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Innovation

Do you need a head of apps?

Mobile journalism sounds like a great idea for cash-strapped media outlets. Get your journalists to use smartphones to shoot and edit video and photos, and save a bundle versus the cost of DSLRs and pro camcorders.

It sounds simple enough. But newsrooms that are getting on the “mojo” bandwagon have learned the hard way that asking journalists to find and use tools to create mobile content on their own can be a quality control nightmare.

Most consumer video editing apps reduce the size of a video file on export. Some give it a squeeze on import as well, meaning the finished video is fine for social platforms but useless for television. Some audio editing apps will export MP3s, but charge extra for broadcast-standard .WAV files.

A Very British Approach

The BBC recommends third-party apps to its journalists, and even creates apps to help its reporters file directly into the broadcaster’s servers.

So, what’s an editor to do? Well, one way is to appoint someone to curate your apps. At the BBC, where smartphones are increasingly used to create content for linear, on-demand and social platforms, there is a “Mobile Apps” team, which includes a group of IOS developers.

They’ve developed an in-house video recording app that shoots at 25fps (a requirement in PAL-system countries like the UK) rather than the standard 30fps, and which can file video recordings direct to the BBC’s news ingest system. The team also curates an internal-facing BBC Apps Store, where journalists can download bespoke BBC and recommended third-party apps.

The BBC’s internal training department also employs mobile journalism trainers like Marc Blank-Settle and Deirdre Mulcahy who teach reporters how to use a smartphone for radio, photography and video storytelling, and how to use the apps best suited to their jobs. In mid-2017, the BBC published some of that learning during a ‘Mojo Week’ at the BBC Academy.

That being said, the BBC is a huge news outlet with 8,000 journalists, who are also free to try out new apps to find ones that work for them.

Going Dutch

The Dutch broadcaster Omrop Fryslân is a much smaller operation than the BBC, and its in-house mobile trainer Wytse Vellinga has a high level of control over the apps and phones the reporters use to make TV, radio, online and social content.

Every journalist is required to learn to use their phone to create content for all three platforms, and to use a curated list of apps that give the best results. They receive two days’ training and follow-up support.

“If you do not standardize, people tend to get lost in what they can do with their phones,” Mr Vellinga says. “There are just too many different apps out there that claim to deliver quality results – but those results will vary too much for use in a newsroom.”

The Irish Way

A combination of the above two approaches is in place at Irish broadcaster RTÉ, where smartphones are also used across all platforms – radio, TV, online and social. Many journalists at RTÉ use smartphones some of the time, but the broadcaster also has a small team of mobile journalists who shoot and edit on mobile and publish to online and social first, and then, if appropriate, repurposed for television.

The team is led by video journalist Philip Bromwell, who says reporters across the organization are encouraged to use apps designed with reporters in mind – Filmic Pro for shooting, and Luma Fusion for editing – and to adopt consistent styles in their choice of fonts and supers.

“This content could include anything from a reporter taking a still photograph for an online article, to a journalist shooting and editing an entire story on their phone,” he says.

Having an in-house ‘mojo’ team means any RTÉ reporter can get immediate, job-specific guidance from a colleague on which app to use – Bromwell says his team has experimented with more than 50 and narrowed day-to-day use down to “a handful” – and the wider newsroom has a small group of experts to advise on file formats and workflows.

“That said, I also encourage colleagues or trainees to explore and ‘play’ with apps themselves,” Bromwell says. “Mobile journalism is still evolving – none of us has all the answers yet!”

So, while the proliferation of accessible and affordable mobile content creation tools abound, it is important that you set standards for the content. Experimentation is essential, but so are leadership and quality results.

Corinne Podger is a digital journalism educator and consultant for media outlets, NGOs and businesses. She is a specialist trainer in smartphone storytelling for television, radio, online and social media, and has taught more than 2500 journalists and communicators to use smartphones for TV and social video, radio, podcasts and photography.

She has worked as a trainer with BBC Media Action, Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Financial Times, Fairfax Media, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Konrad Adenaeur Stiftung and supported learning for journalists from over 30 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Australasia.

Corinne has also lectured on mobile journalism at universities and colleges in Australia, Europe and the United States, and speaks regularly at journalism conferences.

She runs bespoke consultancies and individual workshops on request. To contact Corinne, click here.

Innovation | Perspectives

How to master app store optimization by thinking locally and globally

Think of it like products in a supermarket. Content companies with mobile apps are locked in a fight for two incredibly scarce resources: consumer attention and shelf space. Unfortunately, on the digital shelves of the app store, discovery is the bottleneck. Consumers can’t download apps they don’t know exist in the first place. (And how can they in a market where the number of apps submitted to the Apple App Store in the month of January alone topped 500 submissions daily?)

To rise above the noise, and drive app installs in the process, app owners compete for a top-notch spot in search results. Smart companies are winning the battle with App Store Optimization (ASO) by tweaking keywords, icons and other assets to make sure their app store landing converts. It takes dedication and budget to get ASO right, which is why companies that succeed and boost downloads in one country or store are leaving money on the table if they don’t publish their apps in more places.

But before you go global with your app, double-check that you have mastered more than the ASO basics. The checklist is much longer than it was just a year ago because ASO has evolved, expanding beyond the app store presence and deeper into the funnel. Looking back, the first wave of ASO was a lot like the early days of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Companies could score quick wins by hacking Google algorithms or focusing on “long tail” keywords. Moving forward targeting “killer” keywords is not enough. ASO is morphing into what I call AMO (App Marketing Optimization) and ready for a rethink.

Rethinking ASO

ASO/AMO tops the agenda at every stage of the app lifecycle. But it’s never a case of set-it-and-forget-it. It requires app owners to monitor and manage a laundry list of elements that starts with keywords and ends with compelling video clips. It’s an ongoing effort, but the pay-off is massive organic growth that every app owner can afford to tap for their app. The key is to take the right steps in the right order.

