How Bloomberg is monetizing social media; plus, ecommerce, native advertising content, and Time Inc. digital video
Monetizing social media by converting side-door traffic into subscribers is one of the most important challenges publishers currently face. Convincing curious visitors to sign on as customers via quality content that’s skillfully distributed and diversely packaged requires patience, experimentation, and diligence, but it’s well worth the effort when those additional revenues start rolling in.
Remember: It’s not the number of likes that define social media strategies; it’s the the level of audience development that will drive true reader engagement.
Easier said than done, of course, but let’s take a look at how a legacy publisher like Bloomberg pulls it off, via Digiday, along with some other relevant recent articles.
How Bloomberg Is Monetizing Social Media
During the past year, Bloomberg’s traffic from social has increased 90%, Digiday reports. By deploying a product called Social Connect 2.0, the publisher is able to give advertisers a better crack at consumers.
“There are definitely marketers that love that highly social audience,” Chief Revenue and Client Partnerships Officer Paul Caine told Lucia Moses.
“Social Connect 2.0 is based on the understanding that each social platform has a unique type of consumer who is seeking content but often for different reasons. The goal of this product is to better understand those nuances and to help our partners market and tell the story more seamlessly via those channels.”
How Some Big Names Are Handling Ecommerce
The New York Times and Slate are among digital publishers making a play at ecommerce, Digiday reports.
The Times’ offerings include art, collectibles and housewares, and last year the publisher generated 5-10% of its total revenue from ecommerce. Still, it’s most popular products remain its branded books and commemorative publications.
Slate, meanwhile, puts an interesting twist on ecommerce with Slate Picks, wherein its writers recommend products like DVDs and gadgets via vendors, reaping a cut for the publisher.
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How The Daily Beast Does Data for Native Ads
Content marketing comprises upward of 80% of The Daily Beast’s advertising campaigns, Digiday reports, and the digital publisher uses a licensed predictive tool called Cassandra to match topic and audience, plus an analytics dashboard called Argos to measure performance. Interesting read for publishers still grappling for a native advertising content strategy.
How Time Inc. Digital Is Embracing Video
It’s no secret that Time Inc. digital has revamped its brand after spinning off from Time-Warner, and this includes an all-out approach to multiplatform publishing. Digiday reports that Time Inc.’s video staff now includes 60 employees producing 200 videos a week for the company’s 25 titles.
“We’ve gone headlong into the business understanding that our brand equity allows us to speak to our consumers this way and expose our brands to people who didn’t know we did video,” Senior Vice President of Video J.R. McCabe tells Ricardo Bilton.
“We have great brands that have been around for a century but haven’t been looked at as video sources by consumers and advertisers. There’s so much to watch out there that it’s vital for us to expose our content more so than ever before.”
How are you monetizing social media? Share some best practices in the comments!
To read more about monetizing social media in the news, visit Digiday.
