SODP Dispatch - 1 March 2024

How Can Newsrooms Capitalize on Election Season to Drive Growth | 8 March 2024

We are delighted to announce our latest educational opportunity for our community of digital publishing and news media professionals.

Learn how to use the election season to solidify your digital publication’s role as a trusted news and analysis source.

🗓 8 March 2024
🕚 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST | 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET

🌏 2024 is a historic election year, with more than 2 billion voters set to go to the polls in 50 countries, including India and the USA.

For digital news publishers, this period represents more than just a surge in traffic. It’s a chance to demonstrate the value of their platforms, provide essential information to voters, and solidify their role as trusted news and analysis sources.

In this webinar, Chad Hussain (VP of International Partnerships at Quintype) will walk the audience through:

✅ Real-world examples showcasing how newsrooms are using innovative storytelling formats
✅ Tactics to increase audience engagement and repeat visitors
✅ Checklist to ensure the digital newsroom is election-ready
✅ Effective paywall strategies to build a direct revenue model

Sponsored
Keeping True to The New York Times’ Past Editorial Values for a Sustainable Future

By Vahe Arabian and Jeremy Fremont

In November 2023, The New York Times achieved the 10 million subscriber target it set in the Digital Publishers Innovation Report in 2014 due to staying true to its editorial values of covering national interest, product bundling, and several acquisitions. What lessons can publishers learn along the way? And is The NYT on track to reach the 15-million target by 2027?

In this episode, we explore The New York Times, one of the longest-running newspapers and a prolific digital media publisher.

By Vahe Arabian

🔔 Driving growth through video

Video has matured to become a channel-agnostic traffic driver for publishing sites.

We have been increasingly hearing from our publishing clients questions related to how they can drive traffic to their video section or be able to increase the awareness of their videos for better engagement.

Did you know? According to Wyzowl, 86% of marketers report increased website traffic through video usage, while 79% of consumers make purchases after watching brand videos. This underscores the importance of Video SEO, particularly with the rise of short-form videos on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and others.

So I want to drill down to the top three publisher-specific strategies to get you started.

1️⃣ Make sure your video drives engagement as soon as it goes live by applying top SEO best practices. You must consider the platform algorithms to boost your chances of being able to be seen on the front page. For example, you will have to comment on other creators' videos within your niche, post polls to bridge the gap between brands and customers, and also utilize the comment and like functions on your videos.

2️⃣ To enhance video engagement, curate a playlist with highly topical themes. Strategic playlist curation is essential for maximizing video engagement across various platforms. By handpicking content that resonates with your audience's interests, you can captivate their attention and encourage longer viewing sessions. Whether on established platforms like YouTube or newer channels, the thoughtful selection of playlists serves as a potent tool for driving increased engagement and viewer interaction.

3️⃣ Continuous optimization is also very important. You will need to remain abreast of emerging content trends, refine video production techniques, and adapt to algorithm changes. Instead of spending so much time creating tags and descriptions for each of the platforms, use generative AI to help provide these recommendations. This will afford you the time to focus on the right content descriptions, thereby helping you to maximize time usage. You can use ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.; I can assure you that this will be helpful.

While video production may seem time-consuming, automation tools like ChatGPT script generation can streamline post-production.

🗓️ The X 2024 Marketing Calendar

Looking to map out your content plan for the year ahead? This will help. X has shared the latest version of its marketing calendar, which provides a simple, interactive overview of all the key dates and events coming up in 2024.

Learn more ▸

🔔 FIPP Global Media DEI Tracker

FIPP just published 2024’s first edition of the FIPP Global Media DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Tracker, supported by the Google News Initiative (GNI).

Learn more ▸

Substack gets more social with the launch of DMs | TechCrunch

Substack is introducing direct messaging, allowing users to have private one-on-one conversations, the company announced. DMs can be accessed in the Chat tab on the Substack app and website.
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Meta says it won’t renew deals with news publishers in Australia, U.S. | The Wall Street Journal

Facebook owner Meta said it won’t enter into new deals with traditional news publishers in Australia and the U.S., noting the number of people in those countries using a dedicated tab for news on Facebook dropped more than 80% last year.
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An update on the BBC’s plans for Generative AI | BBC

The BBC says it is running 12 generative AI pilots, including reformatting and translating existing content and a “headline helper” for journalists.
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Google is paying publishers to test an unreleased Gen AI platform | Adweek

Google launched a private program for a handful of independent publishers last month, providing the news organizations with beta access to an unreleased generative artificial intelligence platform in exchange for receiving analytics and feedback.
Read more ▸

Google launches new Chrome features providing enhanced search suggestions by leveraging crowdsourced data | Search Engine Journal

Google has released three new features for its Chrome web browser to provide more helpful and relevant search suggestions. The features use Chrome’s access to aggregated user data to deliver crowdsourced recommendations.
Read more ▸