Audience Engagement Archives | Page 6 of 10

Here’s Why Live Blogs Are Critical for Covering Civil Unrest

From the storming of Capitol Hill to the protests in 2020 against police brutality, tensions between civilians and authorities have led to dangerous clashes recently. And although it’s unfortunate, civil unrest has been and will continue to be part of the world we live in.

Media companies are now pursuing new, effective ways to deliver critical information and updates in these types of disturbances to keep news readers informed and engaged. That’s why live blogs are quickly becoming the content publishing format of choice for organizations that want to cover civil unrest thoroughly.

Not only do live blogs give newsrooms a way to share quick updates and lengthier articles, but they also encourage readers to stay on publishers’ digital properties for longer.

Max Willens, a senior reporter at Digiday, highlights how “live blogs, live update or briefing pages,… drive more content consumption, deliver stronger subscriber conversion, and tend to play an important role in subscriber retention.”

Gain a deeper understanding of how live blogs are vital for strengthening your company’s news coverage — and digital community — around civil unrest below.

One Trusted Place To Gather Trusted Information

There’s nothing more convenient for newsreaders in times of crisis than having all the available news and information on a page that’s easy-to-access and navigate.

Take the National Post, for example.

The National Post ran a live blog in February of 2020 to help people make sense of how COVID-19 was quickly changing the world around them. This news hub was used to deliver key facts on public safety, real-time updates and related longer-form content.

Just as the National Post relied on a live blog to share ongoing information about the pandemic in a quick and accessible way, live blogs can help guide people through any crisis.

With live blogs, you can encourage readers to return to your trusted content for accurate updates instead of social media, which is littered with misinformation.

Provide Live Updates From Mobile Devices

When media organizations cover civil unrest, the most urgent content often comes from journalists that are in the field, reporting on the events as they happen.

Many journalists already share their play-by-plays at protests and riots directly on Twitter to get critical information out as fast as possible. But as mentioned above, Twitter isn’t a trusted space for news.

Media organizations shouldn’t have to worry about having their trusted content be associated with all the misinformation on social media.

As a brand-safe alternative, live blogs give your journalists a way to instantly post updates to the public on your own, reliable platform.

“The people who are actively tweeting are already halfway there to covering things live,” states Marc Lacey, assistant managing editor of live at The New York Times.

Lacey adds that running the live update format on the Times’ platform will elevate its digital property.

“It’s more a sense of, we can reach a whole lot more people than you can on your Twitter account,” Lacey says.

Allow People To Interact and Engage With Information

Engaging your audience on your website or app is an effective way to encourage people to return to your website, build relationships with other audience members and eventually pay for a subscription.

At The Philadelphia Inquirer, live blogs proved to have double the conversion rate of traditional articles.

“We hadn’t developed the habit you need to get people to come back and make us a part of their every day,” explains Patrick Kerkstra, managing editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer. “The live blog has helped with that.”

You can enhance your live blog by allowing your audience members to follow your updates and interact with others. That way, you’ll be able to persuade your visitors to remain on your digital properties for trusted information and a satisfying on-site experience.

A Safe Platform To Voice Opinions

During any period of civil unrest, people are bound to have strong, conflicting opinions. Media organizations can provide a safe social space for people to discuss their thoughts, questions and concerns by allowing comments on their live blogs.

Keep in mind that organizations can leverage a sophisticated moderation system to protect conversation quality by detecting and blocking toxic user behavior.

“[Without moderation], trolls quickly become the vocal minority, and can quickly overtake and drown out more relevant conversation,” says Leigh Adams, the director of moderation solutions at Viafoura.

Live blogs with moderated social spaces give organizations, journalists and audience members the opportunity to connect through meaningful and productive discussions. You can also position your live blog to be a safe space for minority groups to voice their thoughts.

In a nutshell, live blogs are powerful reporting tools that can capture your audience’s attention and keep readers engaged around trusted content when it matters most. And since the past few months have been remarkably unpredictable and chaotic, it’s important to start preparing your organization now for unexpected civil disturbances.

