Sometimes you read something so obvious that you want to run away and do it right now. Read how a southeast Asian publisher's membership engagement manager conducted interviews with audience members to understand why they became members and donors. The interviews uncovered some excellent actionable steps the publisher could take including developing exclusive content for members and giving ways for donors to pay for those who can't afford memberships.

I've also got a good overview of local news entrepreneurship about what is working and also some challenges that some sites have seen. While discussing pitfalls, this is a largely positive overview of the state of local news start-ups in the US.

PLUS, a good look at how to use data to improve your subscriber acquisition funnel and also how to retain your subscribers. It reinforces the lessons from New Naratif in southeast Asia that you need to use quantitative and qualitative data to understand subscriber and member habits.

Survey Your Audience to Understand Membership Motivations

How a Southeast Asian publisher reframed its pitch to members | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News — whatsnewinpublishing.com

A lesson in the importance of asking your community what they want from you I joined New Naratif as Membership Engagement Manager three years ago, which is apparently about as long as jobs like mine have existed in media. My time at New Naratif has been a process of trial and error in figuring out …

Wow, excellent, actionable insights here about membership that they found out by simply surveying their audience. They found out that a lack of exclusive content was one of the issues keeping people from becoming members.

Lessons in Local News Entrepreneurship

Thinking of starting a local digital news site? Do it, but be aware of the pitfalls. - Poynter — www.poynter.org

Funding and training are plentiful and displaced journalists are eager to recommit to a community news mission, but the picture is not all sunny.

A comprehensive look at the local, digital news startup landscape in the US. One thing to note from Penny Abernathy, who has catalogued news deserts in the US: "Locally owned and operated news outlets located in more affluent communities have much better prospects of cobbling together for-profit and nonprofit funding from a variety of sources than those in economically struggling communities."

Using Data to Refine Your Subscription Strategy

Lessons learned from the pandemic-era subscription boom — digitalcontentnext.org

Highlights across digital engagement, subscriptions, retention, and conversion during a year of increased appetite for news content.

This reiterates a lot of pre-pandemic lessons that we need to use data to understand things that drive audiences to subscriber and what causes them to cancel their subscriptions.

Vice's Focus on Stories Grows Video Engagement

‘Where the action is’: Vice Media Group now produces more Stories than text or video — digiday.com

The success of Stories Studio has Vice thinking through ways it can use it across other parts of the organization, even in its branded content business.

"The not quite-pivot to stories has driven some encouraging results. Average impressions per post are up 72% across Vice Media Group since it got its social global social teams up to speed on Stories Studio; for Vice World News, which has been a major focus since its launch last year, the stories-centric output has helped grow its Instagram audience from just over 100,000 followers to more than 600,000 followers over the past six months. "

Rethinking Social Media Policies

The Associated Press fired a reporter over social media use — and what it means for other news outlets - Poynter — www.poynter.org

Should journalists be expected to erase who they are for the sake of appearing to be objective? News outlets need to refine these policies.

A teachable moment indeed. Conservatives went on the offensive against a 22-year-old reporter who had landed a job with the Associated Press over tweets she posted at university supporting Palestinians against actions by the Israeli government. It's another example of bad faith actors attacking a journalist and a news organisation over the social media activity of a young journalist while at university. Poynter is calling for a review of social media policies.