It all starts with testing, refreshing and optimizing all of the moving parts of your app (titles, descriptions, icons, screenshots, videos, and reviews) on a regular basis. Once you have the processes in place to achieve positive results for your app at home, it’s time to take your app abroad.

Mobile Games companies need little convincing. They were pioneers in aligning app elements, visuals and gameplay with the preferences of a global audience. Consider Candy Crush, a blockbuster app with audiences in nearly 200 countries thanks to a look-and-feel that is a match with local tastes and trends. Now other categories of apps, notably those in the Entertainment category, are following a similar blueprint to attract and acquire more users.

Localization differs from internationalization

But before you embark on a strategy to take your app global, know the difference between localization and internationalization. Think of internationalization as table stakes. It encompasses what you need to adapt your app to different languages, regions and cultures to reach a global market. Your focus in this stage is on the basics: changing time, dates, region format, and other aspects of your app to fit with your target markets and audience.

Localization goes deeper. It starts with translating the language of the app and other elements (keywords, description, and even the name of the app) to be a tight fit with your target audience. If you plan to engage in commerce, be sure to adapt your app to local regulations and payment methods to avoid any legal battles further down the line.

Clearly, localization is not a job you want to leave to Google translator. Amateur efforts rarely pay dividends, and literal translations can do your app brand more harm than good. (Case in point: KFC’s famous finger lickin’ good motto for its fried chicken is a notable example of a bad translation. In Chinese, it urged consumers to bite their fingers off.) It’s also important to resist the temptation to localize every aspect of your app from the get-go just because you can. It pays to pace yourself.

If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, or the countries to target, then start with your app name and keywords and localize these assets for popular countries or languages. As a rule, use your organic app installs as a guide. Pinpointing countries where your app is taking off allows you to prioritize your efforts, starting with keywords. Use tools to check traffic volume for specific keywords and bake the best (yet most relevant) keywords into your app assets.  If you see a bump up in your app downloads, then take it as a sure sign you can move on to localize other assets, such as the app description, followed by other marketing collateral including screenshots.

Cater to local cultures

From here on, industry literature tells us localization is just a matter of “wash, rinse, repeat” for every additional country or app store on your list. But is it really that simple? In a word: no.

An effective strategy to go global with your content goes beyond the pure “science” of ASO/AMO to the “art” of understanding how addressing individual cultural preferences and nuances. Pay close attention to other aspects of your app—such as colors, images and user interface—to build a loyal audience for your content.

Do your homework and use common sense.

Primary design considerations:

UI: Does your audience read left to right or right to left? Or is it vertical? Make sure you factor in how the text and images are read. And make doubly sure the use of directional icons in your app are logical and genuinely helpful. It impacts engagement and dictates how users will interact with their device, especially as they swipe left—or right—depending on the app and activity.

IMAGES & CONTENT: Brush up on ethnology (or hire someone with those skills). Adapt the ethnicity of your visual elements to local culture and pay special attention to skin, hair, and eye color. It’s a no-brainer that Asians or Indians might be wary of buying into localized content that displays blonde-haired, blue-eyed models, presenters, or families. Rethink the obvious icons and idioms. Sure, using a piggy bank icon as a metaphor for saving money works well in North America and much of Europe, but it’s a miss in most Middle Eastern countries.

COLOR: First impressions count, and different colors resonate with different cultures. For example, Japanese players like subtlety and pale, softer colors and shades. Chinese users, on the other hand, prefer vivid, strong and bright colors like red and orange. The mobile games industry learned this the hard way, so deep-dive into posts and publications (such as Pocketgamer.biz) where they share their tips and tricks.

From images to music, be prepared to adapt every aspect of your app to match your target markets.

Pay attention to the political spectrum

Done properly, localization engages your audience with content that resonates because it respects their local customs and cultures, not just language. Significantly, the same rules apply to your choice in app marketing and advertising messages and ad creatives. Sure, it’s a must when you take your app global. But the surprise success of SmartNews, the news app that delivers the top trending stories downloaded by over 25 million readers in over 100 countries, suggests the same approach can boost results and user loyalty in your home market as well.

In the case of SmartNews, it started with the realization that readers in North America were divided by political parties but united around one goal: the desire to access to real news, not fake news. “The most effective way to show we understood our audience and their concerns was to adapt our marketing to appeal to all sides,” Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, Head of Global Growth at SmartNews, told me in a recent podcast interview.

SmartNews bet on a simple creative capable of delivering a powerful message that would appeal to a broad political spectrum of users.

A review of app data and demographics revealed that the SmartNews audience was a mirror of American society. “Our readers are mostly between the ages of 35-65, and they range from liberal to moderate conservative in their politics,” Nicolas explained. An effective campaign would have to be objective and emotive. Nicolas, recently named a Mobile Hero for his user acquisition approach and accomplishments, went to work and immediately rejected flashy images and trendy buzzwords. Instead, he worked with his team to develop a simple creative capable of delivering a powerful message.

The approach worked, boosting usage and earning the app positive reviews. Nicolas says the results are still coming in and a focus group will provide the inside track on audience and brand impact. In the meantime, internal data shows the focus on eliminating the filter bubble has allowed SmartNews to increase app appeal to both genders at all levels of society and across the complete political spectrum.

You’ve invested time and resource to make your app a hit at home, and it makes business sense to take your app to global in order to maximize exposure. Yes, that starts off with mastering the fundamentals of global and local design considerations to adapt your app to your audience. But we all know that designing a terrific app is not enough given the glut of products in the market and the increasing consumer requirement for apps that are aligned with local tastes and trends. Discovery is a critical component of conversion, but apps have to strike a chord. Moving from simple App Store Optimization to an effective global app marketing strategy will help you maximize your investment so that your app will be popular with audiences everywhere.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

Innovation | Video

Executive editor Jay Yarow breaks down CNBC’s formula for digital growth

When your employer is first and foremost in the television business, and your job is to manage the company’s entire digital presence, you’ve got your work cut out for you. That’s precisely what Jay Yarow, CNBC’s SVP and Executive Editor, Digital faces on a daily basis. He is responsible for everything that appears online outside of what is being broadcast. That means CNBC.com, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn – everything.

