What a fishy tale can teach us about the need (and potential) for follow-up stories

A key part of the smartocto promise is actionability. Our analytics system shows you all the metrics and analytics you might need to know what content is working in your newsroom — and why. We’re of course able to create reports from that information.

But by itself that isn’t always a tempting proposition for editors. We know (because we WERE those editors) that the obligation to incorporate yet another tool into an already heavy workload doesn’t lessen the burden — it often feels like it’s just adding to the pressure.

Newsrooms are stretched thinly enough. Editors don’t just have a couple of plates spinning — there’s usually a whole dinner service’s worth.

That’s why the beating heart of smartocto is our system of notifications, which channel all that data into tips and nudges which editors are free to accept — or not (though obviously we’d recommend they do).

They alert you to actions you can take immediately in order to maximise and elongate the impact of your story later. Our promise is that this approach ensures you and your team’s hard work is channeled efficiently. It helps you work smarter and sharpens your focus.

That’s great and everything, but obviously the question is: does it work? Will it help reduce the number of spinning plates?

Well, we’re going to answer that by telling you a story about a fish.

Bear with us.

This fish will help explain why the notifications are important and should act as a cautionary tale for publishers who don’t want to end up like the fish in question: newly taxidermied and on display in a museum.

Let’s begin.

First, the story

Just after the new year, about 30 kilometres out from the coast of the Netherlands, a fisherman hauled in his catch. Among the usual suspects was a fish he didn’t recognise. This being 2021, he posted a picture on Twitter to see if the fisherman community there could help. He posited that maybe it was a bream.

It wasn’t long before Ecomare — a research institute — tweeted, saying it sounded like that was in the ballpark, but that it would need some extra time to be certain.

Eventually, they replied saying that they were pretty sure it was a Common Sea Bream. But, although the name makes it sound plentiful, the unusual thing was that that species — unlike Wild Bream or Sea Bream — typically makes its home in the Canary Islands. That’s quite a detour.

“It’s a tasty fish”, Ecomare concluded. They then suggested that the fisherman offer it to the National History Museum.

And there ended the story.

But therein began the problem.

The fish out of water

This article isn’t unusual.

News organisations report on similar stories all the time. Something happens, a few column inches are published, maybe it goes on Facebook, and that’s that.

The difference here was that we’d just started working with several newsrooms on the Triple N Project, which sought to find out how user needs can help newsrooms refine their content commissioning — and bolster reader engagement. When it comes to news, readers typically have six needs. They’re all valuable, but the tendency is that there’s a disproportionate amount ‘Update Me’ articles published — and these don’t in fact generate a proportional amount of engagement. Balance is key. And most newsrooms are off-kilter.

Although the Dutch regional publication Omroep Zeeland weren’t formally a part of it, we had coincidentally run several sessions with the editorial team there on how to write better stories and to help them understand how different user needs help engage their audience more effectively.

This was shortly after they’d caught this fishy tale — so our conversation was serendipitous bycatch.

Right away it was clear that there was more that needed to be done with this story.

184 comments on a Facebook post? That’s worth noting. The average engagement for Omroep Zeeland is 93.

One user on Facebook speculated that due to all the wind farms at sea, all underwater animals have lost their orientation. Is there any truth to this?

“Gerben Poppe yep, ever heard of the great currents running through the cables? Fish eg use magnetic and become disturbed.

John okay, I didn’t know this, but would be a good explanation then”

This calls for a Give Me Perspective or Educate Me follow up piece — is there any truth to these claims? Do fish really get disoriented from underwater cabling or from wind farms?

Another reaction states this is probably much ado about nothing:

“Nothing special. Caught 4 last week, we threw them on the grill on Saturday ;-)”

This is clearly a direct invitation to publish some recipes for sea bream

Next, people started talking about exactly what kind of fish it was…. Red snapper? Bream? Red Gurnard?

How about a fish quiz? Could you identify this mystery fish?

And, someone asks, why is it that there are so many red fish, anyway?

Educate me: what makes fish red? Is it the same kind of thing as why flamingos are pink?

Ecomare advised the fisherman to offer the fish to the National History Museum in Rotterdam. But why?

Is it because there are a bunch of famous dead animals in the museum? It turns out there are: a sparrow that got killed because it inadvertently knocked over several thousand domino tiles during the 2005 Domino Day ‘world record’; a seagull that’s there because a goalkeeper once kicked it out of the air with a ball during a soccer game. Does the Common Sea Bream have the celebrity chops to join these hallowed specimens?

But, in all the cases above, although notifications were sent out via the smartocto tool saying that they should consider making a follow up story, none of these stories got made. The story of the disorientated bream was destined to become an orphan.

Tapping into active engagement

It’s a shame because there’s so much potential to be had in the above ideas.

Engagement — and active engagement through comments — is something that shouldn’t be ignored. If people are bothered enough to start a conversation about something, it’s an indication that they may be interested in a further aspect of the story.

But, missed opportunities aren’t the failures they could be painted as: they’re learning opportunities. And, Omroep Zeeland have fully embraced this:

“A good example [for following up on stories smartocto detected for us] are the articles we made about the PSD boat [a ferry], which returned to our province, Zeeland. Every inhabitant of Zeeland has been on that boat at one point or another, so our news article generated many visitors. That’s why we created a follow-up story detailing where the other PSD boats had gone. That in turn resulted in many reactions on our website and on Facebook. And based on those responses, we also made a third article, which again scored well. I am convinced that the second and third articles would not have come about without tips from smartocto.”

We’re learning, too

But there’s a lesson for us too. Sure, we sent out the notification, but the fact it wasn’t heeded indicated to us that more work needs to be done. So, that’s something we’ve been working on.

When we talk about how important it is to ‘make every story count’, it’s not just a nice tagline. It’s at the core of what we do. How can we help editors extract every ounce of value in their content?

When the notification says that the newsroom ‘should consider writing a follow up’ — is this too vague? Would more guidance be useful? If the notifications were a little bit more prescriptive? Perhaps newsrooms would find it beneficial to know what kind of follow up might be best received?

We started this project by looking at the needs a user has when they search for the news (helpfully called ‘user needs’ — you’re welcome) and then our data team spent a few months creating a system of notifications that complement this approach. It’s a multi-faceted solution: you become more aware of the breadth of your reach before you even hit publish, and are given notifications to maximise each article’s impact as soon as your content is let loose into the world.

We’ve been working with three quite different newsrooms on this, and have learned plenty along the way.

The News Needs Notifications project (Triple N project) is a tangible way to increase efficiency of your content and we’re pleased to announce that our whitepaper is now ready and waiting for you to read.

Download it here.

It’s too late for the fish, but you’re just in time.