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Five Ways Media Consumption Habits Have Changed Recently

This year has been anything but ordinary thanks to the pandemic, the U.S. presidential election and rising awareness around racism. These unprecedented events have undoubtedly changed the way we all live, including how we consume media.

Media companies that hope to triumph over competitors must now adapt to complement their audiences’ appetites and behaviors.

“[The] only way you’re only going to fit into the new normal [is] if you can make big changes to meet these new needs,” explains Doug Phares, the former CEO of Sandusky News Group.

If you want to continue growing and retaining your organization’s audience, stay on top of their new habits below.

People are consuming more OTT content.

With the rise of countless streaming services, including Discovery+, Peacock and HBO Max, the streaming space has been thriving throughout the pandemic.

Disney’s ESPN+ service, for instance, has nearly tripled its subscribers in a single year.

This growing demand for OTT content is partially the result of commuters having more time amid lockdown. However, even as lockdown measures eased up, there’s been a notable 71% increase in consumers rushing to subscribe to streaming services compared to the previous year.

There’s a growing desire for solutions journalism.

The endless stream of hard-to-swallow news related to racism, COVID-19, global warming and Donald Trump has triggered a sense of doom and gloom throughout the world — and people are tired of it.

While this “news fatigue” is preventing people from staying up to date on important information, consumers have expressed a deep interest in solutions journalism.

Rather than just delivering the news, solutions journalism digs deeper into stories and offers realistic responses that can help minimize the issues at hand.

In a recent study of 638 local news viewers, researchers examined the appeal of ordinary news stories versus solutions journalism pieces.

“The results were unambiguous: Solutions journalism stories had greater storytelling appeal, helped distinguish the station from its competitors, and were more likely to inspire viewers to take action,” concludes Andrew Heyward, a senior researcher at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

Audiences are seeking out social engagement tools.

A survey conducted by the International Center for Journalists found that 38% of journalists have noticed positive audience engagement around their brands this year.

Viafoura data has also discovered that the number of unique users interacting with engagement tools online has increased by 53% earlier this year alone.

This boom in audience engagement highlights how consumers are hungry to interact with others around relevant content and experiences online. Although conversation-based tools have long been used by media companies, the pandemic has pushed more people to connect with each other virtually.

There’s a growing interest in local news.

Since the early days of the pandemic, media organizations have observed a renewed appetite for local news. More specifically, news consumers have become eager to understand how COVID-19 continues to impact their communities.

Now people all over the world are investing their time and money into news that informs and supports communities on a local level.

“There’s a huge groundswell here of trying to support local, buy local, support local media and businesses, and we’re trying to ride that as much as we can and build on those levels of trust and relevance,” states Sinead Boucher, CEO of New Zealand media group Stuff Ltd.

Internet users depend more on trustworthy media.

While trolls and misinformation are not new issues for media companies, significant global events have amplified the value of trusted news sources to the public.

For media companies, trust can be built by forming relationships with consumers over reliable content and experiences. This means going the extra mile to moderate digital social spaces, leverage industry experts to support content and provide real-time, fact-checked information.

“These past months have given readers a taste of widespread considered, realistic news reporting at a time when that is what they crave,” says Chris Waiting, CEO of The Conversation U.K. “The onus is now on the publishing industry as a whole to retain these increased levels of trust and earn our place in peoples’ confidence.”

As the consumption habits of media consumers continue to evolve, organizations must become flexible enough to continue meeting their community’s needs. Businesses that are able to do so can earn a dedicated following of supporters that they can count on in the future.

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.

This One Simple Action Will Change the Way You Connect With Video Viewers

As new over-the-top (OTT) media platforms continue to launch, consumers have an endless supply of streaming services to choose from. The abundant content libraries, personalized experiences and inexpensive subscriptions offered by these service providers are persuading more and more people to turn to OTT media for entertainment.

“OTT streaming video represents a largely incremental audience and a way for brands to [reach new audiences] and engage directly with their target consumers,” states the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in a playbook on video streaming.

And yet, service providers are neck and neck in competing for consumer attention.

So what if we told you that there’s an extraordinarily simple way to make your platform stand apart from the rest?

All you need to do is enable social interactions on your platform. That way, your audience members will be able to connect with one another as well as with your brand.

Don’t believe us? Here’s why social interactions are adding an immeasurable amount of value to video streams.

Improving the Video-Viewing Experience

Just because people are spending more time than ever before streaming videos doesn’t mean that they’ll be loyal to any ordinary OTT platform. Streaming companies are quickly finding that providing top-quality video content isn’t enough to sustain business growth on its own.

