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Industry-Research

Newsrooms should consider collaborating with content creators

The shifting dynamics of the digital news industry are reshaping how outlets connect with audiences, and the definition of “journalist” is changing. Influencers on platforms like TikTok and YouTube successfully engage audiences in ways that traditional newsrooms sometimes struggle to achieve. As media consumption habits shift, the creator community offers a valuable vehicle for traditional news organizations.

By collaborating with influential creators, news outlets can access new, often younger, audiences they might overlook. Evolving its newsroom strategies, the Baltimore Banner surpassed subscription goals and expanded its newsroom to 80 staff members. Similarly, the 133-year-old Seattle Times reached record circulation levels, reflecting a broader trend of local and nonprofit outlets successfully adapting to new challenges.

The Poynter Institute’s new report highlights these trends. It identifies how the journalism industry increasingly relies on innovative strategies to adapt, with content creators and influencers playing a critical role in this transformation. While traditional news organizations face ongoing disruptions, this report shows that the demand for credible news remains strong.

Evolving newsroom

Poynter sees the rise of digital content creators, influencers, and the “creator economy” as an opportunity to redefine journalism. Rather than viewing them as purely competition for attention, traditional news organizations can collaborate with a new generation of content creators who bring fresh perspectives and innovative formats.

Social media influencers often cover viral stories, reaching those who get their news primarily from platforms like TikTok or Instagram Reels. Working with content creators can help newsrooms diversify their storytelling formats and engage with younger, digitally savvy audiences. Journalists and creators both serve essential roles in the evolving news ecosystem.

Engaging audiences with news fatigue

Audiences face news fatigue. Wars, political instability, climate change, and economic uncertainty contribute to this exhaustion. However, it’s essential to recognize that news fatigue does not equate to a lack of interest in journalism. On the contrary, data from the Pew Research Center shows that news consumption remains steady, with audiences following major events like the 2024 elections more closely than in previous years.

News organizations must present these topics in ways that resonate with audiences. Context, relevance, and credibility are key to engaging readers and viewers. This is where the rise of the creator economy becomes highly useful. Content creators, with their ability to present news in relatable and entertaining formats, play a unique role in combating news fatigue.

Audiences today are fragmented, consuming information from various platforms and influencers. Journalists and content creators can embrace this reality by delivering tailored, high-quality stories serving distinct audiences. Poynter recommends that rather than diluting content out of fear that audiences will turn away, the focus should be on creating stories that provide context and actionable insights.

Newsrooms must innovate and adapt

Despite ongoing challenges in the news industry, organizations are finding ways to adapt. Collaboration between traditional journalists and digital content creators is key in this evolving landscape, each bringing distinct strengths. The Poynter report highlights the growing influence of creators and influencers in news delivery and building trust with younger audiences. It also explores how they are reshaping the broader media ecosystem.

As the industry transforms, one constant remains: high-quality journalism—whether produced by a traditional newsroom or a smartphone-wielding influencer—retains its crucial role in society. Together, these forces reshape how people consume and trust news. This partnership will shape journalism’s future, ensuring that reliable information reaches audiences in a digital-first world.

Innovation | Supporter Spotlight

Break social’s hold on readers with live reporting

Public trust in the news is dwindling, with three in 10 UK adults admitting they don’t trust the news very much and 6% confessing they don’t trust it at all. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not limited to the UK but affects media audiences globally. A recent Gallup Poll, for example, showed a similar reality among Americans, with only 32% saying that they trust news a “great deal” or a “fair amount.”  

What’s more, publishers are grappling with the fact that audiences increasingly turn to social media to get their news fix. In its annual Digital News Report, Reuters and The University of Oxford found that 30% of respondents say that social media is the main way they come across news, surpassing the 22% who access it directly. Unfortunately, social media provides a fertile breeding ground for misinformation, which (somewhat ironically) further erodes people’s trust in news. 

Today’s media companies need strategies and tools that will help them re-engage audiences whose expectations have been shaped by social media. By understanding the behaviors and preferences of today’s audiences and incorporating the right tools and tactics, publishers have the ability to attract audiences and satisfy their need for a well-rounded information diet in a more social setting. 

More than passing news updates

Notably, the shift to social news consumption is particularly acute among younger consumers, with people aged 18-24 less likely to use a news website or app and more dependent on social media for news. And these young consumers’ information preferences have been molded by their use of social media and mobile content consumption. Our own research finds consumers want  easily understandable and readily available content. In fact, 26% of 18-34-year-olds say that they prefer news updates in short, bite-sized segments. 

One of the strategies publishers can implement to replicate the social media experience–while continuing to provide quality news and information–is through the use of live blogs. Live blogs allow media companies to provide readers with an enriched and authentic experience that replicates the benefits of social media while addressing key challenges such as lack of engagement, misinformation, and declining trust. 

A live blog allows publishers to provide real-time commentary, updates, and coverage on breaking news or unfolding events. Despite their rise in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic – where they served as a valuable tool for disseminating rapidly emerging critical information – live blogs have been around for quite some time. 

However, publishers around the world are now working to refine their live blog strategies to capture the best aspects of the social media experience but serve as more than just a format that provides the latest superficial updates. These publishers build trust and credibility among their audiences through this more social way of authentic storytelling.  

The style of live blogs resembles a mobile-friendly social media timeline. Therefore, it gives consumers news in the format they crave. It caters to the habits and preferences of users accustomed to consuming content through scrolling on their mobile phones.  

Interactivity and engagement

To increase audience engagement, publishers can also incorporate interactive elements such as polls, videos, and live comment blocks into their live blogs. These mirror many popular features found on social media platforms. For example, journalists from the New Zealand publisher Stuff interacted directly with readers as millions of people attempted to get tickets to Taylor Switft’s Eras Tour in Australia. With over 150 comments on their live blog, the journalists were able to build a community with their readers as they all shared their triumphs and frustrations with one another in real-time.    