Yarow says that the objective of the brand is tracking everything related to business, finance, and investing. “We are aiming to be the most trusted brand when it comes to everything money.”

And his approach seems to be working: In September 2017, CNBC Digital reached the number three position in the Business/Finance News category for the first time ever and delivered a record 49.2 million unique visitors in September, which was up 74% year-over year. CNBC Digital also saw impressive growth in mobile with a record high of 30 million mobile unique visitors in September, up 105% year-over-year.  And so far this year, traffic from social platforms to CNBC.com has grown 83%.

Keeping it simple

When he came on board in February 2016, Yarow’s goal was to keep a good thing going and expand upon and improve what he could. “They had a great digital brand in place [when I got here]. It was growing before I got here. I helped to accelerate that growth. They have been doing digital for years. I tried to come in and add some extra,” he explained.

Sometimes, the seemingly small things make a big difference. For example, when you read a CNBC story and you see the bulleted data points summarizing the story at the top of the page, that’s something that Yarow added. “From my perspective, it’s super valuable. Investors or business leaders tend to be busy and don’t have time to absorb a lot of information,” he said. This way, readers can quickly get the gist of a news story on the way to a meeting when they might not have time to read the whole thing.

He also recognizes the importance of social media in reaching his busy audience. “I’m fortunate in that I really enjoy doing these things. It’s not like it’s a chore to check Instagram and check Twitter or Facebook or CNBC.com. These are all things I would do either way and I get to influence that.”

Keeping it real

Yarow says his primary focus is putting together a strong news team that breaks a lot of stories. As he joked, “We are first and foremost a media company. We never have to pivot to video.”

Above all, his focus is on producing high quality journalism. Then, he asks if “the journalism we are producing being rewarded with an appropriately large audience.” As he points out, it is important to be able to support the production of this journalism so reaching a significant audience and monetizing them is essential. “When you are building something, you have to make sure there is a business there,” he said. To that end, Yarow stays in sync with the business side to ensure that whatever he is doing has their support.

Media people

And, with so many media properties struggling and announcing layoffs, CNBC has been a marked positive contrast. It’s been growing and adding reporters like Chrissy Farr and Alex Sherman as well as a slew of new reporters to its tech coverage team in the last year. When it comes to different social channels like Instagram and YouTube, Yarow says he tries to hire good people and empower them to do good work. “We have great leaders we trust and empower them to run the different channels. My goal is to have nothing to do.”

“We have really focused on news and making sure we are breaking news. We built out our tech section and made it a strong team. And we are always systematically assessing business news and where we can get stronger,” Yarow explained.

One of the great advantages of being part of CNBC is that we have a lot of great platforms. I see a lot of different tech pieces being built and see what produces the best results.” He added, “We focus primarily on journalism and building a technology platform and tech stack.” And while the company is growing fast, he emphasizes that they are doing so it in a responsible way. “We are not saying, ‘Here is a $100M. Set it on fire and see what happens to our traffic’.”

Industry-Research | Perspectives

AMP referrals to publishers are increasing, and not just from Google

Though sometimes it seems like we’ve been talking about it forever, Facebook became a leading referrer to publishing websites only in mid-2015, according to Parse.ly data. Around that same time, other news broke that was poised to impact traffic drivers: Google officially launched AMP.

Today, the two news stories again converge. We’ve seen Google take the “referral king” crown back, with Google accounting for 44% of traffic to our network, and 12% of external traffic to media sites specifically coming from Google referrals AMP pages.

We can thank supply and demand for some of this. According to Google, there have been more than four billion AMP pages published and over 25 million domains creating AMP pages. Google purports that AMP brings benefits that can explain the rise in referrals. The web giant commissioned a study that shows that “AMP leads to a 10% increase in website traffic with a 2x increase in time spent on page. For e-commerce websites using AMP, the study also found a 20% increase in sales conversions compared to non-AMP pages.”

While these numbers point to a fairly big success for AMP so far, multiple causes likely contribute to the big picture numbers. Some of this shift to of referral traffic back to Google, AMP or otherwise, may be result of user preference for broader sources of information. Digital Content Next’s recent research showed that consumers have low levels of trust for news they get via social media, which could be a contributing factor. And perhaps the decline in Facebook as a primary driver of publisher traffic reflects Facebook’s desire to keep people in their app to try get a grip on the shifting tide of awakened media consumers.

However, it definitely shows the success of Google’s ability to sell AMP as a non-proprietary solution, versus Facebook Instant Articles. In short, development work done for AMP isn’t constrained to one audience or platform. Our research on referral traffic to publisher websites shows that the additional benefits may be mounting.

Adoption of AMP, it seems, has not just been embraced in Google searches but more broadly across the web. Over 3% of visitors to our publishing network visit through AMP off of Google, from sites like Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. For context, all of Twitter’s referrals to publishers’ websites only accounts for 2.5% of total external referral traffic.

Whatever the cause, for publishers still considering the adoption of third-party distribution channels, or considering their continued support in 2018, understanding these numbers for your site and for the industry should play a role in decision making. Audience acquisition, engagement, and retention through them becomes not just an editorial strategy, but a product development one as well.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

How to build an app subscription model that works

A year after Apple announced the arrival of the subscription app model as part of a wider sweep of changes it made to its App Store policies, the size and scope of this new app category is exceeding analyst expectations. It is also paving the way for content companies to grow audience numbers and engagement.

Content companies that embrace the model can plan their business with high confidence that they will attract high-value users and generate a predictable cash flow. This is because consumers who buy into subscriptions commit to a recurring fee and – generally speaking – stick to their decision. Their resolve is inextricably intertwined with a concept known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Simply put, people who have invested time or resources in something don’t want to see it go to waste. Think of the times you rented a movie and, even though it wasn’t great, you watched it to the end. Now you’ve got the gist.