At the end of the day, video viewers will give their business to companies that offer the best consumer experiences. Allowing viewers to socialize digitally around video content just so happens to be the key to unlocking more long-term subscribers.

“During the pandemic, 38% of consumers surveyed have tried a new digital activity or subscription for the first time,” reads a recent digital media trends report by Deloitte. “The most popular [of these activities] are viewing live streamed events and watching video with others.”

In other words, incorporating a social element into video streams is becoming a popular way to win consumer attention.

Companies that use social tools to take video-viewing experiences to the next level will help convince consumers to stick around on their platforms in the long run.

The Value of Social Interaction Around Video

When it comes to infusing value into OTT platforms, live chats have a particularly strong appeal to both consumers and streaming companies alike.

Tools that allow viewers to discuss videos in real time can establish meaningful connections between community members and around your platform’s content. This helps to satisfy the social needs of audiences, increasing their likelihood to remain as dedicated subscribers.

The level of entertainment that social tools can add to the video-viewing experience has also been amplified by the pandemic.

Frank Pallotta, a media reporter at CNN, sums it up well: “With the pandemic increasing the practice of hosting virtual streaming parties, new social tools are providing not just connection in a time of social distancing but a new yet familiar way to keep consumers engaged and subscribing to services.”Just be sure to have an effective moderation strategy in place to protect your brand’s environment from toxic comments.

A Growing Trend for Streaming Platforms

Some streaming companies have already realized that they can enhance the consumer experience by offering social tools right on their digital properties.

Netflix, for instance, launched a watch party feature earlier this year, where viewers can sync their videos while chatting together. Hulu has recently launched a similar feature as well.

Sports media companies are also relying on similar chat-based tools to bring people together around live broadcasts. BT Sport, for instance, is allowing video viewers to watch broadcasts of competitions while simultaneously chatting with community members. A Spanish football league known as La Liga is even testing out a feature that offers fans a simulated experience of being in a crowd during broadcasts.

As a result of these social-based experiences, companies are engaging viewers beyond their content simply by activating their communities.

According to Deloitte, some consumers are even using videoconferencing tools to watch OTT content with friends. This means that viewers are actively seeking out tools that allow them to socialize with others alongside video content.

Leveraging live chats to form watch parties is quickly becoming the norm for OTT companies. The simple act of giving audiences a way to talk while watching content is, after all, highly beneficial to service providers.

Rather than just allowing consumers to passively watch content, OTT platforms can implement social tools to elevate the video-viewing experience and build brand loyalty.

How Engagement Tools Can be Leveraged in the OTT Space

Once you implement the right tools on your platform, you can engage your audience and ultimately grow your revenue.

When it comes to over-the-top (OTT) media services — streaming platforms that rely on internet instead of satellite or cable — an overwhelming amount of organizations are serving up extremely interesting content. But here’s the thing: content isn’t everything. Your audience is.

In order to build tight-knit, engaged and profitable communities around your content, you need to spark conversations among consumers. So give people a great experience where they can discuss topics, form human connections and interact with one another, all within the context of your content.

This, of course, all starts with on-site engagement tools.

Once you implement the right tools on your platform, you can engage your audience and ultimately grow your revenue. In fact, we’ve observed that organizations with engagement and conversion tools can actually triple their ROI.

That said, here are a few ways to leverage engagement tools in the OTT space:

Get People Talking

If you thought that conversation tools (like real-time commenting widgets, live blogs and live chats) should be reserved strictly for blogs, you’re in for a bit of a shock. These types of community-building tools can and should be used on OTT platforms as well.

Conversations matter. By generating conversations around your content, your audience will have access to a premium user experience.

Engagement tools allow OTT providers of all genres to facilitate a socially immersive experience, prompting meaningful connections between viewers based on content they truly care about.

Take sports-streaming platforms, for instance. Organizations have a massive opportunity to open their content to real-time conversations around what sports fans are watching as they watch it. Live blogs can also be used to provide play-by-play updates on games and major milestones.

Research has found that “71% of sports fans crave ‘deeper immersion’ when watching live games.”

However, most consumers, not just sports fans, crave social interaction online. So make the most of their appetite for socialization.

By increasing the opportunities your subscribers have to talk to one another, they’ll begin to form regular habits, where they return to and interact with your platform.

Build That Community

Once you’ve added engagement tools to your platform, you’re ready for the next step: building your community through excitement and trust.