What the End of Parler Means for Media Companies

Ready your content moderators because 2.3 million active users — many of whom are eager to encourage violence, racism, antisemitism, antifeminism and conspiracy theories — have lost their home base on Parler.

As a social platform that encourages free speech with practically no moderation or fact-checking, Parler has gained a massive user base of people with radical views.

At least that was until Apple and Google booted Parler from their app stores in response to how it was used to organize the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill. Even Amazon Web Services (AWS), which hosted Parler, has abandoned the company, pushing the platform mostly offline.

“We’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on [Parler’s] website, all of which violates our terms,” reads a letter that AWS sent to Parler’s chief policy officer. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”

Though a bare-bones version of Parler has recently popped up on a Russian-hosted site, the platform will likely continue to be banned from app stores on mobile devices, which account for most of their users.

With Parler practically scrubbed from the internet, its extreme users will be searching for other media platforms they can use to amplify their radical perspectives. Digital media companies and online publishers will need to prepare for a possible frenzy of visitors with loud, destructive voices, who believe content moderation is a threat to free speech.

Leaving your digital properties vulnerable to these toxic commenters can scare away your loyal community members and damage positive conversations.

Instead, here’s what you can do to prevent ex-Parler users, or any other radical and offensive voices, from wreaking havoc on your digital social spaces:

Make Sure You Have Clear, Easy-to-Access Community Guidelines

Sometimes we have a concept of what is or isn’t allowed in comment content. But creating a clear, unassailable description in your community guidelines can help prevent initial violations and give your moderators a reference point that clearly defines unacceptable content.
Examples of content to explicitly define as unacceptable include:

Personal attacks
Vulgar or obscene content
Libelous or defamatory statements
Anything that can be described as threatening, abusive, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable

Be sure to post your guidelines in a visible area of your website so that your digital visitors can access them with ease.

On-Site Engagement Actions

Not all registered users offer the same amount of value to media organizations.

“Some users register to a website in order to use social tools, and others may register just to access content,” Liang explains. “Those who register to participate in a conversation — whether that be through comments, likes, replies or dislikes — contribute to a media company’s community with meaningful interactions.”

Have an Escalation Plan

In the case of an emergency — like the threat of an active shooter at your headquarters — your team must have a clear procedure in place. There are a few crucial questions you can ask your team to help them prepare for these types of threats:

Is there a clear chain of command in an emergency?
When do you alert the police versus the organization you’re protecting?

Distinguish between different types of non-urgent, semi-urgent, general and specific threats and outline how moderators should react to each of them.

Update Your Banned Word List/Moderation Algorithm

Did you know that users within a community can develop new phrases to spread offensive and dangerous messages?

This was the case for one publisher when Viafoura’s moderators noticed that trolls were posting a recurring phrase in community social spaces: “BOB crime.” Our moderators quickly realized that this phrase was being used in offensive contexts, and after investigating, found out that it stood for “Black-on-Black crime,” which challenges the Black Lives Matter movement.

The moderation algorithm was quickly adjusted to prevent relevant comments from being posted within that publisher’s community. However, this is just a single example of many where new phrases are created within a community to maneuver around basic moderation systems.

The bottom line is that language evolves.

To reinforce community standards successfully, it’s essential that moderation algorithms and ban word lists are updated quickly as new, offensive language is discovered.

Be Prepared to Block IP Addresses

In the digital world, the general belief is that the more eyeballs a piece of content can get, the better. The end goal for media executives is typically to gain and engage more site visitors to maximize subscriptions. However, visitor quantity isn’t always better than quality.

“Don’t be afraid to ban users,” says Leigh Adams, director of moderation solutions at Viafoura. “A lot of newspapers are afraid to ban users because they want the audience, but when you allow trolls and other toxic users to take over, you’re actually scaring away more valuable visitors.”

Fewer quality commenters offer more value to brands than many commenters that destroy the safety and trust between an organization and its loyal followers.

Ultimately, you are in control of your online community.

Just remind users in your community guidelines that you reserve the right to remove or edit comments and permanently block any user in violation of your terms and conditions. This umbrella statement gives you complete control over the content your community produces, guaranteeing discourse will remain positive and productive.

