The Daily Telegraph
“One of the great world titles”, declared by the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, better known as the ‘The Telegraph’, is one of the largest national British daily broadsheet newspaper in the U.K. Founded by the Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855, The Telegraph is self-proclaimed conservative media group with a current circulation of roughly 450,000 (as of Nov. 2017) — The Daily Telegraph also has an additional publication also distributed with their main newspaper called the ‘The Sunday Telegraph’, which has a current circulation of roughly 340,000 (as of Nov. 2017).
The Daily Telegraph slowly began to evolve its online presence with ‘Electronic Telegraph’ in 1995, with the first publication by Sue Schofield’s “The Daily Telegraph Guide to the Internet”. The Telegraph re-launched their website, to the current www.telegraph.co.uk. As the Internet grew and expanded, so did the The Telegraph’s online presence — and by 2006, the company underwent a major redesign to its website allowing for audio, videos and journalist blogs.
Twitter:
The Telegraph has a relatively strong presence on Twitter, with a current follower count of 2.4 million. However, the engagement with their audience seems to be the real issue. The Telegraph tweets roughly 4–5 an hour, mainly posting links to their news stories. Their links almost always includes an accompanying photo relative to the story.
Though The Telegraph has a couple millions of followers, those followers do not seem to interact with the account. Most tweets get around 100 retweets and likes and maybe around 10 replies. So, the question The Telegraph should be asking itself is, how do we get all of our followers to distribute our content to their various, individualizations networks?
I think they could do this through retweeting and responding to comments left by their followers. Since almost all content is self-produced — sometimes retweeting their own sub-divisions of The Telegraph (i.e. Telegraph Sport or Fashion) could increase interactions. Working on their Twitter presence, especially engaging with a younger demographic since they’re the ones shifting the current journalist landscape, would be extremely beneficially to continuing to be a dominant news agency in the U.K.
Instagram:
The Telegraph presence on Instagram is weaker compared to other social media channels like Twitter and Facebook where they have millions of followers; their Instagram currently only has 166K followers. The disparity could be due to the fact that The Telegraph also has 7 other “Telegraph” accounts like food, travel, fashion, etc.
However, The Telegraph does an excellent job utilizing the story feature, consistently updating their story throughout the day highlighting their top stories. Where they truly excel is, within each story they will break down one specific story into multiple Instagram story posts. All of their posts are very visually interesting and usually involve some sort of video aspect to the story. They have also established an IGTV channel, where they have started to post short 5–6 minutes highlighting more investigative journalism.
I would suggest The Telegraph strives introduce an older generation to a new format to consuming news. Since most millennial consume news digital, the shift from traditional to social news distribute has began. So, inviting the generation that consumed traditional news onto this new platform could be beneficial for everyone.
Facebook:
The Telegraph’s Facebook is similar to their Twitter — where they currently have millions of people following their page [4.3 million], but they continue to receive minimal interaction with their followers.
One explanation for this could be the articles they are posting — most articles they lead with seem to be driven by some form of clickbait aspect, usually relying on entertainment news or light news. This is followed by more political journalism, but considering their demographic of readers, this seems to be counterproductive for them.
Similarly, to their Twitter and Instagram, The Telegraph has multiple other specialized accounts they post to. These accounts are moderately consistent about posting content. However, all these other Facebook pages seem somewhat unnecessary and more focus on solidifying their primary Facebook page before expanding would be beneficial in my opinion.
Snapchat:
Like all of their news competitors, The Telegraph has a news page on the “Discover” feature of Snapchat. Their Snapchat news channel is very orderly, visually interesting, and engaging with the audience. All posts contain some sort of video aspect — ranging from actual video footage in the post or simply moving artwork or text. The text always remains easy to read, due to font size and the limited words used.
My favorite feature is how they number their post if the story continues onto another post, easily letting the reader know that they will have to continue clicking if they want additional information on the story.
The Telegraph has a significant presence in the U. K’s newspaper journalism, and this presence is continuing to grow on social media channels. The news organization has done a good job of getting their name seen and followed on various different social media channels, but engagement is where the organization seems to struggle.
Though they might have millions of followers, their followers seem limited in actually distributing their content amongst their network of people — limiting The Telegraph reach and possibility of acquiring new consumers or followers. Through streamlining and focusing on their primary accounts of the different social media channel, I think The Telegraph could engage with a newer and younger demographic of readers.
However, The Telegraph continues to produce amazing content, that they continuously distribute through their channels. With millions of people wanting to hear what they say — The Telegraph constantly providers their consumers with limitless, important, and engaging material.