Consumer commitment colored by this fascinating bias bodes extremely well for companies that offer subscription apps. In fact, as far back as 2014, research found consumers would buy into subscription apps if the price was right. Specifically, the Branchfire research into consumer attitudes toward subscription apps found that “$10 a month is the sweet spot for subscribers.”

Are subscriptions right for you?

Fast forward, and the range of subscription apps has expanded to include much more than streaming media providers like Netflix and Spotify. Data provider App Annie reports that “in-app subscription revenue from non-game apps, particularly within the media streaming, news and dating categories, is rapidly increasing.” Overall, App Annie forecasts revenue for non-game apps to grow at an incredible rate of 25% – reaching $33.8 billion in 2021.

It’s good news that subscription apps are gaining traction. But not all media companies that can offer their app as a subscription model should do so. If you’re asking users to open their wallets, you need to offer value for money.

A crowd-pleaser across the board is fresh and relevant content. Obviously, media companies do this by definition. That said, in order to merit a monthly recurring cost, the content must be exclusive, or engaging – or both. Regularly releasing new features is also a plus.

Finally, apps that remove the friction from navigation, or help users accomplish important tasks (book a reservation, register for more information, streamline sharing) are also a hit with time-crunched consumers and multi-tasking mobile users.

Do your homework

Before you decide to release a subscription app, do your homework to make sure your audience engages frequently, and deeply enough, to merit the investment in the first place. This is where audience measurement data around the who, when and why of app usage in the form of behavioral data and insights is a must. Even better if this data spans all the platforms that encompass consumers’ daily routines.

Finland’s Verto Analytics focuses on precisely this, quantifying the user journey from one device to another and measuring from the point of consumer interaction across all platforms, media, content and devices. In April Verto posted high-level research into news access and engagement across platforms, highlighting how (and when) valuable audience segments engage with news content.

The day-in-the-life data and visualization underscores the importance of offering content to consumers on their terms – and across all platforms. But it also reveals interesting “windows of opportunity” during the day when content companies might use their presence to interest consumers in a subscription offer.

Raising awareness of your app is an important top-of-the-funnel activity. However, you also need additional data to plan your app marketing and acquisition campaigns – and ultimately benchmark your performance against your peers.

You must also consider several important criteria, which are raised in the 2017 Subscription Apps Report, such as: What is the proper price range for a subscription app? How long is too long to wait for a user to convert and commit to paying a recurring cost? When are the best months to reach and engage potential users?

Compare costs and contexts

The report finds that it costs $161.38 the cost to convert an app user into a subscriber. However, the number may skew high since the subscription app category Liftoff tracks includes Dating Apps, Utilities, and Finance. These types of apps vary significantly in the value they offer and the monthly subscription fee they charge.

It is essential to remember that subscription apps (and their users) are about long-term gains, not short-term bargains. Granted acquisition costs high, but media companies can also increase conversion rates by using all channels at their disposal – including email, push notifications and print ads in their own media properties – to reinforce their value proposition.

Provided they are powered by appropriate messaging and effective targeting, subscription app campaigns can engage and re-engage audiences all year long. This is very different to other categories, such as commerce, which take their cues from seasonal triggers such as holiday sprees or back-to-school shopping.

Companies that offer subscription apps have a huge window of opportunity in which to run campaigns and hit targets. Liftoff also finds that there are some stand-out months, such as September and March, when the “cost to acquire a user who subscribes to the app pays dividends beyond the promise of a more predictable business model powered by more sustainable revenues.”

Above all, keep in mind that driving high conversion rates for your subscription app a journey, not a destination. Regardless of your app subcategory (news, lifestyle, sports) or your campaign objective, your results will be determined by your ability to orchestrate all of your channels to take advantage of all the opportunities to communicate with consumers in ways that are easy, engaging and effective.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

Innovation

How National Geographic empowers content exploration

In the early days of digital, media companies believed that more was better. However today, they are waking up to a hard truth. Stockpiles of content – without technology platforms to make it widely available in ways people find valuable, meaningful, and dead-simple – can destroy competitive advantage, rather than build it. National Geographic, an iconic brand with over 360 million social fans, including a significant audience across desktop and mobile for its editorial and video content, is exploring technology platforms and partnerships to open the aperture of the content they offer and the audiences they reach.

Peggy Anne Salz – mobile analyst and Content Marketing Strategist at MobileGroove – caught up with Marcus East, National Geographic executive vice president of product and technology. They discussed the company’s strategy to build strong emotional engagement with global audiences through deep personalization, intuitive access, wider app distribution, and an intelligent platform codenamed CHIP. National Geographic has no shortage of compelling content. Here’s a look at their strategy to deliver experiences to match.

PAS: You joined National Geographic from Marks and Spencer, where you ran e-commerce, digital product, digital operations and technology platforms. Before that you ran e-commerce solutions for Apple in EMEA, and later at HQ. How does your experience prepare you to define and drive mobile strategy at National Geographic?

ME: Spending half of my career in technology and the other half in consumer brands allows me to understand what it takes to deliver mobile content consumers love. Your app is only as good as the content and the utility that sits within it. And for us, the emphasis is on making sure that we’re investing in both of those areas. That means having the right technology platforms and the right app strategy, but driven by content. Ultimately, it’s the content that our consumers love and why they come to National Geographic.

PAS: So, we are back to Content is King…

ME: Yes, and everything we do has to be about making the content king. The content is what drives the experiences that consumers love. That’s fascinating for me because I’ve worked in e-commerce environments where consumer value is very much about utility. At National Geographic, it’s about bringing our brand to life on mobile. The reality is many of our consumers are right now interacting with us through their mobile the way they want, which may be on Instagram or it may be on Facebook. So, what we do need to be complementary to that experience.

Social reach and engagement is important to us. We have 360 million social media fans, and that’s an incredible footprint. However, we also think there’s an opportunity to build upon that and to extend and optimize our mobile experience for that audience that is dedicated and comes directly to National Geographic and wants to get deeper and further into the stories behind the pictures.