At the moment, we are living in a time of unpredictable change and misinformation. Whether or not any of Parler’s users make their way onto your website or app, it’s important to be prepared to handle and discourage any toxic behavior. Maintaining positive and productive social spaces will help to strengthen engagement around your brand while protecting its reputation.

Need help identifying and stopping trolls? Check out our guide written by our head of moderation services on troll hunting.

The True Power of Your Engaged Users

Between an engaged website visitor and an unengaged visitor, which one do you think is more valuable to your community?

You’ll probably find the answer to be obvious: An engaged community member offers more value in terms of long-term loyalty, behavioral data and revenue.

But what you may not know is the exact extent to which engaged visitors can impact your business compared to unengaged visitors.

To help you find the answer, a new study conducted by a Viafoura data scientist has uncovered the significance of an engaged user — which, for the purpose of the study, is defined as someone who has used a social engagement tool at least once in a month.

“Based on customer data, it’s clear that an audience engaged by moderated social tools helps its host company to thrive,” says Viafoura Data Scientist Harry Liang. “By assessing hundreds of millions of unique visitors on hundreds of websites, we’ve discovered that engaged registered users have at least ten times more retention over a six months period for most sites”

Get a thorough understanding of how an engaged community behaves more favorably than an unengaged one by digging into highlights from the study below.

Page Views

The difference in page views alone generated by engaged users versus unengaged users is significant.

According to Liang, “In average, an engaged user has ten times more page views per month than an unengaged user, and almost 20 times more page views than an anonymous visitor.”

While Liang’s takeaway is enlightening, it isn’t surprising.

It’s long been public knowledge that on-site engagement opportunities can build loyal habits for visitors. In other words, social spaces trigger more engagement and views around a company’s content.

On-Site Engagement Actions

Not all registered users offer the same amount of value to media organizations.

Time Spent on Page

Engaged users also invest more time on a media company’s digital properties.

More specifically, Liang’s analysis shows that, in average, an Viafoura engaged user spends two to ten times the number of minutes on publishers’ web pages compared to an unengaged registered user, and 20 times the amount of minutes compared to an anonymous visitor.

“Media companies that deploy effective social tools as part of their community engagement strategies will be able to keep their active audiences on their sites for longer,” Liang states. “Keep in mind that your active audiences create the majority of reader revenue and can help deepen interest in content through their conversations.”

Retention Rates

Did you know that visitor engagement levels have the ability to impact retention?

In Liang’s analysis, he explains that, after six months of visiting a site, users who interacted with engagement tools have a 20-40% higher retention rate than those who did not interact with engagement tools.

Media companies are also able to draw on more behavioral data from the actions of their engaged users, which can be used to improve experiences around their brands. By extracting actionable information from active users’ first-party data, organizations can further improve their retention rates.

Stephanie Lievano, an expert on subscriptions, tells the International News Media Association that “when we look at data as tools to predict [behavior] we have the opportunity to intercept an undesired action, or multiply the effect and impulse actions aligned with our goals.”

Every visitor that registers to a website is a critical member of a media company’s audience. However, engaged users contribute significantly more in terms of the amount of time and energy they funnel into helping a community grow.

Organizations that nurture a connected and engaged community will become unstoppable as they position themselves for richer user data, stronger relationships with visitors and increased reader revenue.

Panel Discussion Breakdown: The New Rules of Moderation

2020 was undoubtedly the intersection of major health, political and social justice-related events. These life-changing crises activated wave after wave of misinformation and trolls, which, as many media professionals found, can damage the quality of human conversation within digital communities.

Recently, executives from Editor and Publisher, USA Today, Graham Media Group and Viafoura gathered together to address these concerns in a recent panel discussion on the new rules of moderation.

“Moderation’s been a big topic this year,” says Mike Blinder, the publisher of Editor and Publisher Magazine. “People are spouting off at their dinner tables, they’re spouting off at their mobile phones and they’re obviously spouting off on [media] platforms — but we need to go beyond this.”

Not only do media companies need to eliminate trolls and build trust with community members, but they also need to expand their loyal audiences and maximize revenue.

