How to use Slack to support SEO in your newsroom PLUS from @WNIP how publishers can capitalise on European on digital user growth

August 08, 2022

Welcome to a new week in media. Today, we have a mix of practical tips, some more insights into the direction of the media economy around the world and for product and UX folks, ideas on why a design works (or doesn't work).

Search is ubiquitous in our day to day life and journalism needs to get better at it.

Ryan Restivo, a Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow and the director of product and emerging technology at Newsday, outlines the process that he is using to develop a tool that he hopes will make it easier for newsroom to improve their SEO. As he points out, 65% of users say that they come to news via search.

While a number of newsrooms have focused on social to attract the next generation of audiences, search still remains a key foundation for how your current audience finds and engages with your content.

Through the Beyond Print program, legacy outlets are working to decrease their reliance on print and move toward sustainable long-term digital strategies.

From the American Press Institute's newsletter, this article from the Lenfest Institute's Beyond Print program Peter Doucett - the former Philadelphia Inquirer chief revenue officer and now Mather Economics Senior Managing Director - looks at practical ways for an organisation to develop digital revenue models and goals. as with many strategies now, he focuses on growing reader revenue, but the real value in the article is how he clearly lays out the ideal 'end state' for a digital media business.

Across the world, we’ve seen exponential digital growth. McKinsey’s latest report on digital reported a net gain of 100 million digital users across Europe since 2019. That’s a whopping 13% of the total population of Europe! Today, we examine the state of digital within publishing and look at how publishers can improve their digital offering. 🎧 Listen to this article High frequency of …

Looking at McKinsey's latest digital report, Matthew Lynes of Twipe looks at how publishers can make advantage of the 100m new digital users across Europe. McKinsey saw a cooldown of digital use after the pandemic, but the pandemic-driven increase in digital media has raised activity permanently, and as we have seen in other reports, mobile usage boomed and has reached a new plateau.

News publishers often think their challenges are unique. The data from our programs shows they have a lot in common.

This opening says a lot: "flashy editorial projects get all the buzz while flaws in a business’s underlying revenue or operations too often get ignored". I really applaud the team at LION Publishers for their ongoing business audit. A lot of indie publishers launched because they were passionate about journalism, but the challenges they face in the long run were often business challenges. I also like their plans for the coming months with several months being focused on building media businesses plus a month looking at how to avoid burnout. I ran my own business on and off for more than eight years, and it's an incredible challenge to pay the bills and maintain a work-life balance.

This is a list of strategies, tactics and tips observed over the course of years independent podcasters and newsrooms have used to grow their listeners Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at The future of digital journalism in Moldova conference organized by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Chisinau. My topic was podcasts and audience growth. I shared some of …

Read this if, for no other reason, they suggest that one way to grow your audience is to post it on YouTube. It's a great place to grow a long-tail audience, and it reaches a lot of people who do not use the standard podcasting apps.

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

In media, we often focus on B2C, but the B2B space has always fascinated me, particularly because B2B experiments with different revenue mixes than B2C publishers and has worked to create strong subscription businesses long before it became such a major focus for B2C publishers. Informa still retains 20% of the business, and with a return to in-person events and strong subscription growth, the company is in a strong position.

Social Media Today

It is interesting to see this once-hot app pivot and then pivot again as it seeks a growth model.

Anime distributor Crunchyroll Aug. 4 announced it has purchased anime online retailer Right Stuf to expand its e-commerce service. The deal, the terms of which are not disclosed, immediately widens Crunchyroll’s online product offering with significant extensions in the home entertainment and manga categories.

One of the themes of media in the past two years has been e-commerce, and this move - albeit in entertainment - shows how blurry the lines are becoming.

The Business of media as economies slow

Warner Bros. Discovery, New York Times and Paramount Global warn of pressure on ad revenue

More data points on how the macroeconomic environment is weighing on media companies across the spectrum from broadcast to publishing.

Digital subscriptions are up, but, as expenses rise, other revenue streams are in a freefall

I keep an eye out for news about Gannett because I still have a lot of friends who work there. Print circulation and print advertising were both down, and new print costs were up. This means that the newspaper chain is going to have to lay more people off.

Where Gannett has spread itself too thin, the Times has found overwhelming success with its longstanding digital-focused plan

Rick Edmond's of Poynter sums up the situation very well: "Gannett needs to turn out more than 200 reports daily. The company probably has at least double the news staff (of the New York Times), but it is no secret that at its smallest papers, the daily reports have become thinner than thin, in extreme cases produced with just one-full-time reporter and a remote editor."

Cognitive ease happens when there is no cognitive strain. When a design works, people experience cognitive ease. When it doesn’t, we experience an interruption to our state of flow.

For product thinkers out there, this is a really good overview of what makes good design.

Pros & Cons Of Google's New Structured Data For Reviews - 08/05/2022

Review sites have become an important source of income for many publishers (including the New York Times with its Wirecutter acquisition), and this is an interesting development.

Early in July, most of the staff at Inven Global, a highly regarded online publication that specialized in reporting esports news from SK for the West, were laid off. The Dallas Morning News stopped covering local esports teams OpTic and Complexity on a day-to-day basis in July as well. Earlier in the year, the revamped and Enthusiast Gaming-backed Upcomer laid off most of its staff, a little under a calendar year after launching with a strong, laudable opening statement about their commitment to journalism. On LinkedIn, Inven claims to be “profitable,” but it has multiple revenue streams, including a consultancy operation, Digiday’s Alexander Lee reports. Venn shut down in 2022, and Input Mag detailed the fallout, calling it a “colossal failure.”

A look at the struggles of esports outlets and what they would need to become successful businesses.