Some publishers even use live blogs to provide their audiences with direct access to experts in various fields. MDR, a public German broadcaster, did this particularly well during the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis. They encouraged readers to post their questions in a comment block within the live blog. Then, the expert answered their questions directly in the chat. This tactic increases trust by giving readers access to experts in their field and reinforcing the expertise of a media outlet’s team. It also helps provide a more balanced view of events through the inclusion of a variety of perspectives, reducing the perception of spin. 

With live blogs, individual personalities can come out, which allows journalists to foster better relationships with their audience. For example, reporters covering sports at Süddeutsche Zeitung engage with their audience using a lighter tone than their formal journalism. This injects personality into their coverage and makes it more relatable and enjoyable for readers, mirroring the conversational style often seen in social media interactions. 

Another key advantage of live blogs is their ability to prevent endless doomscrolling by providing a curated and limited amount of verified information and data. This way, readers can choose the most relevant information to them based on their own needs and preferences without becoming overwhelmed with too much content. 

Looking ahead

It’s a challenging time for publishers and newsrooms around the world. The emergence of generative AI search results, along with audiences’ increasing frustration with the news (not to mention the fact that social media platforms are distancing themselves from news), create higher barriers to engagement. 

In the year ahead, publishers should turn their attention to incorporating strategies that replicate the elements audiences love most about social media to keep consumers engaged and coming back for more. Implementing this approach can help publishers meet the needs of the modern consumer, who favors receiving their news in short, bite-sized segments. Live blogs allow media companies to capture the essence of the social media experience while addressing lack of engagement, misinformation, and declining trust. 

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Humans vs. Bots: It pays to find out who is really looking at your content

Digital publishers work hard to create quality content that engages audiences and keeps them coming back for more. When an article or video receives a surge in views, that means mission accomplished, right? Not so fast.

Since invalid traffic (IVT) makes up for nearly 40% of all website traffic, it’s likely that some of these viewers are non-human, or “bots.” And, unfortunately, when bot traffic is included in analytics reports, it can skew data and give an inaccurate look at content performance.

Here are steps publishers can take to achieve more accurate website data, which allows them to make more informed editorial and marketing decisions.

Identify traffic sources and spikes

To understand how content and promotions are truly performing, it’s important to identify and remove invalid traffic from data reports. A first step is to determine traffic sources. If a visitor comes from an unusual website or unfamiliar referral source, it can be an indication that the traffic is not human. This includes traffic from locations beyond the typical readership area. Or it might be a slew of visitors from one city, which could be the site of a datacenter.

Another indicator could be the time of day that visitors view content. If many arrive on the site at an unusual time such as in the middle of the night, it could indicate that the traffic is robotic. Other non-human behavior such as spending zero seconds on a page or achieving a 100% bounce rate are also signs the traffic might be robotic.

Analyzing traffic spikes might also uncover increases in legitimate visitors, which offers insight into why content performed well. For example, an increase in an article’s views could indicate that it was picked up by another news source, shared on a popular website, or received a greater attention on social media. Identifying traffic sources and patterns can reveal what articles are truly performing well. And, of course, that is likely to influence future content decisions.

Filter bot traffic

Not all bot traffic is malicious. Search engines send bots to crawl websites to learn more about them, which helps inform search results. However, bots also visit websites for harmful reasons including scraping content to create fake sites, inserting malware to steal user data and injecting spam. Publishers can also unintentionally invite bots to their website by purchasing website traffic. 

Many analytics platforms have built-in tools to filter bot traffic. Since these tools often must be activated by a site administrator to begin working, it’s helpful to check to make sure the filter is being applied to analytics reports.

While automatic known bot filtering tools are a great start to getting a more accurate look at website data, they might not detect all bots. Publishers should identify traffic patterns of good and bad user behavior to identify unknown robots that are not detected by the analytic partner and create custom filters based on the characteristics of those bots detected. Some of these characteristics may include the location the traffic came from, screen resolution, service provider, time on page and bounce rate.

Identifying traffic patterns and creating custom filters to remove bots from data ensures that publishers are getting the most accurate look possible at their website visitors.

Check site tags

Analytics providers require that publishers install a tag on their website to allow them to collect data. If a tag is inadvertently installed more than once, data analytics will be inflated. Or, if installed incorrectly, it might produce incomplete data. Publishers should check tag containers to ensure there is only one tag for each tracking suite so that data isn’t included twice in reports.

Get a third-party evaluation

Sometimes it helps to get input from a third party that specializes in analyzing website traffic. A digital publisher audit is great way to get an expert’s opinion about site traffic, tagging and creating custom filters. Website auditors keep up with industry trends and platform changes, which saves publishers time and the resources needed to identify new bots or create custom filters.

By taking the steps above, publishers can better identify high performing content, discovering promotions that drive real traffic, and making more informed business decisions. They can also take steps to reduce bot traffic and avoid common missteps that occur when it goes undetected.

Featured Post | Innovation

Travel media execs outline their post-pandemic plans

When the pandemic took hold in spring 2020, travel publishers had to think, and move, fast. In a world where travel became unsafe, if not outright banned, this segment of the publishing world faced long odds. However, many—including Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Thrillist, and National Geographic—refocused their strategies to keep housebound audiences informed and entertained. But now, as parts of the world reopen to travel, while others are still profoundly struggling with Covid-19, travel brands are poised to make another pivot.  

Destination for information

Last spring, Conde Nast Traveler shifted its digital content strategy away from bread-and-butter destination content to travel news. In particular, it dove into how the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic was impacting travel. And, after a precipitous drop off when the world essentially shut down in March, traffic began to rebound in April as homebound readers spent more time on the site, driving up total engaged minutes 10% in 2020.

As lockdowns set in around the world, Conde Nast Traveler focused on creating a deep well of 

evergreen content aimed at inspiring grounded readers to daydream about future travel. It highlighted adventures closer to home. It also provided virtual travel experiences to transport and engage housebound audiences. 

However, now that actual travel is back on the rise, Conde Nast Traveler is pivoting again.  “As regulations ease and attitudes towards travel shift, we’re focusing on content that helps people get back out into the world,” said Jesse Ashlock, Conde Nast Traveler’s Deputy Global Editorial Director.  

