2C publishers, on the other hand, have a lot to learn from their B2B counterparts when it comes to creating content that is monetizable beyond traditional advertising and paywalls. B2B publishers have developed multi-stream revenue strategies that allow for content monetization across multiple platforms and at various stages in the buying process. B2C, on the other hand, rarely takes monetization opportunities into account early in the (non-native) content creation process. Too often, B2C sales teams are playing catch up trying to market and generate revenue from content after it’s complete, rather than partnering with content teams during the creation process.

B2B teams have taken the early lead on developing content creation processes that align editorial efforts and sales goals from the outset. The fear that too much input from advertisers will taint traditional editorial processes and impinge on journalistic freedom have resulted in an unwillingness to develop new ways of working together to identify your end-game and develop content designed to get you there.

Open Source Content

The next hurdle for both B2C and B2B publishers will be adapting to the post-expert age of content creation. No longer do readers care who is creating the content they’re consuming. An Amazon review often holds as much sway with readers as a carefully researched professional review. While expert-written, fact checked content is still essential, smart publishers on both sides of the business are finding ways to incorporate user generated content (UGC) directly into their strategy.

Commenting and social interaction are no longer enough to bridge the worlds of expert content and UGC. Instead, both B2C and B2B need to find ways to partner with amateur content creators and provide platforms for them to participate in the content creation process as part of the overall content strategy.

B2B has done that well with community content and crowd-sourced user reviews but struggles with integrating social media and building lasting relationships with outside contributors. B2C has done a great job leveraging social media and integrating it into content. However, building communities around key B2C media brands has been less successful.

In the age of proactive, publisher-driven content distribution we all need to learn from each other. Yes, today’s consumers seek out content they desire. But smart publishers are constantly on the lookout for ways to anticipate their needs and deliver the right content in the right channel. This shift in this content distribution dynamic will drive a continued evolution of digital content away from B2C and B2B distinctions and require both types of publishers to think more broadly by embracing as many of these strategies as possible.

About the author

Jeanette Mulvey loves telling small business stories. From hardware stores in Saskatchewan to fashion designers in Milan, she’s traveled the world learning what makes entrepreneurs tick and hearing their struggles. As VP of B2B Content at Purch, she is responsible for content and social media and for Business.com and BusinessNewsDaily, where she strives to ensure both sites are the go-to destination for small business advice and inspiration. Follow her on Twitter @JeanetteB2B

 

Perspectives

Facebook vs. Snapchat for Third-Party Distribution: 5 Key Insights

In January, Facebook introduced algorithm changes to its News Feed, prioritizing the content that friends and family share and comment on, while de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands. The changes shifted expectations and strategies for content owners who’ve long valued Facebook for both traffic and engagement.

On April 5th, 2018, MediaRadar hosted a panel to discuss the state of the media industry in the wake of these sweeping Facebook changes.  The name of the event was “Facebook vs. Snapchat: What’s Next for Third-Party Distribution?”

Marty Swant, Staff Writer from AdWeek moderated this discussion. I was honored to be a part of this panel, which included four other industry experts with various and impressive backgrounds: Maia McCann, former Editor-in Chief & EVP of Programming from Little Things, Emily Cohn, Executive Growth Editor from Insider Inc., Kieley Taylor, Managing Partner, Global Head of Social, [m]PLATFORM, and Brian Madden, SVP Development at Hearst Digital.

Here are 5 takeaways from the conversation:

1. LittleThings isn’t holding a grudge against Facebook.

Maia McCann entered the panel with an experience completely unique to any of the other panelists. She was the Editor-in-Chief for LittleThings, the digital media firm that recently shuttered in the wake of Facebook’s algorithm changes.

Marty Swant’s very first question of the night was directed solely at McCann. He simply asked, “What happened? Could you tell us about the rise and fall of LittleThings?”

Maia stated that the company was “born out of viral Facebook traffic.” She went on to say, “We toyed with the idea of diversifying traffic, but we made a decision to look at Facebook as five different avenues of distribution. We looked at Facebook as a landscape. There was an idea that this landscape was never really going to change.”

Unfortunately, their strategy did not serve them well, as Facebook’s landscape did change. LittleThings was not built to withstand those changes. It lost about 75% of its organic traffic, which killed their profits and caused the company to shut down.

In light of the outcome, one might assume that McCann could have bitter feelings towards Facebook’s algorithm changes. However, she expressed a much more positive outlook, devoid of grudges. In fact, she appeared grateful: “There’s been a lot in the press about how Facebook killed LittleThings. I really don’t feel that way. I don’t have rage dreams about Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook made my career.”

She noted that Facebook gave her the giant audience that led to her success. Without it, she’d just be “writing somewhere.” McCann also added that there was “probably a route out of it,” in reference to the decisions LittleThings made leading up to its shut down. “Hindsight is 20/20,” said McCann.

2. Traffic sourcing strategies vary greatly.

Something to note in McCann’s comments about LittleThings was how they approached traffic sourcing. They relied almost solely on Facebook. Regardless of LittleThings’ fate, however, this showed one very specific approach to gaining an audience.

When the other panelists discussed their own strategies, it became evident that media companies can, and do, approach traffic sourcing in completely different ways.