PAS: Your mobile app is work in progress. It’s already breaking some exciting new ground when it comes to helping users navigate and personalize content. We can’t all access it yet, so what can you tell me about the user experience you offer?

ME: Right now, we’re redesigning elements of our website to really be optimized for that mobile experience. Around 50% of our traffic comes on mobile, which is no surprise. At the same time, we’re also building a new app strategy, which we’ve launched and tested in one market: Australia. We launched the app with a telco partner, and we’re seeing a great deal of success there and that is informing our wider global mobile strategy.

Content is king in the app and so the experiences that we deliver through our app put the content front and center. We have a 129-year heritage of photos and articles and, more recently, videos. We don’t want the interface to get in the way of that. The interface has to allow our consumers to explore the content and go further. That means moving the navigation into the background so that it really highlights the content. We achieve this by thinking about what the consumer wants to do first, and there are three concepts. Rather than presenting consumers a complex navigation that groups content into pictures, video and articles, we’ve decided to design it the way people to engage with content. We have ‘Read,’ which is where users can engage with the editorial and the magazine; we have ‘Watch,’ which is where they can access to our video content.

Our app approach is about the consumer and the content. For this reason, the app experience also provides a level of personalization, allowing the user to specify what’s most interesting to them. Over time, the app will learn exactly what things are most interesting to that consumer based both on their preferences and on what they’re actually consuming.

PAS: The navigation is invisible and intelligent. What about the platform that powers it?

ME: We want users to log in to the app and experience the content that’s right for them, and we’re applying this same principle to our websites. We’re also looking at how we can, using some advanced techniques like progressive web apps, for example, to create a more personalized experience for consumers. This is why we want to build an intelligent platform to support the ambitions of our business.

So, what we’re exploring and building is what we’re calling a cohesive intelligent platform, codenamed ‘CHIP’. We’re building an innovation lab here in our headquarters in Washington, D.C. and we’re working with lots of technology partners and companies to explore all that. The idea is, as users come into our platform, we want to learn more about them, give them an opportunity to tell us about their preferences so that we can improve that experience, and let them see the content that’s most valuable for them. Offering personalized experiences where content is front and center – this is really the future of mobile.

PAS: It’s an ambitious strategy. But what is really interesting is how you are building the platform to deliver it because you are also orchestrating the best pieces of the other platforms, like social …

ME: I like your choice of the word “orchestrated” because the platform that we envisage is, you could argue, a virtual platform because we aren’t going to build every component of it. We are making it by orchestrating the right content management systems, the right personalization engine, the right distribution system. For some parts of the platform we may work with third parties, and for others we may build it ourselves. It all starts with experimentation; we are iterating in an agile way and building.

We’re unique in that we’ve got unparalleled global reach. We touch over 745 million consumers across 172 countries, and that’s every month. But it’s also across lots of different content types. People watch our TV channel, which is the most widely distributed in the world. People read the magazine, and they also interact with us in social.

As we build out and execute our digital capabilities we want to create a way to allow our consumers to go beyond how they experience our content today. Take consumers who read the magazine. We want them to also be able to consume our digital content on our website and watch our TV channel. It’s all about pivoting away from the different products and channels that we have and bringing it to life for the consumer and giving them new ways to explore National Geographic and the world around them through National Geographic.

PAS: You want to enrich consumers’ lives through content. That also sounds a lot like you may have a new twist on native advertising. Where does monetization fit in and how do you plan to also put content front and center in that experience?

ME: We’re exploring all the ways in which we can create the best experience, including sponsorships and e-commerce opportunities that can become part of that experience. Let’s imagine we have a consumer who absolutely loves penguins and they are on our website where they search for and engage with lots of content about penguins. We see that as an opportunity to maybe share with them details about our products that are related to penguins. It might be a penguin cuddly toy, or it might be a book about penguins, or ultimately, it may be a trip to Antarctica to go and actually see penguins in real-life. This is where we will have delivered on the ultimate promise of digital and making content part of everything that we do.

PAS: You also offer educational content. How does personalization of content and advertising extend to that audience?

ME: Ten years ago, media brands and publishers would’ve expected people to come to the website, do the work, go through the navigation and find the content that’s right to them. The Nirvana, for us, is to create a personalized experience, one that allows us to know enough about those two personas – the consumer and the educator. So, when they interact with our brand, we can give them access to content that is relevant to them, and that meets their needs.

To that point, one of the things that we’re embracing is the Jobs To Be Done paradigm that Clayton Christensen and other academics have proposed. Yes, we look at all the metrics as any media company would, but we’re also deep diving into what consumers really want and why they come to our website. Getting a deeper understanding of those consumers want to do, powered by technology. We need to have the right technology platform in place to do that in the first place. This will allow us to maximize the brand opportunity.

PAS: You can also maximize your opportunity by getting your brand in the hand of all your readers – across all 172 countries. How do you see this global opportunity and what are you doing to grasp it?

ME: There is a real opportunity at distributing apps using alternative channels and app stores. And it’s a cost-effective way to reach and interact with consumers and markets where we haven’t necessarily had a strong proposition. We recently did an audit of app stores globally – of which there are over 200 – to better understand their focus and their audience. We have a good relationship with many telco partners around the world that have their own app stores. Various technology companies have also come to and asked us to publish out app in their app stores as well. So, right now, we’re auditing to make sure that we, in a deliberate way, prioritize which of those app stores are right for us.

PAS: I am researching this alternative app store landscape, which is over 350 stores and counting. In China, for example, alternative Android app stores dominate…

ME:  I was quite intrigued to see the range of app stores in China. From WeChat to handset maker, there is a wealth of opportunity. We also want to minimize the cost of being in all these different environments, and that’s why I attach so much importance to orchestrating an intelligent platform so that if our teams in Asia, for example, can identify a new app store and a new partner in the region and be able to embark on a relationship without having to build everything from scratch, and without having to do lots of development work.

