8 things publishers should start doing if they want to succeed in 2018

Thank God that’s over. 2017 was filled with a few ups and many downs, but there were important lessons to be learned from all the things that went wrong.

I’ve compiled a list of recommendations that I believe will be critical for digital teams at publishers of all sizes to find long-term success this year. Some of these are strategic tips, others are managerial recommendations. Some are solutions to problems that I dealt with personally, others are based on other companies that I observed struggling with common challenges. If you have any ideas that missed (I’m sure there are many), be sure to leave a comment at the bottom of this article.

They are:

1. Staff teams if you want them to succeed

This should be common sense… but common sense isn’t so common. If you want to “win on Facebook” or “revamp the YouTube channel”, you need to dedicate staff who will be responsible and accountable for success there.

Speaking of dedicating staff…

2. Don’t waste headcount on things you don’t need

If your target audience is affluent American men over 45, do you really need a team dedicated to LINE or Viber? If your KPI is generating revenue and YouTube generates 4 times more than Instagram, should it really have half the staff?

You don’t need to keep up appearances. It’s okay to not be on a platform if it doesn’t make sense or if you can make better use of resources. With more and more publishers being bought out, laying off staff, or going bust, return on investment needs to be thought through.

3. Take new technology slowly (just not too slowly)

Like a good relationship, it helps to approach new technology slowly and with an open mind. Don’t jump headlong into things and have unreasonable expectations.

Perhaps Facebook updating their News Feed algorithm to promote longer video will be a Godsend for your brand. Perhaps your audience doesn’t come to you for mini-documentarites and they’ll flop. Perhaps Facebook will change their algorithm in 6 months (this is a rare constant). Make educated decisions, test the waters, and use data to improve your product before you make any major investments.

4. Accept that you have to pay for reach

It’s time to come to terms with the fact that unless your page has millions of fans or solely produces highly-sharable content, you’re going to need to pay to get your content seen. This is frustrating for sure, but “paid reach” doesn’t need to be a dirty word.

Organic reach isn’t inherently better than paid — what really matters is the quality of engagement. If 100,000 organic viewers watch a video for 5 seconds, is that really superior to 50,000 paid viewers watching for 30? If you spend $4,000 producing a story and aren’t prepared to spend $50 to make sure people actually see it, are you really doing your story justice?

5. Dedicate people to monetization strategies

2017 was the year that publishers woke up to the fact that they actually need to make money. From sponsored posts, to content studios, to e-commerce, there are myriad ways to earn revenue apart from display ads and paywalls. Figuring out which strategies suit your brand best, what they’ll look like, how they’ll work within your organization’s editorial confines, and how they can be scaled is a full-time job. It isn’t a side-task to be assigned to your “social media guru” or senior editors in their spare time.

6. Communicate your goals and explain them

If your staff don’t know what your goals are and why they matter, how are they supposed to help you accomplish them?

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re the director of a state broadcaster. You aren’t dependent on ad revenue so your goal is to maximize impressions within your own country and produce streams of content that will appeal to men and women from all age groups. If this isn’t explained clearly to staff, they might focus on social videos that only appeal to millennials because hey, it’s the trendy thing to do. All the other groups of people (who pay the taxes that fund your organization) will be ignored. I’ve frequently spoken to teams who don’t know why they’re producing content. They just know that they have to.

7. Listen to data, not egos

If your big new thing that will save the company flops, admit you made a mistake, figure out what went wrong, and move on. Don’t keep doing the same thing in the hopes that something eventually goes viral.

Finally (and most importantly)…

8. Hire more women. Hire more people from different backgrounds. Listen to them. Promote them. Pay them fairly.

I’m going to make two bold statements here so hold onto something if you aren’t sitting down: 1. Women are people and should be treated equally; 2. Just because someone is from a different country and didn’t go to an ivy league journalism school, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the potential to do great things.

“Diversity” isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a necessary component of any strong team. Teams should be staffed in a way that reflects the audience they serve and the stories that they tell. Any publisher that wants to succeed long-term can’t do so without hiring people that bring different skills, experiences, and points of view to the team. You can’t do the #MeToo movement justice when all your editors are men that shoot down the ideas of women journalists. You can’t understand the nuances of a Kenyan election story if nobody on your team has ever lived in the region. You can’t truly understand a tragedy like the Grenfell fire if all of your staff come from upper middle class families.

If you predominantly hire and promote one type of person, you won’t be producing the best stories possible. If you don’t produce the best stories possible, your audience will look for them elsewhere. End of story.

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Ziad Ramley is the former social media lead at Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter.