Many publishers found themselves scrambling as Facebook’s algorithm changed and impacted their levels of referral traffic from the social giant. However, as usual, the savvy publishers were quickly able to pick up the pieces, if there were any, and form better foundations for their current social endeavors.
Content publishers using social media for distributing information want the most for their time and effort. We have seen Google and Facebook turn attention to publishers by offering article formats for better engagement.
Organic SEO, email, syndication, social and video still among top audience development strategies
Change constantly occurs, but not all change is drastically different from what was. Take audience development, for instance. Audience development has evolved through the years, but some of the most time-tested strategies are still successful and being used today.
We begin today’s news with
Publishers are flocking to vertical video content and ads now that “it’s hip to be vertical.”
In the not too distant past, vertical video was only for Facetime and school plays you forgot to flip your phone sideways for. But with the advent of video streaming on social networks, and apps like Snapchat, vertical video is
Online content distribution grows more sophisticated by the week, with new channels, services, and technologies giving rise to an ever-evolving multiplatform publishing strategy.
MediaPost has recent coverage on NewsBeat, Flipboard, and Google AMP, three big names who will have big roles in the coming years. Let’s see the latest!
Most publishers – at least most niche and regional publishers – cannot live on online magazine ads alone, but of course they’re still a key component of any media operation.
The caveat? Generating enough revenue and keeping enough digital advertisers happy has gotten harder and harder as the media landscape has become more fractured and viewability has become more elusive. Or perhaps demands for better measurement have intensified.
Multiplatform advertising is doable, and it’s something Mequoda Members do well. And while we all deal with issues – whether it be struggling to decide on Facebook Instant Articles viability or the fear of getting swallowed up by Google; how to handle native well and how to battle ad blocking – the future is bright when it comes to online magazine ads.
Publishers will reinvent their digital magazines across platforms and newsstands in 2016
This year print magazines saw a sharp downturn in newsstand sales, with a 10.3% drop year-over-year in single issue retail and a 9.8% drop in dollar value during that same time period, MediaPost reports. Time Inc., Hearst, and Meredith all saw plunges. Meanwhile, The New Yorker,
Apple publishing opportunities have long served as a component of digital magazines’ plans, but toward the end of Apple Newsstand’s run, it became clear that the service was not actually serving publishers as well as they might have hoped for.
Now, enter Apple News, an aggregator app that offers publishers some attractive features when it comes to traffic and digital ad revenue. But is the promise panning out?
Mastering mobile email marketing might sound like it’s low on the list of priorities for digital magazines, but, in reality, it’s rapidly emerging as one of the most pressing skills for multiplatform publishers looking to improve their content distribution strategy.
For starters, consider the level of control you have when it comes to your message and branding: Provided you’re using best practices to get your correspondence white-listed, images seen, and subject lines clicked, then you’re in prime position to get your emails read. And if your emails are getting read, then you’re also getting an audience for your website, because you’re giving subscribers a reason to visit.
All of this used to happen primarily on desktop, but not anymore. MediaPost relays news that mobile email marketing has surpassed desktop for the first time. Let ‘s start there this week!
Perhaps it was inevitable, but the end of Apple Newsstand – long involved in a love-hate relationship with cross-device publishing – was still an occasion for reflection and wondering what lies ahead for digital magazines. This is the kind of story the Nieman Lab was built for. Below, we look at its coverage on this topic and two others relevant to cross-device publishing.
Flipboard, the digital magazine app, received an update recently. Flipboard version 3.0 brings some new functionality to iPhone and Android smartphones.
A recent article from Media Life Magazine discusses the Global Web Index’s new report on worldwide media consumption, which shares that mobile is growing faster than any other form of media.
More and more, digital content providers are emulating magazines in both presentation and hiring practices in order to better impress readers and advertisers.
Are you ready for the staggering figure of the day? 7 million Flipboard magazines have been created in the first year since the feature has launched.
Flipboard has bought social mobile reading magazine Zite from CNN.
Deadline is reporting that TV Guide has partnered with CBS Interactive in a cross promotional content deal. David Lieberman writes
An upcoming paywall change at The Chicago Sun Times will have you paying with a tweet or bitcoins to access content.
The digital landscape gives publishers the opportunity to provide a variety of content on different devices. This versatility is expanding the idea of what a digital magazine can be.
Panna, for instance, is a new digital cooking magazine that relies on showing videos of recipes on the iPhone and iPad. Naakai Addy writes, “Panna’s videos not only guide you through individual meals; the Chefs give you tips and tricks to help you become a savvier cook in general. You can pause when you need to, rewind when you missed a detail, and see exactly how each step is supposed to look as you’re working on it.”
Many big box retailers were open on Thanksgiving, giving the post-holiday shoppers somewhere to go before the mayhem of Black Friday.
Some publishers got involved in the sales too, offering digital subscriptions at discounted prices between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Joanna Coles, editor of Cosmo, recently wrote an article for AdWeek that shares her opinions on digital publishing and printed content.
