For digital publishing companies looking to stay on top of trends, a handful of new articles on Digiday will help
With our blog, we aim to achieve a nice balance of posts that comprise the “Free Advice” we promise in our navigation bar. This combination includes best practices, case studies, and thought leadership to help digital publishing companies learn from each other.
Another big component, though, is our effort to monitor digital trends from across the web. We’re consuming media around the clock, and love to get the day started with some industry news.
One of our favorite sources for that news is Digiday, one of the best in the business, and they did not disappoint this week! Below, we’ve assembled a roundup of their coverage of digital publishing companies’ experiments, stumbles, and successes. Each article covers a key challenge for companies like yours, so we thought we’d share them.
5 Recent Stories for Digital Publishing Companies
1. Advertisers Are Responding Well to the NYT’s Digital Overhaul
Nearly a year after its leaked Innovation Report, The New York Times‘ web efforts are paying off. Digital revenue for 2014 was up 12%, Digiday reports, and the spike came from mobile, video, and native ads.
Advertisers appreciate the Times‘ loosening of content restrictions, but still hope that the company will find better social sharing avenues for the high-priced native ads the paper’s marketing team produces – and while they’re at it, reduce those prices by not always insisting on producing all of that content themselves.
Digiday reports also that the Times‘ video efforts are currently focused on quality, not quantity, which consumers appreciate – while advertisers wait for more opportunities.
2. Time Inc. UK Is Investing in Events
In an effort to diversify revenue, Time Inc. UK is expanding its events business – most recently by acquiring U.K. Cycling Events (the publisher owns the titles Cycle Sport and Cycling Active). Other events have included wine tastings and fairs celebrating rural life, Digiday reports.
“We have been good about delivering readers content to inform their learning, but we haven’t been nearly as involved in their experience of actually and getting out and doing those things,” Paul Williams, managing director of Time Inc. U.K.’s specialist brands, told Digiday.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to be transformational from revenue and profit perspective and move the business from being over-reliant on our print business. It’s the usual Time Inc. story.”
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3. For the Win’s Sharing Experiments
Digital publishing companies are always looking for ways to harness the power of social media, and since USA Today‘s FTW was designed to dominate social channels, it’s certainly no exception.
But it does stand out for making a interesting decision recently – ditching its Twitter sharing button for mobile articles and pinning its hopes to straight SMS, instead. The results have worked out, to say the least: According to FTW, the SMS button has been used three to four more times than the Twitter button ever was, Digiday reports.
FTW has kept its desktop Twitter sharing button.
4. Capital New York’s Post-Paywall Report
Capital New York’s business model is threefold: subscriptions, events, and digital ads. All are growing for the young company that covers politics and media – especially their subscriptions to their niche audience.
“We’re breaking through and selling a lot of subscriptions to major operations,” Capital New York’s Andrew Sollinger told Digiday.
“A lot of what we do is the antidote to people’s FOMO issue. We solve the problem of the stream by giving you one more thing to read. … What we discovered was, there was plenty of interest across the board. … We see a tremendous opportunity, because our content is habit-forming.”
5. Facebook Video Appealing to Publishers
Facebook has seized on video as a revenue stream, while publishers are taking advantage of its newfound audience development potential.
While you may not get the benefits of a production partnership with the social media giant like Digiday reports The Young Turks did, you can still get in the game with your own multimedia.
Do you count yourself among digital publishing companies looking to stay ahead of trends and learn from other businesses in 2015? If so, check out our consulting services!
To read more of the latest stories on digital publishing companies, visit Digiday.