Domestic pleasures

Traffic to domestic destination-based content and road-trip related content began to climb last summer. Interest in vacation rentals also spiked. Audience time spent with that content rose more than 1,100% between January and October 2020. Ashlock expects those trends to continue through this summer, as people explore the great American outdoors. 

Travel + Leisure made a similar pandemic pivot, leaning into the leisure aspect of the brand as the world was shutting down in the spring of 2020. The brand even updated its Twitter bio to reflect its #LeanIntoLeisure strategy. 

“We maintained a very flexible approach to our content, particularly in March, April and May 2020, so that we could be nimble and change course depending on what made sense given shifting world events,” said Deanne Kaczerski, T+L’s Digital Content Director. 

The brand also shifted it’s commerce-related content from travel gear toward products related to face masks and work-at-home accessories. 

Aspiration and inspiration

On Instagram, Travel+Leisure chose to double down on aspiration. The team shared images meant to inspire far-flung daydreams and asked followers to share images of the places they missed most.  “We didn’t entirely abandon the aspirational element of travel,” Kaczerski said. The brand continued to highlight dreamy itineraries for cooped up wanderers looking for an escape from daily pandemic life but also began covering more wellness stories. 

There are several indications that strategy worked. “Overall, the website experienced tremendous traffic in the last year. People sought out trusted information, expert advice and compelling content to satiate their wanderlust in a very challenged time,” Kaczerski said. 

At Thrillist, the gaze shifted toward learning more about the places that captivate travelers. 

“Rather than encouraging people to go out, we encouraged people to dig into learning the history of spaces,” said Helen Hollyman, Thrillist’s Editor in Chief. 

Well-traveled strategy

As the world reopens, Thrillist’s focus is on service journalism that aims to help readers figure out their pandemic travel comfort level. While things are looking up, “it’s still a little bit of a question mark where things will be at the end of 2021,” Hollyman said. 

Given the uncertainty of international travel, Thrillist opted to emphasize domestic travel by highlighting adventures that can be had. These include camping, stargazing, and exploring national and state parks. 

Advertisers are ready for the change, Hollyman said. “Everyone’s kind of in this space of let’s get back in there,” she said. “People are tired of Netflix, and they’re tired of streaming.”

George Stone, Editor in Chief of National Geographic’s travel coverage, described the pandemic as a bit of a break. It offered a breather, which allowed the publication to shift gears and return to its roots. “In a way, it gave us the opportunity to do better National Geographic storytelling,” he said. “We were stepping away from consumer travel objectives, and that was a relief.”

Downtime

With consumer travel largely off the table for several months, National Geographic felt free to focus its website on looking at the world through the lenses of science, history, and culture. “We started to dig into the stories of people and places more so than the immediate story of the traveler,” Stone said.  

There were also more Covid-19 stories, a reflection of National Geographic’s deep commitment to covering science. “Our traffic really shot up last March,” said Alissa Swango, Managing Editor for National Geographic Digital. 

Homeschooling parents drove up demand for science-related kids content like experiments to supplement schoolwork.  A popup pandemic newsletter has remained so popular it still hasn’t pivoted. “Our open rates are still very high,” Swango said. 

As travel opens up, National Geographic hopes to help usher in a new more thoughtful era of travel. Like other publishers, it plans to focus more on sustainable travel and responsible tourism through its content. 

The goal is to “encourage people to get out into the world for a firsthand encounter with the issues,places, communities that bring geographical and cultural context,” Stone said. “We want people to know the world and love the world as conservationists and explorers.”

About the author

Meena Thiruvengadam is an independent journalist and editorial consultant.

Featured Post | Innovation

Food brands deliver a hearty response to changing consumption habits

As we begin to adapt to new routines amidst the coronavirus crisis, food publishers have seen a large rise in audience numbers and engagement. People facing weeks at home with limited take-out options (and even limited cooking skills) have turned to food sites and networks in droves. They’re looking for inspiration and guidance about everything from baking to budget meal planning.

However, these publishers have had to deal with challenges of their own. Production teams, editorial staff and studio stars have all had to adapt to remote working and changing audience demands.  

Record-breaking ratings

One food publisher rising to the challenge is Condé Nast’s digital consumer-focused food brand Epicurious. The site has seen a surge in overall traffic of 69% year over year, according to Digital Director David Tamarkin. For the five years he has been at Epicurious, he says the title has focused on “realistic cooking: the kind of cooking that happens when you’re juggling childcare, or got home late from work, or the kind of cooking you do on the weekends when you have more time.” And that, it seems, aligns with the times.

Epicurius’ focus has pushed daily average traffic up +88% as audiences search for accessible recipes. The publisher is also seeing unexpected success with its eCommerce revenue. It’s seen a “huge increase” in sales of baking-related products, such as kitchen scales, which have seen a 1,000% year over year increase. Meal delivery services sold through Epicurious were another stand-out–up an astonishing 388% in March. And even individual grocery items, which are typically not high performers for the site, were up 59%.

“Because we’ve been operating with what we call a ‘home cook realness’ always in mind, it feels like we’ve been preparing for a moment like this – a moment where people suddenly find themselves cooking more than they ever have before,” Tamarkin explained. “Our content is all about helping people be smarter, more nimble, more joyful cooks, so it makes sense to me that it is resonating at the moment.”

It’s not just food-focused websites seeing growth. In April, Discovery Network’s Food Network channel saw record-breaking ratings over the weekends, as audiences tuned in looking for entertainment, community and recipe inspiration. The network reached more than 46 million viewers, which is a 6% year over year increase, and also delivered its best month ever in Weekday Daytime ratings. Early figures for May have yet to be finalized. But a Food Network representative confirmed that it is showing a similar pattern to April.

Adapting content strategies

Epicurious was quick to fine tune its editorial strategy as stay-at-home measures kicked in. “We pivoted to pantry-building content almost immediately, creating a two-week meal plan that exclusively uses shelf-stable ingredients,” said Tamarkin. “Then we launched Cooking Through It – a series of 10-day meal plans that used hyper-flexible recipes.”

This approach allowed people to do one big shop that would last for ten days or more, in order to minimize trips out. Epicurious has also seen success with its recipe-finding tool that allows readers to search recipes based on the ingredients they have on hand. They are also preparing to launch a series of articles about affordable cooking, which will continue for the foreseeable future.

