Digital magazines are decoding new web publishing platforms, but does it all just come down to content distribution strategy?
Well, the answer to that question is yes, but the execution is open to interpretation. When it comes to web publishing platforms, sometimes it can seem like your options are wide open. That’s because they are.
Observers of the digital publishing industry tend to describe “platforms” in the context of social media, but we reject those limited desginations, which is maybe good news or bad news for you, since it expands your avenues even more. But, it’s true: A platform isn’t just a mass market social network that allows you to distribute content; it’s anything that allows you to distribute content!
That’s what multiplatform publishing is all about. Still, developing social media publishing best practices is important. TheMediaBriefing.com has had some useful articles, as they always do, on that front in recent weeks.
It’s the Little Things for Little Things When It Comes to Web Publishing Platforms
Little Things is like a lot of digital publishers looking for that pipeline of more visitors from web publishing platforms, but they’re nosing out competitors by adding a bit more elbow grease to the mix, TheMediaBriefing.com reports.
“Nothing makes it to Facebook unless our internal testing has already told us it should perform well. We really treat Facebook as four different platforms and we customise our content for each one of those. What goes into the news feed, what goes into the native video feed, what goes on Facebook Live and what goes into Instant Articles. Each piece of content is optimised for where it’s going to run in the piece,” Little Things COO Gretchen Tibbits tells Chris Sutcliffe.
“For the news feed, what drives there is the title and the thumbnail. Not only the article itself but those go through a lot of testing. So you want something that is compelling upon first look but if you think of what was going on three years ago at sites that people will refer to as ‘clickbait,’ we’re in a very different business. We consider that a failed piece of content; it’s not a success unless you actually consume and engage with the content. … When people say how did you grow so quickly and so rapidly it really comes down to a single sentence, which is our commitment to quality content creation all of which is positive, uplifting and engaging. ”
Bloomberg Banks on Relationships for Platform Publishing
When it comes to succeeding with web publishing platforms, Bloomberg is definitely a brand to emulate. TheMediaBriefing.com reports on how the company treats consumers is key to its growth.
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“We’ve been pretty selective; if you’re not on the platforms every day you’re missing out on opportunities to reach them. We have not done Instant Articles or anything on Snapchat up til this point. We need to think of it as what it is which is the most amazing discovery platform… we have to think about marketers and moving people down the funnel,” Bloomberg Media Group Global Head of Digital M. Scott M. Havens said at Digital Media Strategies USA ’16.
“I think registration is one of the most important ones. We were using frequency of visit, depth of visit, podcast downloads … all these metrics to show engagement. [Our team is focused on] customer acquisition, getting them into a database so we truly know who these people are. We just built it, weve been backtesting it, is this Bloomberg Loyalty Index, taking all those metrics, and using an algorithm and tracking it over time to see if our efforts are effective.”
WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat: Media Companies Making Messaging Apps Priority
Social media as we know it is changing before our very eyes, and messaging apps are emerging as the new must-use web publishing platforms, TheMediaBriefing.com reports.
“Despite being relatively new to the scene, messaging apps have already emphatically claimed mainstream status. 8 in 10 internet users now use a chat app, like WhatsApp, Snapchat or Facebook Messenger. Indeed … the rate at which digital consumers are signing up for messaging platforms is striking – in 2014 it was a little over 20% of internet users (outside China) who had started using Facebook Messenger. Flash forward to 2016 and the figure is close to 50%,” Felim McGrath writes.
“Many messaging apps have become integral to the daily digital habits of their users. … But it’s the stripped down messaging platform of WhatsApp that can claim to have the highest engagement rates among its users. Fully 80% of WhatsAppers are using the app daily, meaning that this messaging app has better user engagement than even Facebook (the traditional champion for this metric). Within this context, it’s easy to see just how many possibilities exist for publishers to expose messaging app users to their content.”
Which web publishing platforms are you fondest of? Tell us about them in the comments!
To read more about web publishing platforms and other industry news, visit TheMediaBriefing.com.