Gear up with insights and best practices on content moderation from the panel discussion to keep your media organization’s social spaces brand-safe, productive and profitable.

Setting the Stage for Ideal, Productive Discussion

In a perfect world, digital social spaces would be filled with an endless stream of engaging comments coming from multiple voices.

But not every comment is valuable, and not every commenting thread will thrive. At least not without the proper support.

It’s up to moderators to ensure that only positive comments are being surfaced. Meanwhile, media staff have the power to amplify engagement from community members. With an effective moderation system and community engagement strategy in place, media companies can begin building communities by facilitating on-topic, positive conversations.

“Once you take care of moderation well, once you engage, once you create a space where people want to come and talk about whatever they want to talk about — that’s where you’re doing your community-building,” explains Viafoura Director of Moderation Leigh Adams.

Community-Building Best Practices

Many media industry professionals still view commenting sections as spaces for toxic behavior and misinformation to take root. However, commenting spaces can be extremely useful community-building tools when managed properly.

“Just because you have a comment thread doesn’t mean you just have to hand it over to your audience and let them do whatever they want on it,” states Dustin Block, audience development lead at Graham Media. “You get to make decisions of what you’re going to allow people to share, particularly around your stories.”

Review some essential best practices for using social tools from the panel discussion to begin refining your community-building strategy:

Don’t moderate your own platform’s comments so you can free up time for your staff to focus on creating valuable interactions with visitors.
Tighten community guidelines to help audience members focus on producing brand-safe and on-topic conversations.
Leverage subject matter experts, including content producers, to answer questions and encourage positive discussion from audience members.
Anonymize names of commenters to prevent women, minority groups and people with unique names from getting harassed.
Invite readers to participate in the content production process so they feel heard and valued.
Invest in building audiences on your owned and operated properties instead of social media, where you have little control over data, audience relationships and revenue.
Correct misinformation on your digital properties whenever possible to position your brand as a trustworthy resource.
Embed comment sections around content that is likely to lead to productive social exchanges.
Elevate model behavior in the community by highlighting positive comments, rewarding top commenters with badges, and asking specific questions you’d like community members to answer.
Encourage participation in conversations by adding additional, exclusive story details in comment sections.

The Value of Moderated Comments

Comment spaces backed by an efficient moderation system can unleash multiple benefits for media companies.

“For every time someone posts a comment, you might have 50 people reading it… that’s where the value is,” Adams highlights.

Civil discussions can entice visitors to stay on pages longer as they read the comments, which increases the likelihood that they’ll register to interact on your website or app. That includes watching or clicking on advertisements.

The bottom line is that media companies can build stronger relationships with their visitors through moderated commenting tools, resulting in more behavioral data and increased revenue.

According to Michelle Malatais, the managing editor of consumer news at USA Today, “if we make it a worthwhile experience, and we can — we have to put staffing toward it and we have to put attention toward it — then there’s value.”

For more information, you can access the complete recording of the discussion panel here.

Warning Signs That Your Audience Isn’t Reaching Its Full Revenue-Generating Potential

With the proper engagement and retention strategies in place, your audience has the power to sustain your media company financially.

“Consumer revenue streams, including digital subscriptions and ticketed live events, are increasingly important to news organizations as reliance on traditional advertising revenues continues to decrease,” explains Angelica Irizarry, the Inquirer’s director of events.

There’s a clear connection between active audiences and elevated revenue. However, not all media organizations are tapping into the full value of their digital communities.

Keep your eyes open for the following warning signs, which indicate that your media company may be losing out on potential revenue from its community.

High Churn Rates

Your existing subscribers are often more valuable than new subscribers.

“It can cost five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one,” reads an article on Forbes.

In other words, having high churn in your digital community can translate to significant revenue loss for media companies.

So if your company has an unusually high churn rate, you may want to consider reinforcing your retention strategy.

Work with your engagement tool and paywall providers to identify unengaged community members that may be about to churn, and then send them unique offers and discounts to re-engage them. That way, you’ll maximize the revenue your existing customers are funneling into your organization.