Food Network on the other hand has made only slight changes to its programming. “There is a slight additional focus on pantry staples and making sure to discuss substitutions should anyone at home not have specific ingredients. But we haven’t been hyper focused on changing the shows too much,” said President Courtney White. Their focus now is on keeping their scheduling flush with premier episodes, rather than relying on repeats.

Coping with production challenges

When it comes to planning shows from home, Food Network’s team has been quick to adapt. “Fortunately, many of our talent were fairly easy to get up and running,” White explained. “With production partners also working from home, the creativity and nimbleness to continue to create, edit, and deliver content that audiences enjoy has been an ongoing evolution.”

White explained that Food Network’s programming has been bolstered by self-shot shows such as The Kitchen Quarantine Edition, The Pioneer Woman: Staying Home, and the ‘Guy at Home Watch Party’ edition of Tournament of Champions. “We want to be there for our viewers, and now more than ever as so many find themselves sheltering at home,” White said. “We’ve enhanced the lineup with even more comfort food shows and trusted food personalities.”

For Epicurious, the editorial team is relying on tools like Zoom and Slack to communicate and discuss how to best help their readers through their recipes, menu ideas and videos. “Helpfulness is in Epicurious’ DNA. But it’s rare that we see the impact of the content we put out in such an immediate way,” Tamarkin concluded.

As audiences continue to seek out practical content to help them navigate the everyday challenges of the crisis, these brands have spotted an opportunity. Publishers who can capitalize on this surge in attention and build loyalty now will be in a strong position to maintain this engagement as we settle into the much anticipated “new normal.”

Featured Post | Innovation

Pandemic parenting: How Parents.com is pivoting its digital strategy to serve readers in a time of crisis

As schools close around the world and a growing number of people are having to juggle home working and childcare, parents face unique challenges in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the Meredith Corp. brand Parents.com has responded with a radical shift to serve their audience.

Julia Dennison is the Executive Editor at Parents.com. She and her now fully-remote team have pivoted their digital strategy to provide advice and resources to parents during the coronavirus crisis.

The crisis has come on so quickly that just four weeks ago, the team were debating whether to even cover coronavirus. “We try to stay in our beat. We have a sister site Health.com that we syndicate content from,” Dennison explained. But it quickly became apparent that this would need Parents.com’s own input.

“Our initial thinking was that this was going to affect a lot of people. So we looked at search trends to see what terms we could answer from a parenting-resource point of view.”

The content pivot

Looking at search trends and responding is something the Parents.com team are well-practiced in doing. It has helped form a more strategic response to the content they have now produced, which has three primary areas.

The first is a comprehensive guide to coronavirus for parents, covering everything from how the virus is affecting pregnant women, to basic tips around sterilizing thermometers. This was the initial content strategy the editorial team focused on, and have been updating ever since.

“We’ve been really trying to just watch the trends and respond to them with informative content,” Dennison explained. “More than ever, parents need a reliable, trustworthy, and relatable source. We’re really trying to lean into our specialty.”

The second area is creating content that is supportive to parents. “Parents are going through the hardest test of parenthood they’ve probably ever gone through,” said Dennison. “It’s testing everything about parenthood to its limits.” In response, Parents.com have been working to create resources to help parents feel less isolated. This ranges from tips to how to cope with childcare to how to discuss the crisis with younger children.

As part of this, Dennison has been documenting her own experiences as a daily video blog on YouTube. Like many parents today, Dennison is juggling childcare with working from home. “I wanted to document that and show the world that I might be the Executive Editor of Parents.com, but I’m finding this just as hard as everybody else is.”

As video rises in popularity during the pandemic, the Parents.com team are looking out for ways to produce more content remotely, including having Editor in Chief Julia Edelstein read stories over Instagram Live.

The final strategic area involves creating entertaining content for both parents and children. “We’re trying to focus on heartwarming stories to lift people’s mood, and to keep them positive,” Dennison said. From a neighborhood drive-by to celebrate a birthday, to more practical resources around the best educational apps for children, the aim is to both help parents keep their children entertained, and also uplift the parents themselves.

Driving online growth

The swift digital pivot is paying off. By the end of March, views of articles in Parents.com’s ‘Fun’ section were up 40% week on week. There was particular growth within the section of articles on activities and printables (up 89% and 88% respectively). And entertainment content has seen a massive 110% spike in views.

The video blog has also had a “tremendous response, according to Dennison. “People are just grateful to see that other people are going through what they’re going through. I’m a mom, and we have a few moms on our team. I know how hard it is.”

This relatability, coupled with keeping a close eye on search terms has helped the digital team avoid some obvious topic traps. “We could easily have leaned into creating elaborate schedules for parents to put their kids on, and that homeschool setup,” she said. But that wasn’t the right approach for their audience.

This has resulted in a surge in positive responses to the brand on social media. “People appreciate just being told that they’re doing the best job they ca. And we’re here to help them do that,” said Dennison. “Parents are having to step up and perform the impossible. And so how, as a brand, can we be there for them?”

A post-pandemic lens

Many of Parents.com’s plans for upcoming content have had to be adjusted. They are shifting perspectives on a planned spotlight digital issue for the International Day of Maternal Health and Rights in April, looking at how America can improve birthing.

“We’ve been planning that for months. All of a sudden we’re having to pivot and see everything through this post-pandemic lens,” Dennison explained. “We’re seeing hospitals banning partners from being in the delivery room due to Covid-19. It’s a really scary time to be giving birth, and in this context it’s only going to get worse, so we have a bigger duty than ever to produce this content.”

In the longer term, Dennison is particularly interested in the crossover between parenting and education. She’s also thinking about what the impact will be for parents who have to continue working full time while also looking after their children. “We’re looking at what we can do in terms of resources to lean into the educational side of things, and how parents can keep their kids going even if they can’t go to school,” she said.

But for now, the team is keeping a sharp eye on the search terms and listening out for what their audience want. “It’s a matter of seeing how this goes, and responding to it,” Dennison concluded. “On the digital side, it’s easy as we can be pretty responsive.”