The number of app stores is quite remarkable, and as you well know from your research, many of them are quite different – with different audiences and different demographics. So, it’s fair to say that in the short term our priority will remain the best known and most established app stores, but we are exploring all of them.

PAS: Of course, being in app stores – even if it’s just Google Play and iTunes – means investing effort to ensure brand integrity. As a global and iconic brand, how do you ensure this?

ME: On the one hand, protecting your brand online and in apps is incredibly important. One of the things I’m responsible for here at National Geographic is information security. However, I believe if you build the best experiences for your consumers, ultimately, that’s the best way to protect your brand. Consumers will come directly to you to get content because they know your website or app is the right destination – and the only way – to get the most up-to-date content and personalized experience. It’s all about creating a compelling content story and a compelling user experience because that will make sure consumers come to us first.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. Full disclosure: She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

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

Digital news is a mixed media experience

Most adults today use a combination of different sources and platforms to get their news reports the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017. The global report is based on a survey of more than 70,000 people in 36 markets, with added qualitative research in many of the countries. Social media is a big part of this media mix, as are TV, websites and apps. In fact, two-thirds of social media news users in the United States also watch television news (67%) and two-thirds also visit mainstream websites or apps (66%). Further, only a quarter (24%) of the respondents think social media does a good job in separating fact from fiction, compared to 40% for the news media.

News brands struggle with their branding on distributed and social platforms. Reuters tracked over 2,000 respondents in the UK to see if they could remember their path to a news story found on Facebook, Google, or others. Only 37% of respondents could recall the name of the news brand when coming from search and 47% when coming from social.

Trust Issues

Trust in the news media varies greatly across countries. According to the report, less than half the population (43%) trust the news media. Trust in the news is highest in Finland (62%) and lowest in Greece and South Korea (23% each). There appears to be a strong correlation between consumer distrust in the media and perceived political bias, especially in countries with high political polarity like the U.S where trust in the news media registers at 38%.

The news also appears to be impacting the consumers’ emotional psyche. Close to a third of respondents (29%) state they often or sometimes avoid the news. Many say the news negatively impacts their mood and heightens concern over their inability to rely on the news to be true.

Additional findings:
  • Outside the U.S. and UK, growth in social media for news is leveling off many markets. In its place, messaging apps that are more private and do not algorithmically filter content are gaining in popularity.
  • Mobile access for news is increasing in many countries. Mobile news notifications have grown significantly in the last year, especially in the US (+8 percentage points), South Korea (+7), and Australia (+4). This has many news publishers working with third party distribution like Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP for quick efficiencies for content loading on mobile devices.
  • Mobile news aggregators show usage growth, notably Apple News, and Snapchat Discover for younger audiences. Both have doubled YoY usage with their target audience.
  • Smartphones are now as important for news inside the home as outside with 46% of consumers using their smartphones to access news in bed.
  • Voice-activated digital assistants like the Amazon Echo are emerging as a new platform for news, outpacing smart watches in the US and UK.
  • Overall, YoY growth of digital news subscriptions across all demos, especially among those under 35 years old. Specifically, online news subscriptions in the U.S. grew from 9 to 16% subscriptions. Across all countries, approximately one in ten consumers (13%) pay for online news.
  • Ad-blocking growth has leveled off on desktop at 21% overall and is only 7% on smartphones. Interestingly, in some countries, more than half state they have temporarily disabled their ad-blocker for news in countries like Poland and Denmark (57% each) and the United States (52%).
Add Value

Melissa Bell, Publisher and co-founder, Vox Media comments on this analysis “if we work to rebuild trust with our audiences, we may find our way to more stable, significant businesses.” She’s identify a few key questions for publishers to think about and address as they continue to provide quality news content across platforms.

  • What is currently not being offered to audiences? How can content appear essential to them?
  • Can the sense of community be recreated for audiences around the country – or the world?
  • How do publishers help audiences seek knowledge instead of simply publishing information?
  • How can publishers help audiences feel less anxious with today’s news content?

Importantly, publishers need to solve problems for their audiences. Digital news publishers’ focus on quality, transparency, and accountability will allow audience trust and engagement to follow.

Industry-Research

How publishers can use mobile apps to drive engagement

With so much mobile app time concentrated in the top apps, it can feel as if every other publisher is fighting for the scraps. As a small or medium-sized publisher, how does your app succeed when half of all app engagement occurs within the Top 10 largest apps overall? Potentially even more discouraging for publishers, on an individual basis 96% of a user’s time spent occurs within their top 10 most used apps, according to comScore’s recently released 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report.

While this app environment is certainly challenging, it’s actually more positive for smaller-to-medium-sized publishers than it might seem at first glance. Many of these publishers today focus more (or even exclusively) on their mobile web strategy knowing that it’s easier to capture large mobile audiences this way than on mobile apps.

The downside of this strategy is that mobile web audiences tend to be a mile wide and an inch deep – they provide audience scale, but not engagement. On a per user basis, the advertising opportunity within the app is leaps and bounds better than the mobile web. In fact, the average visitor for the Top 500 apps spends 16x more minutes per month than the average visitor to the Top 500 mobile web properties. For this reason, moving the needle on acquiring and engaging more app users even a modest amount can have a significant impact on monetization.

To further illustrate this point, a 2015 analysis conducted by Jacob Nelson based on comScore data examined the digital audiences for 25 leading news publications. One of the major findings from Nelson’s analysis was that “while apps comprise an average of just 6% of the 25 news properties’ mobile audiences, they account for nearly half (45%) of the time that audience spends with those properties.”

Strategic Approach

Given the incredible opportunity for apps, here are three strategies publishers should consider to more effectively acquire and engage app users:

1. Offer users a reason to download the app.

This is somewhat obvious but nevertheless a critical point to make. Publishers can’t just assume that “if you build it, they will come.” In addition to an app taking up storage space on a user’s phone, there’s also a degree of friction that users face in going to the app store and downloading an app. If a publisher doesn’t offer the user a reason to put the app on their phone in the first place, most users will default to the lower friction alternative of visiting the mobile website – or even worse – not accessing the publisher’s content at all because they don’t have that prompt readily available on their screen.