High Amounts of Toxicity in the Comments

If you notice a climbing number of user-generated posts getting disabled by your moderation system, odds are, your digital social spaces are infested with trolls or spam.

Allowing offensive comments to overtake the meaningful, productive conversations within your digital properties can scare away advertisers and community members. And that means less revenue for your company in the long run.

“You can protect your social spaces by keeping your community guidelines up to date and ensuring your moderation system can properly enforce them,” says Leigh Adams, director of moderation services at Viafoura. “To discourage trolling behavior, moderators and editors can also highlight and reward positive behavior whenever possible.”

Your Most Engaged Audience Is Coming From Social Media

We’re well aware that social media holds millions of active users and advertising opportunities for brands. But this comes at the cost of precious first-party data, direct relationships with audience members, trust and, ultimately, complete revenue ownership.

Having social media at the center of your community engagement strategy jeopardizes your company’s control over audience members and over any of the revenue earned from them.

Instead of giving a portion of your profits to big tech companies, there’s a better alternative for media companies: to invest in their own properties.

That’s what led one media to build a brand-new podcasting app rather than relying on a third-party podcast streamer.

“We needed it to be an experience that we control so we built apps to do this and the experience of doing the discovery, the experience of convenience, the experience of actually being in the Zetland universe when you listen to it, I think it’s quite important,” states Zetland CEO Tav Klitgaard.

Companies can even replicate the social experiences offered by social media directly on their own properties with the help of audience development companies like Viafoura, to keep visitors on their sites and interacting for longer.

Engagement Spaces Aren’t Being Leveraged for Ads

Integrating audience engagement tools into your website or app can help your organization activate interest and conversation around your brand. However, some media companies don’t realize that there’s a significant amount of advertising revenue that can be earned from audiences through these tools.

By failing to run advertisements in these social spaces, you’re missing out on the opportunity to maximize engagement around your ads. Organizations can instead become more successful by advertising to highly engaged community members.

“Today advertising value is measured by engagement so if publishers want to improve their ad offering, they must devise a successful engagement strategy first,” says Chris Waiting, CEO of The Conversation U.K.

As you work to build, retain and monetize community members, keep your eyes open for warning signs that your company may be losing out on potential profit. Adjusting your business strategies accordingly will help you increase the revenue your organization can earn from its audience.

Here’s How Successful Media Companies Listen to Their Community Members

Every media company is on a journey to win over and retain audience members. Whether companies are aware of it or not, each piece of content developed, employee hired and partnership made is centered around improving their ability to serve their audiences.

That’s why it’s essential to develop a thorough understanding of your company’s community, including their likes and dislikes and the value they see in your company.

Logan Jaffe, an engagement reporter at Pro Publica, puts it simply: “If we can’t listen to people who are already engaging with us on a basic level, how will we listen to people who aren’t yet — to the communities we’re pursuing new engagement with?”

Media companies that hope to grow must, therefore, go above and beyond to please consumers. And that often involves listening to both the individual and collective needs, opinions and interests of their community members.

To paint a picture of what listening to the public could look like for you, read on to discover how successful media companies are listening to their communities. Once you know how to appeal to their interests and habits, you can build new and better relationships between consumers and your brand.

Seek Out Direct Feedback From Community Members

Give your company the information it needs to grow by allowing consumers to share their opinions and preferences related to your brand.

To prompt actionable feedback around your company’s digital content and user experience, all you have to do is ask visitors how your brand can improve.

News publisher Santa Cruz Local, for instance, conducts interviews with community members to learn more about them and the issues that matter. As a result, the publisher has produced a business model that earns 80% of its revenue from readers.

Poynter Editor Kristen Hare explains how the content at Santa Cruz Local is based on “listening to the community to understand what kind of news it wants, what questions it has and offering different paths to getting it.”

But listening to your community members doesn’t need to be time-consuming or require much effort. Companies can successfully collect information from users through relevant Q&As, live chats and even conversations online.

“We are better journalists when we listen to the community that we serve and really make sure that those viewers and that audience have a seat at the table,” states Erica Hill-Rodriguez, KTTV’s news director.

In other words, you can get clarity on how to entertain and support consumers simply by listening to what they have to say.