“Life will be different after this. All these things we thought mattered at one point don’t. And then all of these new topics matter, so it’s recalibrating what we’re covering, and putting it through a post-pandemic lens.”

Innovation

The Facebook effect: What real-time marketing means for online publishers in the digital age

Earlier in my career, about 10-15 years ago, digital experiences (at that time, just webpages) had what was known as the “eight-second rule,” meaning an eight-second load-time max per webpage.

At the time, eight seconds was about as fast as you could get. But today, the aspirational load time is more like one sub-second. Anything that takes longer is going to drive users elsewhere. Immediacy is the new normal.

Part of the reason for this shift is obvious: Technology is more advanced, and we now have the ability to reach more consumers on more devices than we previously could.

But the other part of this equation may be less readily-apparent. Consumer expectations have evolved. Immediacy isn’t a nice to have. It is a must-have. So, retailers, publishers, and brands must now provide content in real time.

This shift has largely been driven by social media. Today’s internet users are accustomed to opening their Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds and seeing fresh, personalized content updated moment-to-moment. In light of this, decisioning engines now need to decide what to show a customer or reader in less than one second.

Real-time marketing is no longer on its way—it’s a fact of the digital age. To keep up, online publishers must assess readers’ preferences moment-to-moment and provide the most relevant content available. And they need to try to keep users on their own sites, rather than driving users off to third-party sites.

Here’s what online publishers need to know:

Machine learning helps ensure that your content adapts to reader preferences in the blink of an eye.

The other day I took my son to see the Marvel movie Venom. In the movie, a space alien arrives on Earth and can only survive by combining with a human host. The alien unites with a human and creates this amazing fusion: The human is only powerful with the alien’s power and the alien can only survive on Earth with the human.

Similarly, savvy tech leaders are partnering with machine learning technology to enhance customer experiences across a range of platforms. Real-time marketing is a departure from the status quo approach to personalization, which involves making suggestions based on a users’ declared preferences and/or on privacy-intrusive profiling.

For example, when you sign up for a media site, you’ll likely be asked what topics you’re interested in. (This might be politics, business, or pop culture, for example.)

But often, what people actually click on ends up being vastly different from their stated preferences. This means that publishers need to be aware of the disconnect and suggest content accordingly. This is the user’s observed preferences which are perfect for a machine learning system to detect and make content decisions based upon.

Readers’ preferences change moment-to-moment. This is unlike an online store where the user is typically going to buy something and may look at a related product. In the case of online media, the reader will be a target for a wide range of content. Picking up on various signals that the user gives off in the moment to determine their interests is critical, while also leveraging external factors such as stock trends, weather, news events, or trending articles can also help generate relevant recommendations.

The future of online publishing is all about understanding what readers want in the moment. If you don’t have a super-responsive site that can pick up on trends, you should consider implementing technology that picks up on readers’ individual preferences in real time. Otherwise, you’ll lose them.

Send readers to native content on your site—but do it in real time.

If you’re able to capture a reader’s interest and suggest trending articles at the bottom or side of the page, that’s a solid start.

But any recommendation service that’s sending readers to a different site has several flaws. First, while the publisher might perhaps make some ad revenue, they will be losing that user for at least a moment—maybe that day, or even forever. From a customer service standpoint, it’s always preferable to drive users to more content on your site as opposed to someone else’s.

On a recent trip to New York, I met with a major news media company who confided that they’d been losing website viewers since they can’t effectively respond to real-time trends across their entire site.

Here’s what happened: They got a scoop on a story and published it on their main site. As expected, the main site was getting a lot of clicks and was driving traffic from search engines to their site to find the article. But they still had a problem with getting that hot content recommended at all locations across their site to aid in recirculation.

Their existing system could not react in time to put the scoop on the other pages of their site. And you can’t capitalize on a trend if you’re not making sure it’s not just prevalent on your homepage but everywhere on your site. To do this, you need to have a way to make sure your site is fully dynamic and responsive.

If you aren’t, you’re missing out on a major business opportunity.

If nothing else, make sure your company values align with the content you’re linking to.

When you drive traffic to another site you have no control over the quality of that content. It could be good content, or it could be horrible. Either way, that experience will reflect on the brand of the referring site.

And if that content doesn’t align with your core values, you’re losing brand affinity. And that will hurt you in the long-term. When you leverage a real-time marketing solution on your site, you can showcase your brand’s ideals and values by aligning your brand with certain causes valued by your customer-base.

Nike is a great example. This fall, Nike designed a campaign around Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player famous for refusing to kneel during the national anthem at games. Despite a major boycott, the campaign earned Nike $6 million dollars in additional revenue.

When you know what your readers are seeing, it’s easiest to deliver content you can vouch for. Anything else is a risk for your brand.

In the real-time age, publisher sites need to keep up with the customer expectation that the content is going to be just as relevant and immediate as what they are accustomed to on their social media feeds.

Pretty soon, readers won’t settle for less.

About the Author

As CEO of LiftIgniter, Jon Shalowitz brings a wealth of experience in building innovative, fast-growth companies. Jon has deep roots in Enterprise SaaS products, especially in the areas of digital transformation and user engagement.  Most recently, he was CEO of Badgeville, an Enterprise SaaS company that analyzed and optimized over 1 billion consumer actions per month for leading brands.

Industry-Research

Newsrooms need to step up their mobile game to satisfy the mobile majority

Americans’ changing news habits have an incredible impact on how we function as an informed society. Mobile is now the most common way US adults get news, outperforming desktop or laptop computers according to a newly released study from the Pew Research Center. In fact, more U.S. adults report they get news on a mobile device (58%) than those who get news on a desktop or laptop computer (39%). Nearly all (96%) access news via the internet. The study is based on responses from over 5,000 adults from the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults.

Demographics

  • Not surprisingly, older adults, ages 65+, are more likely to get their news on desktop than on mobile (47% vs. 37%, respectively). While younger adults, ages 18-29, are more likely to get their news on mobile than desktop (71% vs. 32%, respectively). The research also shows men (60%) often get their news on mobile more than women (56%).
  • Interestingly, more nonwhite adults (61%) get their news on desktop versus white adults (56%). Partisanship also plays a role in mobile news use. Democrats (62%) are more-likely than Republicans (54%) to use mobile to access their news.
  • College degree users (66%) are more likely to get their news on mobile than those without a college degree (51%).