Use your tools to generate buzz around popular personalities and content through interactive events, like Q&As or AMAs. This is a great way to promote upcoming shows, movies and videos right on your platform. Imagine the impact of having a celebrity engaging directly with your audience around your content.

The trust between your brand and audience can be strengthened through these types of positive, engaging experiences. Trust is a highly important community-building element as it paves the way for brand loyalty. Compared to the experiences on social media, where trolls and bots run wild and trample over your valuable content, you can protect your audience’s experiences on your own properties through moderation.

You can also grow your audience by highlighting model community behavior in comment sections. Or, you can leverage a moderated rating and review system. If consumers see helpful, accurate suggestions on what to watch, your platform can become a place where people come to read authentic reviews.

“Operators that invest in functionality that maximizes fan engagement will see a 24% uplift in subscriber acquisition,” states Deltatre’s 2019 report.

In other words, engagement tools in the OTT space can accelerate subscription revenue growth if used to their full potential.

Understand Your Audience

Your audience data is important, but this isn’t new information. What you may not know is that it’s essential to look beyond the general insights you have on your audience demographics and size. Instead, understand the bigger picture by analyzing the complete behavior of your users. This can be accomplished by gathering first-party data from all on-site engagement tools and content.

Identify what anonymous users (your potential customers) and known users are doing all across your properties. As a result, you can get fully-formed ideas of what your consumers like and dislike. Use first-party data from your tools to improve the content and experience you’re providing by serving up more personalized or recommended content.

While many OTT providers are looking at the customers on their platforms, they aren’t digging deep enough. They need to take their analytical efforts a step further by analyzing what audiences are doing in general and making strategic decisions based on that.

For example, user data can enhance your conversion and retention strategies. Your engagement tool provider can also keep an eye on your audience’s behavior, and send signals to your paywall provider when they are ready to subscribe or are about to churn. If users are close to churning, which can be identified based on drops in engagement, they can be sent a special discount of content offer.

Whether you’re a sports media organization or host a unique video-streaming solution, engagement tools will allow you to build a community that thrives around your content — in a sustainable way.

What We Can Learn From Pirate Sites

Currently, the internet is littered with pirate sites that offer viewers free, often illegal access to TV shows, movies, live sports and music. These sites also include audience engagement solutions to build invested communities. What consumers often fail to realize though, is that by streaming something for free, their seemingly insignificant action becomes part of a much larger problem: billions of people are contributing to digital theft. That theft is making it extremely challenging for content owners and legitimate streaming services to succeed.

MUSO, an anti-piracy watchdog organization, found that just this past June the movie Detective Pikachu was downloaded a whopping four million times via pirate sites. That’s a potential four million consumers that should be (but probably aren’t) paying to watch the movie in theaters or accessing it through subscription services.

“It would seem that a lot of modern-day pirates are merely frazzled parents who wouldn’t dream of stealing their Friday night bottle of chilled Riesling from the grocery store but don’t want to pay the same amount to watch the latest TV phenomenon,” says Andy Chatterley, MUSO’s CEO. “Online piracy is like taking candy from a baby.”

Unfortunately, pirate sites tend to offer more than an often all-encompassing library of media: they’re also experts at providing a great user experience for their visitors. Streaming something illegally is almost too easy thanks to their audience engagement solutions.

If media streaming service providers want to be successful in this highly competitive climate, here’s what they need to do before they can walk in the right direction:

Leverage an Audience Engagement Solution

One area that pirate sites excel at is building communities around their content. While regular streaming providers can’t compete with the breadth of content found within pirate sites, they can do a better job at engaging and building their own communities.

Many of these pirate sites rely on commenting tools and comment forums like Reddit, where consumers often go to find illegal streams. Highly engaging conversations are then built as people say thanks to those who provide the streams as well as comment on the overall quality and content. By providing people with valuable content, and engaging them, pirate sites are able to convert visitors into loyal community members and advocates.

Some pirate sites also use commenting as well as rating and review tools to allow their community members to help flag bad or fake files. This helps to build up visitors’ trust towards these platforms and encourages them to return.

Although these pirate sites spark an impressive audience engagement solution, it’s mostly based on people exchanging ideas over what content is worth stealing — which is a type of engagement that you don’t want to have on your platforms.

So why not beat these pirate sites at their own game? Give people valuable content that is enhanced with opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations. In other words, giving them a platform to engage with one another will allow them to form relationships around the content that they like or dislike.

