In journalism and publishing, the audience is key. Without readers, viewers, listeners, they’re nothing. It’s not just that content exists to be read; the content has to perform a function too.
Traditionally with news, that function has been to update the reader, but it shouldn’t end there.
Back in 2015, BBC World Service decided to look at whether its content was sufficiently engaging and providing value to its readership. It soon discovered that there was much to learn.
The following now runs the risk of being overstated, but
when BBC Russia looked at the balance of user needs, it discovered that 70% of content published in a six month period fell into this ‘update me’ category, yet accounted for just 7% of traffic.
That’s not a typo.
And it’s not an anomaly either.
Our own research has found similar imbalances of distribution too, though perhaps not quite so dramatic.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
What are these ‘user needs’, anyway?
Well, simply put they’re the reasons your readers, viewers, listeners have for accessing the content on your publication. Other publishers have adopted this approach too, and it’s telling that though the DNA of these various publications varies, essentially these user needs look remarkably similar across titles.
They are:
Update Me — your classic “who, when, where, what” types of articles
Educate Me — help readers to learn more about a certain topic or event, fuel their curiosity or get to grips with the basics of a complicated subject
Inspire Me — extraordinary stories about people doing inspiring things, but also home to ‘solution journalism’
Divert Me — articles which allow you to pause from more serious items in the news cycle for a moment of levity
Keep Me On Trend — linked to social media and what’s trending. And enable readers to be a part of or contribute to the conversation about this topic
Give Me Perspective — unpack complex arguments and issues and present different sides of the story
Why’s this important? Well, three reasons.
- It’s proven. Audiences want something else from the news than ‘update me’ content.
- It’s necessary. It builds trust, increases loyalty, supports subscriptions — and it makes your brand stand out better among the competition.
- It’s fun. Newsrooms love it. If people enjoy what they do, their output will get better. What’s not to love about that? Enthusiasm is contagious. Get the bug and spread it around.
All of which strengthen your position in the face of subscription and other reader-revenue business models.
Newsrooms update all the time. What they don’t do is follow up those stories. And this is where there’s a massive missed opportunity.
No one’s suggesting that you cover a breaking news story about an unexpected climate change protest (for instance) any differently in the first instance, but it’s what you do next that really counts. Not doing anything isn’t an option anymore. If you want to build subscriptions, boost loyalty and engagement, and really strengthen and consolidate your hard-won gains, this is a game changer. And it’s simple. The question was just how to transfer the theory into the actual newsroom.
We’ve spent the past six months working on exactly this predicament, and we’ve learned a lot and found a solution. We’d like to share it with you now so your newsroom or publication can benefit.
Download the whitepaper here.