Content Creation & Delivery

It’s important for journalists and newsrooms to keep the mobile majority in mind. They must ensure that their work is accessible through mobile devices and create an optimal user experience for these news consumers. And given that almost every reporter is likely to have a phone in hand, news organizations should be working on their mobile journalism. “Mojo” focuses on teaching reporters to produce quality articles by just using their phones.

Undoubtedly, mobile offers a convenience for journalists and content consumers alike. And, given the newly minted mobile-majority, news sites need to hone their mobile skills inside and outside the newsroom.

Industry-Research

Internet users and smartphones growth slows while time spent climbs

Mary Meeker, the internet trends guru from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has just released her annual examination of the global technology landscape. Meeker understands consumers’ relationship with technology. Her insights identify changing marketplace strategies and business practices. In her Internet Report 2018, one shifting strategy she calls out is Google’s move from online ad platform to ecommerce platform. Equally significant, she notes, is the fact that Amazon is doing the direct opposite.

Other key highlights from the report include:

  • Internet penetration is slowing down. While more than half of the world’s population is now online, new Internet users only grew by 7% in 2017, down from 12% a year ago. Smartphone growth shows a similar pattern. Further, with limited new users, apps will find fewer to sign-up.

  • Consumer are not disconnecting from media. In fact, digital media consumption continues to increase.S. adults spend 5.9 hours per day on digital media compared 5.6 hours a year ago. Mobile, especially mobile video usage is responsible for the overall growth in time spent in digital media.
  • Mobile payment adoption is growing. The payment process is also becoming easier to complete.
  • A gap exists between mobile time spend and ad spending there. Twenty-nine percent of time is spent in mobile but only 26% of advertising dollars. This creates a 7 billion opportunity in the mobile advertising marketplace.
  • Tech companies are a core component of the U.S. economy. They account for 25% of U.S. market capitalization.
    • However, consumers question their business strategies of using personal data to provide better consumer experiences while violating consumer privacy.
    • Only one-quarter (25%) of U.S. adults report they are willing to share personal data for benefits (lower costs, etc.). Further, close to two-thirds of U.S. consumers delete or avoid apps because of data privacy concerns.

  • Voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo show significant growth. The Echo’s installed base in the U.S. grew from 20 million in the third quarter of 2017 to more than 30 million in the fourth quarter. News behavior in listening to news, music and shop are emerging.

Meeker’s 294-page presentation offers a snapshot of the marketplace. It provides broad economic trends and studies global growth. The report is well-worth the read to keep pace with the marketplace.

Research

73% of site visitors get there via mobile. Here’s your guided tour through the mobile landscape.

There’s a good chance that you have a cell phone within arm’s reach right now, maybe in a pocket, next to you on your desk, or even in your hand as you read this post.

Even so, when you imagine a reader interacting with your site, do you tend to picture a person browsing on a laptop or do you see a commuter reading on her phone? Getting a clearer picture of how readers discover content via devices starts with checking in with the data.

As recently as 2013, peak daily mobile usage only accounted for 20% of traffic. Parse.ly network data shows that on average over 65% of traffic to publisher and brand sites in 2017 was “pure mobile.” Now, at the beginning of 2018, mobile and tablets drive 73% of traffic to our network.

With the mobile audience growing faster and bigger than ever before, it’s essential to understand the media habits unique to those readers. Here’s what the data suggests about people’s habits when it comes to when, where, and why we’re on our phones.

When: Desktop during workdays, mobile all the time

The times that people are more likely to browse on mobile vs. desktop vary. Desktop still has a weekday cadence (following peoples’ work schedules), whereas mobile is “all day every day,” including some morning and night-time peaks. People also tend to use tablets on weekends.

We also consistently see a drop-off in desktop traffic between 5:00 pm and 5:30 pm in every local timezone in the U.S.. Of course, this makes sense because many people head home from work around 5:00 pm.

Desktop ended 2017 at only 25% of total traffic across all our publishers, and kicked off 2018 at only 23% of traffic. This does vary quite a bit on a publisher-by-publisher basis. For example, some international publishers are almost all mobile traffic, and some subscription or workday reads lean desktop. However, overall, it’s a safe bet that mobile and tablet have firmly overtaken desktop for “casual” news reading.

Where: Five big movers of mobile traffic in 2017

When you break down the services or referrers that drove mobile growth in 2017, five bigs ones stand out. People are discovering content on mobile devices via:

1. Plain old Google Search

Google experimented a lot with highlighting premium publishers in their mobile search experiences, and unifying Google Search with Google News, which drove more traffic back to publishers’ sites.

Traffic from Google AMP increased by 87% in 2017. Not only that, but making AMP available to other platforms contributed to mobile growth. AMP drove 3% of visitors to our network by way of non-Google platforms, including Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

2. Google’s non-search connected services

These services include Google Now and Google Play Newsstand, mostly on Android. Though these services did not grow the most out of the five listed here, the absolute number of visits delivered was substantial, and contributed to Google overtaking Facebook as a primary source of traffic. AMP and Android platform dominance propelled Google’s shift from news search to content discovery.

3. Flipboard

Flipboard was the big independent (read: not Google or Facebook) traffic source growth story of 2017. Especially in the latter half of the year, as they launched their formal partnerships with major publishers, Flipboard grew over 300% over the year in mobile.

4. Twitter

Twitter and Flipboard are now sending similar levels of mobile visits to publisher sites. Twitter has reinvested in news partnerships, mobile speed, and their mobile apps. Notable changes to the app include the shift to the 280 character limit, AMP embeds, and algorithm changes.

5. Instagram

Instagram also cracked our top-10 list for traffic sources overall for publishers, driven by the platform’s move this year to allow linking to external web-based content from Instagram stories. With the copycat stories feature, Instagram ultimately took the wind out of Snapchat’s sails.