Streaming experiences can then be enhanced. Think about implementing moderated commenting tools, live chats for sports or event coverage, live blogging or ratings and reviews.

Audiences love viewing your content and love talking about their favorite content. Make sure both of those activities are happening on your platforms.

Collect Data to Personalize the Experience

When it comes to an audience engagement solution for streaming service providers, personalization is key to building a superior experience for consumers.

Take sports games, for instance. The ability to target content based on a fan’s favorite team or player will allow you to significantly improve their experience just by understanding their likes and dislikes.

Pirate sites are completely free to users, which also means visitors often don’t need to login or develop an account to consume content. Those who visit pirate sites even make an effort to protect their identities using tools like VPNs or incognito mode. As a result, the majority of their audience is anonymous. Their visitors also run the risk of being infected by malware as many pirate sites make money by allowing hackers to put malicious code onto their platforms.

And that gives media organizations an advantage: the ability to create a much more personalized and pleasant user experience.

First-party audience engagement data will help you to not only curate a highly-relevant selection of content for consumers, but it will also allow you to understand general behavior on your platform to inform your content, subscription and retention strategies.

As you get to know your audience’s interests and build loyalty-driving habits, you can also identify which users are no longer engaging with your content and are likely to churn. This information can then be used to send your known users exclusive content, a custom offer or discount to keep them invested in your brand.

Pirate sites aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So give consumers a compelling reason to dish out some money in exchange for your content.

Interested in learning more about audience engagement solutions? Then check out this article: Audience Engagement Data is About to Amp Up Sports Media.

Audience Engagement Data is About to Amp up Sports Media

Just last week, Adam Hodgkins, the senior business development manager at Genius Sports Media, published an insightful article that dug into why audience engagement data on-site is the key to growing revenue in sports. And we couldn’t agree more.

“There’s an awareness in the OTT space that sports companies have lost control of their audiences to social media,” says Michael Shewchenko, Head of Business Development for Sports and Media at Viafoura. “But they now have an opportunity to engage their audiences on their properties in a positive and highly valuable way, and use their own data to put a name and a face to their users.”

Audience engagement data is the money-making factor that many sports companies are missing out on. Any sports company that wants to significantly boost revenue would, therefore, benefit greatly from connecting with their audiences, learning who their community members are, and then using that information to create and send highly relevant content and ads.

Unlocking a Premium Experience for Sports Fans

To connect with audiences on a more direct level, sports companies need to turn their digital properties into engaging communities — through super-exclusive spaces that capture valuable insights on users. This can be accomplished through ‘premium experiences’ that can be offered to encourage users to register or subscribe.

“Engagement tools can open up the premium experience,” says Shewchenko. “Tools that encourage on-site interaction increase the likelihood of passive sports consumers becoming active and highly engaged users. It’s all about building the two-way communication between users and brands.”

A premium experience can include anything from participating in live chats, real-time commenting and blogging to following favorite teams, players, authors, topics or getting regular updates.

In his article, Hodgkins explains that “unique behind the scenes footage, exclusive interviews and easy access to detailed statistics have handed sports leagues and teams a golden opportunity to turn their websites and social channels into valuable destinations for information-hungry fans.”

Techcrunch even conducted a recent survey, which found that 78% of industry experts believe that fan engagement tech will have the largest impact on live streaming and esports in the next year.

Sports fans are already excited about players and upcoming events — they’re practically itching to interact with one another and around related content. The more opportunities you give them to engage on your platform, the more data you’ll be able to gather on who they are and what kinds of content and experiences they like.

Not only can sports companies sell this consumer data to advertisers, but “by knowing that their audience are, say, mostly men aged between 18 and 25 who read about basketball on a daily basis, advertisers have a huge strategic advantage when choosing where to spend their budget,” says Hodgkins.

Targeting Content to Known Users

As sports companies learn who their audience members are and how they react to different types of content, they can create content and experiences that delight their communities. For instance, knowing which player is your community’s favorite can help you generate extremely high-performing, related content that your audience will devour and generate conversations around. Plus, the more engaging and relevant your platform is, the more likely your community is to grow.

By serving up a premium experience to fans, sports media is able to capture meaningful data, which can significantly improve conversion strategies, grow revenue and increase consumer loyalty.

Stop relying on third-party news aggregators and social media platforms to run your ads off of, and instead, become the primary destination for consumers.

Get to know your fans on your own properties. Give them the content and experiences they love. Then use their data to inform business strategies and grow revenue. It really is as simple as that.