Monitor Engagement Data

Your user data is a precious resource that can help you make sense of your community’s behavior and preferences. While many publishers tend to fixate on drawing insights from metrics like page views and unique visitors, media companies are beginning to focus more on engagement data.

“We don’t chase eyeballs, we focus on engagement,” states The Nation’s president, Erin O’Mara. “And an engaged community is really meaningful, not just the way they interact with us but also how they can be ambassadors for The Nation.”

As a 155-year old publication that continues to thrive amid the pandemic, The Nation has secured a highly interested community by understanding how to best engage its community.

Follow in The Nation’s footsteps by listening to your user’s engagement data to know what topics and tools successfully spark engagement across your audience.

Extract Insights to Personalize Online Experiences

You can show consumers that you listen to and understand their interests by creating a digital experience based on their behavior.

Dig into your user data to pull useful insights that can help personalize the way they’re served content. That way, you’ll increase the likelihood that your digital visitors will engage with your content and messages.

“When we know who our users are, we’re able to communicate in a more personalized and targeted way with different kinds of subscription messaging,” says Ben Cotton, VP of product at the New York Times.

In an ideal world, your online user experience should be magnetic — every movement from your community members should trigger an adjustment on your digital property. As a result, you’ll serve up content and messages they’re interested in and ready to respond to.

With consumers controlling a significant portion of company revenue, business decisions must hang on every action, word and pattern made by your community. And taking the time to understand and support your readers will show them that your company is worthy of their time.

How Media Companies Can Make the Most of Their Election Day Coverage

National elections are notorious for creating ripples of tension and conflict throughout the public. But with political misinformation and uncertainty sure to be amplified by the pandemic, this year’s U.S. presidential election will be unlike any other previous election.

Now, news organizations will be tasked with navigating this incredibly unpredictable landscape. And media companies will need to take an all hands on deck approach to keep the public informed every step of the way.

“There’s a growing realization that the complexity of this year’s electoral landscape — from pandemic-related social distancing and poll-staffing disruptions to mail-in voting and a combustible year of public protests — likely means that some of the presidential campaign’s biggest drama might very well play out in the hours and days after Election Day,” write Vivian Schiller, NPR’s previous CEO, and Garrett M. Graff, a former editor at Politico Magazine.

Consumers will undoubtedly be surrounded by chaos during the election. That’s why it’s up to media companies like yours to cut through the inevitable misinformation and drama with engaging and truthful news coverage.

Using the following powerful community engagement strategies, you can hook the public on your accurate and responsible reporting as the election heats up.

Implement Live Blogs

Looking for a way to bump up the visitor experience on your website around the U.S. election? Live blogs offer a simple way to organize all of your reliable, relevant information — whether that be through complete articles, Tweets or even comments from staff.

Part of the appeal of launching a live blog is that you don’t have to produce an entire article on every new piece of information. Instead, you can keep your audience informed in a highly efficient way through a mixture of long-form and short-form content.

FiveThirtyEight, for instance, has launched a live blog that will keep visitors updated on critical and interesting information until the election ends.

Plus, if the election results period goes on for an extended amount of time, you can continue to direct your readers to a single information hub.

Just be sure that your readers have the opportunity to engage with your live blog so you can continue to strengthen your community. Giving your visitors the ability to comment and like your content will help your users form lasting connections with each other around your organization.

Send Out Push Notifications

On Election Day, countless news organizations will be competing with one another for consumer attention. So how do you win over that attention before your competitors do?

Relying on push notifications to break major news stories can quickly re-engage community members around new content.

After testing push notifications earlier this year that encouraged people to vote, NBC News reports that its alerts had open rates of up to 16%.

While this news coverage tactic can certainly direct attention to your news site or app during the election, it can also help ensure consumers stay informed around major topics and issues.

Personalize the News Feed

If you can delight consumers with content that’s highly relevant to their interests, you’ll have a better chance of persuading them to stay on your digital properties.

Many publishers are planning to do precisely that by personalizing online experiences in light of the U.S. election. A compelling way to customize visitor experiences is to adjust their news feeds on your website or app to reflect their behavior and content interests.