Why: We feel the need, the need for speed on mobile

Speed heavily factors into why people are browsing the way they do on mobile.

With people using their phones everywhere—in transit, waiting in line, you name it—it’s likely that they’ll be off wifi and on a network. The speedier the network connection, the better the experience. This resonates with a finding from a recent Pew Research survey: half of Americans say an unlimited cell data plan would help them get information to make decisions.

People also trust content that loads quickly, according to the  American Press Institute:

“A majority of digital news consumers report it is very important to them that ads not interfere with the news (63 percent); that the site or app loads fast (63 percent); that the content works well on their mobile phones (60 percent).” — American Press Institute

Facebook, Google, Twitter, Flipboard, and others were right, we think, to focus so aggressively on mobile page speed improvements. For example, Google recently re-emphasized the fact that their search algorithms would penalize slow sites on mobile.

It’s worth noting that just because people want content to load quickly, that doesn’t mean they want to move on from content quickly. Long-form articles get more than twice the engaged time of short-form articles on cellphones, according to a 2016 study from Pew Research.

Keeping up with the pace of mobile growth

With the fast growth of mobile, and especially now that Facebook referrals are declining, building direct mobile channels allows publishers to meet readers where they are.

People still spend a lot of time checking email, and having a “daily read” newsletter is a great way to drive traffic to your mobile site, without requiring a native iOS or Android app strategy. According to a study by Campaign Monitor, 41% of email opens happen on mobile devices, exceeding the amount of opens on both desktop and tablets. If you can’t build your own app, integrate your content into users’ habitual engagement with their email app.

However, it’s also important to keep in mind that readers are less likely to click through on mobile. Campaign Monitor reports, “As more people consume email on mobile devices, the standard for compelling content is higher than ever.”

As mobile grows, checking back in with the data helps ensure that you’re connecting with readers when and where they are on mobile, and delivering content that resonates with them.

Industry-Research

Five things you need to know about millennial media habits

Millennials are modern day media unicorns. Marketers, advertisers and content providers are all chasing these mythical, mysterious creatures; digital natives whose behaviors potentially preempt the next wave of mainstream media consumption.

But how do you spot one in the wild and target it with your brand and content?

Recent research from GlobalWebIndex (GWI) and Nielsen (as discussed last week by Peggy Anne Salz, Founder and Lead Analyst at Mobile Groove) offer us some tangible insights, into the habits of this cohort, in both the US and globally.

Here are five key themes that emerged from GWI’s data:

1. Millennials are mobile super-users

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the extent of their devotion to this device might.

The average member of Gen Z (adults aged 16-20) spends 3 hours 38 minutes a day on their cellphone, around 50 minutes more than the global average.

As a result, for younger millennials, time online via mobile is greater than internet time on all other devices combined.

The dominance of this technology means that across 35 different global markets, GWI found “7 in 10 say their mobile is their most important device for getting online. ”

And in terms of ownership, GWI data found that 96% of Gen Z and 97% of Millennials (21-34) own a smartphone. That’s up from 84% of 17-31 year olds who owned a smartphone at the end of 2014.

2. Millennials are driving take-up of newer video formats

Consumption of services ranging from YouTube (visited by 93% of online Millennials each month outside of China,) to catch-up TV services and OTT providers – especially Netflix – all overindex with millennials, with their viewing experience often mediated through mobile.

“Many commentators argued that the larger screen sizes and resolutions of PCs, laptops and tablets would forever anchor them at the center of video consumption habits,” recalls Felim McGrath, senior trends manager at GlobalWebIndex.

“Although these devices remain important to Millennials, video engagement [and] the boom in video consumption on mobiles and via social has had a profound impact on the industry,” he said via email.

“The growth of live-streaming is a key example here,” said McGrath, “providing an entirely new format for brands to engage with consumers. ”

According to GWI’s latest data, 28% of all internet users have watched a live stream on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, as this product rapidly becomes mainstream. Interestingly, however, it’s the emerging markets that are leading this charge, with Europe and North America bring up the rear.

3. Emerging platforms can help by-pass millennial ad-blockers

Given the propensity for ad-blocking around the world, particularly in the mobile-first markets of Asia-Pacific, it’s imperative that publishers improve the ad experience and find new ways to achieve the same revenue raising goals.

Although mobile ad-blocking adoption has taken off more slowly in North America and Europe, data from other regions indicates how this might evolve if consumers become more aware of the tools they can use in this space.

At present, GWI has previously reported, “only half of internet device owners in the United States are even aware that they can block ads on their mobiles.” Yet, at the same time, “1 in 3 [American] smartphone owners say that they see too many ads when browsing the mobile internet.” You don’t need a crystal ball to join up the ad-blocking dots.

“The opportunity for brands is apparent here,” GWI’s Katie Young wrote in a recent blog post about live-streaming. “As ad-blocking continues to grow in popularity, across both desktops and mobiles, it’s more important than ever for brands to engage consumers via entertaining content and native advertising. ”

This is important for brands, given the prevalence of ad-blockers with younger audiences. GWI’s global sample found that 44% of Gen Z (16-20 year olds) and 51% of Millennials (21-34 year olds) had used ad blockers.

Drivers for this include concerns over the impact of mobile ads on data allowances, a dislike for pre-roll adverts and frustration at the volume – and irrelevance – of many online ads.

4. Millennials love eSports

Although still a niche, and for some a rather baffling market, large media companies – and an increasingly sizable millennial-led audience – are enthusiastically embracing this emerging vertical.

“This is a significantly underestimated and often misunderstood industry,” according to McGrath. “Our research shows that, globally, a fifth of Millennials watched an eSports tournament within the last month.”

Led by engagement in China and other Asian markets, GWI’s research indicates that internet users in APAC are 32% more likely than the global average to view eSports tournaments.

Although a relatively nascent genre in North America and Europe, ESPN already has a dedicated eSports vertical, with other networks such as NBC Sports and TBS also following them onto the field, making this an online genre worth keeping an eye on.

Analysis from Newszoo, published in February this year, predicted that the eSports market will be worth $696 million this year (a year-on-year growth of 41. 3%) growing to $1. 5 billion by 2020. The top market, revenue wise, is North America, with incomes of $257 million anticipated this year, rising to $607 million at the end of the decade.