One reason many people download an app is for easy access to that publisher’s content. It might be that some users simply need a reminder of this. Communicating to a publisher’s high engagement mobile web users that they can access the same content via the mobile app can be an effective way to convert any “low-hanging fruit” web visitors to app users. A more aggressive marketing approach could be offering a promotion for downloading the app, in the form of a discounted subscription or access to other special or premium content that they couldn’t otherwise get.

2. Serve up relevant content to drive usage frequency.

Once you convince someone to download your app, your next goal needs to be getting them to use it. The best way to do this is to meet and exceed their need for high quality content. This can be done by personalizing users’ feeds to put the most relevant and engaging content directly in front of them. A one-size-fits-all approach might not be optimal if it means a low or modest signal-to-noise ratio for the reader. If every time a user opens the app they instead see a selection of articles that is most likely to interest them, this creates a self-reinforcing habit that increases the likelihood that they will return to the app frequently – and spend more time while they’re there.

Timeliness of content is another important factor to consider. If you want to maintain a loyal audience, you have to be prepared to provide great content to the user whenever he or she demands it. Some users may even appreciate you telling them when you have content that is relevant to their personal tastes and interests. comScore found that interest in push notifications grew to 43% in 2017 from just 27% last year. Millennials tend to be much more receptive to these types of alerts than older generations, with 63% of them always or often agreeing to an app’s request to allow push notifications.

3. Get your app on the user’s home screen.

This last recommendation is the most challenging, but if your app is relevant enough to get promoted to a user’s smartphone home screen, then there’s a far greater chance your app will get used with more frequency. In fact, comScore found that 80% of mobile users intentionally move apps to their home screen, and 61% of those home screen curators cite app usage frequency as the top factor influencing their decision to promote an app to this premium position.

It was also found that there is an extremely high correlation for users’ “most essential” apps being placed on their home screen. This again comes back to quality, quantity and timeliness of content. If you have a lot of content that is relevant to the user at the moment they desire it, then your app will feel essential to the user, which might result in them giving you some of the best ‘real estate’ on their phone, setting your app up for success.

It’s important to remember that a small percentage of users can make up a huge percentage of overall media engagement and the corresponding advertising opportunity that comes with it. While having audience scale is important, it’s also important to drive loyalty and engagement to maximize monetization opportunities. Apps are an ideal way to get the most out of these loyal readers, or even convert casual readers into loyal ones. Modest gains in driving app usage and engagement can have a meaningful impact on the economics of digital publishers.

Adam Lella is a Senior Marketing Insights Analyst at comScore and co-author of The 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report. His research has spanned across numerous industry topics including digital, TV, e-commerce and advertising.

Industry-Research

Strategies used by digital-native news publishers to drive user engagement

Getting ones’ news digitally is not just for millennials—it’s the norm these days. In fact, nine in 10 U.S adults get their news digitally either via desktop or mobile. We’ve also seen strong digital native brands, those originally founded on the web like Vox Media or Huffington Post, emerge as leaders in the news marketplace. The new Pew Research Center research looks at 36 digital native news outlets that averaged at least 10 million monthly unique visitors in Q4 2016. The analysis provides an excellent snapshot of the digital native news industry’s audience strategies to increase outreach and engagement.

Usage and engagement

Overall, digital native news outlets are performing well. Monthly unique visitors for the 36 sites for the digital native news outlets increased 12% in 4Q 2016. Users also spent a healthy 2.4 minutes per average visit.

The use of digital native news apps is an important part of audience strategies. Close to two-thirds (61%) of the highest traffic digital-native news outlets have apps available for either iOS or Android. Mobile compatibility is an important part of their overall strategy and user engagement. In fact, 42% of these new outlets have apps supporting both iOS and Android.

User outreach is key to building and sustaining engagement. Almost all digital native publishers (97%) offer newsletters. Three-quarters produce podcasts and 61% have comment sections on their articles to promote consumer feedback. Digital news outlets also rely on social media to engage their users: All of those covered have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Almost all have Instagram accounts (92%) and are on YouTube (97%). Less than 25% have a Snapchat channel or account.

Revenue growth

Digital advertising continues to grow as a proportion of total advertising revenue, a trend that Pew points out is driven in large part by growth in advertising on mobile devices. Interestingly, based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year, more than eight-in-ten (85%) U.S. adults now get news on a mobile device compared to 72% just a year ago.

The report cites eMarketer estimates that digital advertising grew to $72 billion in 2016. Mobile advertising revenues accounted for 65% or $47 billion of the digital ad sales revenue. Desktop advertising revenue on the other hand continue to decline, now at 35% of total ad revenue. And, as ever, the report emphasizes the dominance of Facebook and Google in both banner and mobile display ad revenue.

Building a strong native digital news brands includes a platform native approach aligning publisher, platform and consumer strategies. Digital native publishers should experiment to find their unique voice and consumer connection. Importantly, the strength of a native digital news brand is deeply rooted in an engaged reader relationship.

Innovation | Perspectives

Engagement and the evolution of audience to advocates

Digital media is waking up to the hard truth that more is not always better. As a result, the strong belief that a high volume of content attracts a high number of page views is being replaced by the stark realization that quality trumps everything – even traffic.

NBC News is just the latest in a string of publishers to shift their focus from pushing pageviews to encouraging audience engagement. The emphasis on quality over quantity is part of a larger strategy to avoid commoditization by ensuring differentiation.

Rather than produce more news content, NBC News produces more original content around the news in the form of analysis, narrative, and additional formats including podcast and video. The outcome is less volume – approximately 25% fewer stories a day. However the goal is to deliver more value as this is a take on the news the audience can only get from NBC News. In an interview with Digiday, Nick Ascheim, SVP of Digital at NBC News, recounts the massive “culture shift” that has taken place in the newsroom. In the past, he says, the company was focused on pageviews. “The approach now is, let’s worry a little less about how many clicks and more about telling a good story.”