Brian Madden of Hearst Digital discussed how the company “never wanted to focus on a single source of traffic.” They focused on multiple sources, to diversify their audience, maximize growth potential, and avoid having a heavy dependence on a single source (i.e. Facebook).

LittleThings and Hearst presented two contrary ways of seeking traffic. Regardless of outcome, however, neither one of these ways is right or wrong. They’re simply different.

3. In media, experimentation is key.

Throughout the panel, one of the consistent themes was that, for media companies, experimenting with different content platforms is crucial. Brian Madden spoke heavily on Hearst’s diligence with experimentation and how it has fueled their multi-platform  and overall success.

“We always knew something else was coming, so we wondered how we’d be first on every platform… Being able to experiment in a lot of different places has been key.”

Even in rehashing the story of LittleThings, Maia McCann stated that, if given a second chance, she would, “diversify traffic, hire people for SEO, look at YouTube, and look at Snapchat.” In other words, she wishes they had experimented with more platforms.

Experimentation allows media companies to better understand which platforms and audiences are the most profitable, and where they might be able to find long-term success.

4. Content should be “story”-driven.

One thing that Snapchat and Instagram do extremely well, is showcase content in a “story” format. Kieley Taylor of GroupM’s [m]PLATFORM expressed her thoughts that “Stories” and “Moments” would be a large factor in filling the Facebook void.

“The story-telling format that we’ve seen the most success with, is the ‘Stories’ format. The thing that is working across a lot of distribution points, where a lot of people are trying to spend their time, is ‘Stories.’ [i.e.] Instagram Stories, obviously Snapchat.”

She referred to this “mobile-first, social native” format as something of great value.

Not only should publishers and advertisers look to tell a story within their content, they should also look to utilize the “Stories” format on Snapchat and Instagram to communicate that content to their audience, and potentially fill the vertical content void left by Facebook.

5. SEO fuels long-term success.

Emily Cohn of Insider and Business Insider was a strong advocate for search engine optimization (SEO), especially as it relates to the long-term success and profitability of content.

“Search is our number one source of traffic,” said Cohn. “Around 80% of our search traffic is to stories that were not published today. One of our top-searched stories is from 2014. Search is valuable to us because it’s making our whole ten years’ worth of content really valuable.”

While media companies may find high rates of traffic from social media, a single viral post may not lead to long-term content profitability.

Maia McCann also expressed her belief in the value of SEO, saying that LittleThings got rid of their SEO team amidst company cuts, and that in hindsight, doing so was a “huge mistake.”

While these takeaways were certainly some of the highlights of the night, the entire panel was filled with many terrific questions from Marty Swant and the audience, and a ton of great insights. Overall, we learned there is a lot of opportunity out there through social media channels. Now, it is up to media outlets to harness and monetize that opportunity.

Innovation | Perspectives

Publishers need to work together—not against each other

Recently, a close family friend said “I actually liked getting my news on Facebook. It was relevant for me and easy.” We went on to discuss Facebook’s focus on “time well spent” and how the social network plans to emphasize content shared by family and friends. However, lovers of the News Feed on Facebook have certainly not been the only ones affected. Given that they are on the losing end of Facebook’s algorithmic attention deficit disorder, publishers need to give some thought to the ways in which they will continue to attract high quality audiences. 

In fact, publishers should seriously consider working together on this one. An option that isn’t getting enough attention is allocating part of their owned and operated pages for other premium publishers’ content. This would allow publishers to recapture the monetization, brand awareness, and data they’ve lost from Facebook while creating a healthier ecosystem for all. If done properly, publishers will have an audience that is more engaged, something the early data from Outbrain’s Sphere initiative has proven out. Put another way, audiences referred between premium publishers are simply more engaged than folks who come via social referrals.

Facebook audiences were always a challenge, mostly “side-door” with high bounce rates. But, it was a trade-off most publishers accepted until their brand awareness, monetization opportunities, and knowledge about readers were undermined by Facebook’s decision. Rather than relying solely on Facebook, publishers have an opportunity to band together and expand the personalized discovery experience to include other premium publishers. By linking out to other publishers and gaining the benefit of similar inbound audiences, publishers can establish a “flywheel effect” that nets them either referral revenue or engaged inbound audiences. Win, win!

Three important characteristics are needed to ensure such an audience exchange is truly reader-focused. First, transitioning audiences between publishers can’t be based on a ratio, whether 1-to-1 or 1-to-many. The reader wants the best experience possible and by requiring content from a publisher to meet ratio requirements, the reader will get overlooked. Second, publishers must have the controls and input to decide what other publishers are allowed in the club. Third, data must be provided to all participants that clearly shows the number of engaged users in order to prove out the value of the exchange.

While these three characteristics are critical, the biggest concern we hear is “why should I link to a competitor?” Given the changes in the landscape over the last several years should we all rethink our competitive set? Do I compete with publishers or social platforms for readers? In his 2007 article New Rule: Do What You Do Best and Link to the Rest, Jeff Jarvis discusses the benefits of linking to other publishers. Frederic Filloux built on this idea in Why Publishers Should Consider the “Smart Curation” Market, which supports selective linking based on editorial preference. These are great examples for linking to other publishers meant to create a healthy and vibrant ecosystem while establishing trust with readers.

Bottom line: Providing readers the best discovery experience, even linking to other publishers,  establishes a deeper level of trust that will pay-off for everyone in the long-run.

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