“While this medium is still developing as a platform for brands, the marketing potential and revenue opportunities which this new genre of gaming entertainment offers needs to be better understood,” said McGrath.

5. Look to China for an insight into the mobile future

Finally, for an indication of where all four of these previous trends are aligning – and to see how innovative publishers and media companies are addressing these challenges – McGrath encourages industry leaders to look more closely at some of the biggest APAC markets.

Both South Korea and China have played a pivotal role in the advent of eSports, with Chinese media giant Tencent reportedly committing $15 billion to the genre over the next five years.

According to Mashable, over 47% of Tencent’s 2016 revenue came from games, including eSports, inspiring other Western tech companies to try get in on the act. Amazon, for example, already owns the eSports service Twitch, which has 100 million global users, whilst Facebook has signed eSports deals and is exploring other opportunities with content providers in this space.

The dramatic growth and diversification of Tencent (now the 10th biggest publicly traded company in the world by market value) and other players in China – such as the news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and the video app Mango TV, which is expanding rapidly among Chinese millennials – offer a further heads-up as to how social and mobile may evolve in more western markets.

Subsequently, McGrath identifies China as the overseas territory that industry leaders in the USA and elsewhere should be monitoring more closely. “Consumers trends within the country are often examined but the lessons here are still worth understanding,” he suggests.

Although China is a distinctive market, McKinsey noted back in 2012 that “the ingredients of a winning strategy are familiar. ” Their recommendations – such as the need for authenticity, digital experimentation, and the linking of all online activity back to core brand goals – would be recognizable to anyone working in this space, wherever they may be in the world.

Jump forward to 2017 and China’s biggest social networks are real pioneers, having typically absorbed other activities – ranging from eCommerce to transportation, video calls, messaging services and digital payments – into their apps, creating their own online walled gardens and a model for growth that many in Silicon Valley seek to imitate.

“The evolution of social media in the country, particularly within the realm of commerce and gaming, is leagues ahead of that seen in western markets,” McGrath concurs. “Also, it’s Chinese companies that have truly grasped the vast potential that the smartphone offers, across almost all industries,” he said, making them – as well as the Chinese market – one to watch.

Collectively, these five developments provide publishers with a range of insights into key considerations such as evolving delivery formats, emerging content genres, and new potential revenue sources. Given their impact and influence of these areas on millennials, these are trends that no media company can ignore. To do so, risks overlooking a lucrative young audience, and means publishers may be on the back-foot when these habits tip over into the mainstream. That’s a scenario every company should clearly seek to avoid.

Damian Radcliffe is the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at the University of Oregon, a Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies at Cardiff University.

Follow him on Twitter: @damianradcliffe

Industry-Research

Learning to please the love ‘em and leave ‘em millennial crowd

Millennials – the ‘distracted demographic’ between the ages of 18 and 34 were weaned on the Internet and spoiled by content choice. They have grown up to become the largest generation in the U.S. with a wallet to match. If you think it’s a lucrative audience ripe for the taking, think again.

Tapping the significant opportunities and tackling the even greater challenges around influencing this massive audience requires a deep understanding of digital content consumption trends and how their evolving media habits make them different from the rest of the population.

This is where Millennials on Millennials, the research program and research report series from global performance management company Nielsen is breaking new ground to offer critical insight into topics that impact Millennials and the media industry as a whole. The inaugural report and the second in the series, released in August by Nielsen’s own Millennial associates, leverage Nielsen audience datasets to shed important light on the “why’s” behind key engagement trends and highlight the ways brands, marketers and content companies can seek connect with this highly coveted demographic.

While the first in the series uncovered hard truths about Millennials (they are glued to their smartphone, they are distracted by multitasking and they are bothered by advertising -unless it is a precursor to accessing free content), the second volume of research reveals hard numbers around their digital media and social media usage.

It’s no secret that Millennials are engaged with digital content during all waking hours of the day and keep their devices close by – and turned on – when they sleep. In fact, Millennials are glued to their smartphones (1,179 minutes each in Q4 2016 on their devices compared to 659 minutes for those aged 35-49).

Socializing

Top of the list, and leading by a massive margin, is communication via social media platforms and apps. Unsurprisingly, these platforms have grown up with Millennials and are now an integral part of the daily routine. While social communication use has plateaued at an extremely high level, growth is getting a boost from Millennials that have broadened the number of services and apps they use. Specifically, 70% of Millennials report using two or more apps for messaging. Notably, Millennials are also 8% more likely than users 35 and older to use messaging apps for group conversations.

Listen Up

Millennials aren’t just connecting in more ways; they are consuming more content across more platforms. Digital music consumption, a topic examined in the report, is witnessing the most significant – and surprising shift.

You would imagine that digital consumption via Internet and apps is reducing Millennials’ appetite for traditional radio tune-in. However, Nielsen has found the opposite is true. The research pegs weekly reach of broadcast radio among Millennials at a whopping 93%. At the same time on-demand streaming is going strong. More than half (60%) of Millennials say they use two or more apps to stream music.

Interestingly, podcasts are also winning over Millennial audiences and a growing share of their attention. Nielsen reports 37% of Millennials listen to podcasts at least once a week, while 13% say they listen every day, compared with 5% of consumers 35 and older who tune in on a regular basis. (Little wonder media companies, including the Washington Post, are scrambling to turn readers into listeners with the help of compelling podcasts that mash up news, analysis and celebrity.)

More Content, More Consumption

The good news: Nielsen confirms the plethora of content offers and options “has actually inspired increased consumption” among Millennials. With so much digital content to choose from Millennials aren’t opting for one or the other; they are consuming all of the above.

The not-so-good-news is that more isn’t always better. “Millennials are an unfocused audience and they are less likely to stay loyal to specific media the way other generations are,” the report states. Millennials may be making more space in their lives for more digital media consumption, but this also increases competition for their attention.

Winning the loyalty of this demographic will be an uphill battle, and winners will be the companies that adapt their offer to the evolving media habits of multitasking Millennials, not seek to limit them.

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