“Digital disruption has been fantastic for the publishing industry. It’s brought in a new generation of people engaged with our voices and what we have to say, and it’s made everybody have to think on their feet a bit more. I really do think that we’re in that moment when we were riding horses and the car has come along,” said Coles.
America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is now offering access to all three of its subscription websites for 69.99/year. Gigaom reports, “ATK is offering bundled access to all three of its websites, plus a selection of 1,000 recipes from its cookbooks, for $69.95 per year. That’s a good deal because previously a subscription to just one website was $34.95 a year, and if you wanted access to the “Cookbook Collection” recipes you had to pay an additional $15 a year.”
The National Journal is moving its website to a more responsive design and ditching its app. AdWeek’s Lucia Moses writes, “For National Journal, its iPhone app is relatively new (introduced in April as a subscriber benefit) and hasn’t been a significant source of revenue. Meanwhile, its Web traffic from mobile devices has doubled over the past 18 months, so it needed a site that would provide a uniform experience across devices.”
That day we thought would never come is here. Search Engine Watch is reporting that Google has encrypted all search queries thus cutting off all keyword data. Thom Craver writes, “Encrypted Google searches don’t pass the keyword data through to websites, thereby eliminating the ability to track users by their keyword searches. The biggest impact for many site owners has been not being able to segment users by keywords within their web analytics software.”
The Washington Post Company has agreed to sell its namesake newspaper and affiliated publications to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com for 250 million in cash. Bezos will be the sole owner of The Washington Post and it will go back to being a privately held company once the deal goes through.
The New York Times is reporting that Jet Magazine will be receiving a print and website redesign. This will be the first print redesign for Jet in 62 years. “The new look for Jet includes brighter colors against a white background, more informational graphics, larger photos and new fonts.”
What began with devices has now turned to software.
Digital magazine publishing software is evolving to focus on a better user experience. In turn, online publishers are partnering with platforms that afford more freedoms to their users.
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
Everybody checks their email daily. I’m one of those millennials that stereotypically uses my phone as an alarm clock and checks my email before I even roll back the blankets and crawl out of bed in the morning. Personally, I find urgent morning emails a great incentive to wake up!
Anyone who doubts that the iPad is the most important media-related technological innovation in all of human history should re-read those dates. And the exciting thing for those of us who live and breathe magazines is that we get to live through it!
Do you know why subscribers choose print over digital, and vice versa? A landing page a/b test can only tell you the details about copy that converts, but it doesn’t tell you the complete mindset of your customers.
Google Currents can help digital publishers distribute content and build their email marketing lists
Mobile email and mobile website design have become topics of interest to digital publishers since the popularity and usage of mobile devices has grown.
In the past, I published posts about nine design elements for mobile email and three tips for keeping mobile email subscribers. After seeing how much interest there was on the topic, particularly relating to the first article, I decided to keep an eye out for new, exciting information to pass along on the topic of mobile email.
New media trend reports were wrong – people like flipping pages!
When the iPad was first released, Jacob Weisberg, an editor for Slate.com wrote in an article that:
“Exorbitantly priced first-gen iPad apps offered by magazines like Vanity Fair ($4.99 a month) and Time ($4.95 a week!) are attempts to revive the anachronism of … turning pages. They’re claustrophobic walled gardens within Apple’s walled garden, lacking the basic functionality we now expect with electronic journalism: the opportunity to comment, the integration of social media, the ability to select text and paste it elsewhere, and finally the most basic function of all: links to other sources.”
3 revolutionary apps
Some technological devices are for consuming content, and others are for creating it. It’s safe to say that the iPad was created for those who want to consume content in a portable, media-rich manner.
From audio and visual media to games and web content, the iPad offers a lot to users, especially those who have come to use the Internet has a place to share the knowledge of topics that interest them.
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week…
An app publishers can learn from
Tablets are predicted to be more popular than desktop computers and netbooks by the year 2015. That’s to say that more people will be buying tablets instead of new laptop computers. And after seeing the iPad, one can understand why.
Anyone who has used a tablet thus far can attest to the possibility of being swayed to the direction of an iPad, or possibly one of the competitors when a notable one is released. iPads are smaller and lighter yet still allow for maximum usability by letting users surf the web and view all their favorite multi-media pieces while controlling the device with the touch of their finger, much like its cousin the iPhone.
“We have used the Mequoda System to create five successful membership programs that leverage our 227-year-old brand and the many books, calendars and issues we produce."
- Paul Belliveau, Vice President New Media and Production, The Old Farmer’s Almanac
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“Our all-access membership program includes our print edition, our amazing New England Travel Library, and our new PBS television series. We may have been founded in 1935, but our current strategy is fully multiplatform and digital.”
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"We leveraged the Mequoda System and software to create two new capstone membership programs that have reignited our revenue growth."
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