But it’s not enough to adopt a new mindset; companies must also adjust internal KPIs to measure success and gauge failure. Undeterred by the lack of industry standards or metrics to quantity engagement, NBC News has developed its own, unique formula. It defines a loyal user as one who has visited the site five or more times in two consecutive months. Of course, the way a publisher chooses to define and measure engagement will depend on key variables such as content category, delivery format, audience demographics and, above all, company objectives.

Engagement from the Start

The efforts of publishers like NBC News to set new performance goals and take on the task of internalizing them is a huge step in the right direction. (NBC News has even gone so far as to print the new goals on cards it distributes to writers and employees.) But publishers would also do well to apply the same rigor to how they acquire and engage audiences in the first place.

An obvious place to start is mobile apps, where app companies are learning the hard way that strategies focused on attracting massive numbers of users are fatally flawed. In the early days, the App Economy was a numbers game where data-driven (in my view data-obsessed) approaches worked well. Companies pursued strategies that allowed them to buy app installs at low prices in the belief that it would pay off. It seemed to work, allowing some apps – particularly games and lifestyle apps – to rocket up the app store charts.

But the gold rush mood sobered when a flurry of reports and blogs made the headlines arguing  that app installs, like mayflies, were literally here today and gone tomorrow. Data released by app analytics and attribution companies, highlighted “insane” app unistall rates, adding gasoline to the fire.

The Mother of all Metrics

Today the companies across all app categories and geographies are coming to terms with the realization that engagement is what I like to call “the mother of all metrics.” Indeed, engagement isn’t just the end-game. It matters at every stage of the marketing funnel and every step of the user journey. Finding ways to grow (and measure) engagement is the toughest task that confronts every company with digital assets, not just apps.

Nonetheless, we can learn a lot from app managers as they rethink and retool to identify, acquire, engage, and retain high-quality users from the get-go. Their journey started a few years back with a singular focus on driving traffic. (Sound familiar?) They relied heavily on ASO (App Store Optimization). But their toolbox of capabilities has since expanded and evolved to include direct marketing, social media, influencer outreach, above the line advertising and marketing, and everything in between. All in an effort to forge deeper connections with fewer users.

By way of background, ASO is similar to SEO. Only instead of publishers optimizing elements of their content and websites in an effort to show up high in search engine results, publishers optimize key elements of their app store landing page and presence – such as keywords, icons and videos – to ensure people discover and download their app. That may deliver a high quantity of users, but the success is fleeting if efforts fail to drive lasting loyalty and frequent use of the apps.

Quality Rules

Indeed, ASO has a role to play at every step of the journey. This inclues production, presence, promotion and the pragmatism app developers and companies will need to build a business, not just release an app. For savvy app marketers, ASO has evolved into an approach that encompasses everything neccessary to deliver great content and great experiences via an app. That is what’s required to move the needle on audience engagement and take an app from being simply discoverable to truly engaging. This ensures that the app goes from being a one-time download to a longterm addiction.

For publishers, winning used to be about creating huge volumes of content. For app makers, winning was about buying huge volumes of users. In both businesses the rules have changed, making way for a renewed focus on quality.

In all areas of your business, quality trumps everything. And engagement is emerging the performance metric that matters across the every stage of the marketing funnel and every step of the user journey. Whether you want to attract an audience or grow revenues, quality matters. Strategies aimed at boosting page views or installs may deliver fast — but not sustainable — growth. To achieve that, companies must double-down on efforts to create content and experiences that are genuinely engaging, thus converting an audience of readers into a legion of advocates for the long-term.

Industry-Research

People will pay for news, research finds. But they expect fairness and accountability.

The number of people using social media to find news is leveling off according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017, the largest comparative study of news consumption. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) surveyed more than 70,000 people in 36 countries, on issues of trust, changing business models, and the role of platforms.

Unsurprisingly, mobile is a key access point for news. However, consumers’ usage of mobile alerts has risen 8 percentage points in the U.S, +7 in Korea, and +4 in Australia. The report finds that smartphones are an important access point for news inside the home as well as on the go. More smartphone users now access news in bed using their smartphone (46%) than when commuting to work.

On a global level, Reuters Institute reports that users are also looking to private messaging apps instead of social media (i.e. What’s App) in Malaysia (51%), Brazil (46%), and Spain (32%).

It is interesting that video doesn’t appear to be a big influencer in online news. People are only consuming a marginal amount of video on news websites. This is true as well for younger audiences and in countries where social media is a bigger part of the media mix.

Other key findings include:
  • Only a quarter (24%) of respondents think social media does a good job in separating fact from fiction, compared to 40% for the news media.
  • Trust (or lack of it) in the news of has a wide range depending on the country. The highest was found in Finland at 62% and the lowest in Greece and Koreas at 23% each.
  • Consumers are tired of the negative effects of news on their mood and attitude. In fact, almost a third of respondents (29%) avoid the news.
  • A quarter of respondents (24%) report that they regularly use ad-blockers, which is consistent with last year’s findings. Importantly, close to half (43%) of those with ad blockers agreed to temporarily turn off their ad-blocker to access a specific news sites.
  • Voice-activated digital devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are rising new platform for news.

Paying for News

Across all countries, only around one in ten (13%) pay for online news. Digital news subscriptions registered strong growth in the U.S., from 9% to 16% of the sample. Reuters Institute reports encouraging findings with regards to the growth of digital subscriptions. The report shows a strong correlation between consumers paying for online video services like Netflix and those paying for digital news subscriptions. Once consumers step away from the concept that all digital content is free, they are much more likely to pay for news.

Critical Qualities

Reuters Institute identifies transparency, fairness, and accountability as critical components for news publishers today. In the report, Melissa Bell, Publishers and Co-founder of Vox Media said: “If we work to rebuild trust with our audiences, we may find our way to more stable, significant businesses.” Bell also commented on the importance of a strong news branding and voice, “We have to know who we are and what we are trying to do, so our audience can come to know us and what to expect from us.”

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