Based on a survey, the director of research at Digital Content Next explains that “consumers do expect websites and apps to collect data about them in order to personalize, protect, and improve their experience.”So when it comes to using data to delight your visitors, don’t hold back.

Recommend Trending Conversations

Comment sections can add depth to any news story and strengthen online communities.

In fact, the editorial staff at The Correspondent spend 30 to 50% of their time engaging with community members within the comments. This is because consumers form meaningful relationships and build loyal habits through conversations.

On Election Day, conversation tools will give active visitors a chance to engage with brands, exchange knowledge and, best of all, talk about content for longer.

While you may already be familiar with the benefits of hosting moderated conversation online, you may be less familiar with the appeal of recommending trending conversations to visitors.

Highlighting active conversations for your users can boost the overall power of your commenting tools. As a result, you can keep your engaged community members reading your content and interacting with other members for as long as possible throughout the election.

While this year’s election certainly has its own set of challenges for news organizations, nearly every challenge has a silver lining.

In this case, with the right tools and strategies in place, media companies have a significant opportunity to win over loyal readers with exceptional news coverage.

Four Things Companies Are Doing to Take Their Subscription Strategies to the Next Level

Earning reader revenue isn’t a simple task in the media industry. Even with a paywall in place, those precious subscriptions won’t start pouring in on their own. Not unless your company has a strong subscription strategy.

So what kinds of subscription-driving tactics can delight visitors and convince them to become dedicated community members?

“We see subscribers weighing up personal benefits, such as distinctive content, convenience, and value, with perceived benefits for society,” state the authors of Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020.

This means that companies must cater to the needs and interests of consumers while serving their entire communities to create loyal subscribers.

For those of you who are hoping to strengthen your existing subscription strategy, there are several tactics worth trying out. Let’s look at some of the effective subscription strategies that publishers have recently implemented for some inspiration.

Personalizing the Visitor Experience With Audience Data

Audience data is a powerful tool that media companies can use to enrich their subscription strategies, satisfying the needs and desires of consumers.

ARA, a Spanish publisher in Barcelona, credits its 3,200 new subscribers largely to its use of first-party audience data. The media company closely assessed its community members to tailor their experiences to their behaviors and content interests.

“We want to know where our audiences are, how they consume, how they read our news and we started to produce more according to these audiences,” says Georgina Ferri Todera, the chief revenue and innovation officer at ARA. “But the first step was knowing more about our audiences.”

The Wall Street Journal has also recognized the need to start collecting audience data to personalize its subscribers’ experience. As a result, subscribers are more likely to have a positive digital experience and remain loyal to the brand.

Communicating Directly With Audiences

If you’re not sure what could make your company’s content and on-site experience more appealing to consumers, you can always turn to your audience for answers.

TIME, for instance, asked consumers directly about what resources it could provide to help people during the early stages of the pandemic.

“People told us what they want and we fulfilled it for them,” explains Maya Draisin, SVP of progress marketing at TIME. “And they responded with 1.5 million views.”

In general, your audience is your compass. By following their directions and fulfilling their needs, you can reinforce the value of your company’s content and subscription program.

Opting Out of Big Tech Platforms

For professionals in the digital world, the instinct to promote content across multiple social media and news aggregation channels is only natural. Many people expect to attract greater audiences and more subscribers by promoting content on third-party websites.

However, this approach can actually be counterproductive to your subscription program. Not only do consumers lack trust in the content on big tech platforms, but your company also loses revenue as well as precious audience data to the host platform.

The New York Times is one of the latest media companies to recognize the value of creating direct relationships with readers on its own properties.

After opting out of Apple’s news aggregation platform, the Time’s COO, Meredith Kopit Levien, stated that the company can form a “direct path for sending those readers back into our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers, and the nature of our business rules.”

Build a direct relationship with readers to, therefore, earn their trust and forge daily habits that lead to long-term subscription growth.

Working Audience Engagement Into the Subscription Plan

While there’s no single right way to use a paywall, some publishers see merit in engaging audiences before revealing a subscription message.

This process helps consumers feel connected to media companies, and then when they’re active enough online, guides them to become loyal subscribers.

Slate is one of many publishers that have implemented this strategy.

“If you want people to join or subscribe, asking them to do it voluntarily is not quite enough,” explains Dan Check, CEO of Slate.

You can encourage on-site audience engagement through interactive tools and exceptional journalism before and after visitors subscribe to your services.

Go beyond your paywall by strengthening your company’s connection to its audience.

Whether you choose to replicate these strategies on your digital properties or not, your ability to increase your loyal subscribers all comes down to engaging and understanding consumers. Tie these core actions into your subscription strategy to create and retain a strong community of brand advocates.

Three Things Video-Streaming Platforms Are Doing Right

It seems as though every month or so, a new competitor joins the streaming wars. Even ordinary publishers, like Food 52, are stepping beyond the boundaries of text to create their own OTT platforms and streaming content.

This increase in OTT players can be largely credited to the shift in consumers cutting the cord with traditional TV. And this trend doesn’t seem to be letting up, regardless of the pandemic.

“As lockdown measured eased towards the end of June [2020], the uplift in viewing to video streaming services and other non-broadcast content held steady, at 71% higher than the year before,” reads an article on the IBC website.

Clearly, the consumer’s desire to stream content is growing. So how can you ensure your platform remains engaging, resilient and profitable as new industry players continue to pop up?

If you’re getting ready to enter the video-streaming space, or if you’d like to improve your current services, there are valuable lessons we can take away from the lucrative ideas other OTT platforms already had.

Here are some of the intelligent actions and strategies that are propelling streaming platforms toward success.

A Shift to Social Tools

Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney+ have all launched some form of watch party feature over the past few months. And now, HBO Max has revealed how plans are in the works to upgrade its platform through social tools as well.

“Several months after launch, we have plans to start integrating [social watch features] into the platform,” says Robert Greenblatt, chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer. “We do think that’s an important aspect now more than ever.”

Little by little, streaming companies are beginning to recognize the importance of encouraging human connection around content.

Allowing consumers to participate in real-time conversations as they watch videos together can build loyal habits and connections among community members. Plus, social features that enable consumers to chat with friends give OTT platforms an additional edge over other platforms.

Revenue Diversification

When we talk about publishers in general, we know that there’s been a growing trend to create as many revenue outlets as possible. But OTT players can also activate several revenue streams to maximize their earnings.

For instance, Peacock has set up free and premium-level subscription tiers that are generating revenue in a few different ways. There’s a free-to-watch option with ads, a paid-for subscription option with ads for a premium experience and a paid, ad-free option. Senior TV Analysis Tom Harrington from Enders Analysis explains that this type of subscription tier is highly enticing to the average consumer.

“It’s very, very competitive,” states Harrington.

Since its launch, the video-streaming platform has earned 10 million sign-ups. That means the company is profiting off its vast audience thanks to paying subscribers and paying advertisers looking for interested audiences.

Discovery will be following suit in 2021 by launching a streaming platform with similar membership options.

According to Digiday, “Discovery+ will feature an ad-supported and an ad-free tier, and the ad-supported tier will carry a maximum of five minutes of ads per hour of programming.”

Both of these OTT platforms are not only supporting consumers by giving them premium experiences, but they’re also expanding their ability to earn revenue. After all, the more ways you can monetize your audience, the more revenue your company is likely to make.

Putting Consumers First

As of April 2020, Netflix has singlehandedly earned 182.8 million subscribers around the world.

So what is it that viewers love so much about Netflix compared to the other platforms?

It all comes down to how users have become connected to the platform.

Netflix excels at putting the consumer in the center of its growth strategy, encouraging viewers to feel bonded to the platform.

In addition to serving viewers highly personalized and relevant user experiences, the streaming platform will even cancel a subscription if the account holder doesn’t use their service within a year.

According to Robbie Kellman Baxter, bestselling author of The Forever Transaction, “it’s not just about subscriptions, but about long-term relationships with the customer.”

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of these successful companies?

By replicating these strategies, you can help perfect your platform’s user experience and amplify its revenue-generation capabilities.