Media and technology are two areas that impact all of our daily lives. And times they are a changin’. News today is broken first on real-time social media channels like Twitter. Videos and stories go viral via social sharing on platforms like Facebook. Hence the leaked Innovation Report from one of the most revered publishers in the world has garnered a great deal of attention. As brands strive to become publishers in a new world largely defined by digital, social and mobile technology, content is truly king but the traditional rules of journalism and press no longer apply. What can we learn from this seminal report? Below are 10 golden nuggets which will certainly resonate with anyone who touches the media industry including marketers, journalists, and communications professionals to name a few.
10 Golden Nuggets from the NY Times Innovation Report from Celia Brown
Redefine the future of journalism
The Times realizes that it’s going to take a village to leapfrog their company into the future of publishing and they anticipate needing a team offering a different and diverse set of skills. The report noted that, “We need makers, entrepreneurs, reader advocates and zeitgeist watchers.“
The homepage is dead
Page One remained the fulcrum of the Times operation, despite only thirty percent of readers actually visiting the Times‘ home page. Reality today is that the majority of articles are found organically or via social sharing through networks or RSS feeds- gone are the days when readers perused a homepage of any news destination.
Master mobile to win in social
The Times Twitter account is run by the newsroom, while its Facebook page is managed by the business. Keeping all its promotional tools in silos has inhibited its ability to help its journalists find and build a base of loyal readers, increasingly who are reading and spreading content on mobile.
Content alone is insufficient
It’s no longer enough to tell great stories- it’s all for naught unless they reach the intended audience. The Times confessed, “Because we are journalists we tend to look at our competitors through the lens of content rather than strategy. Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and USA Today are succeeding because of their sophisticated social, search and community building tools and strategies, often in spite of their content.”
Rapid experimentation is key
Unlike printed material which is refined until perfected, a digital experiment should be released quickly and refined through a cycle of continuous improvement- measuring performance, studying results, shuttering losers and building on winners. (p. 32)
Curate and repackage content
Every successful band puts out a “greatest hits” album and the same rule applies to “best of” content. Andrew Phelps made a Flipboard magazine of the Times’ best obits from 2013 on a whim. It became the best-read collection ever on Flipboard. (p. 33). The product and design teams are developing a collections format, and they should further consider tools to make it easier for journalists, and maybe even readers, to create collections and repackage the content. (p. 34)
Be both a library and a newsroom
There are about 14.7 million articles in the Times’ archives dating back to 1851. The Times needs to do a better job of resurfacing archival content. The report cites Gawker repackaging a 161-year-old Times story on Solomon Northup timed with the release of 12 Years A Slave. “We can be both a daily newsletter and a library — offering news every day, as well as providing context, relevance and timeless works of journalism.” (p. 28)
Implement a successful tagging strategy
It took seven years for the Times to begin to tag stories “September 11.” (p. 41)The Times is woefully behind in its tagging and structured data practices. “Without better tagging, we are hamstrung in our ability to allow readers to follow developing stories, discover nearby restaurants that we have reviewed or even have our photos show up on search engines.” (p. 41)
Publish on a digital schedule
According to the Times report, “… the vast majority of our content is still published late in the evening, but our digital traffic is busiest early in the morning. We aim ambitious stories for Sunday because it is our largest print readership, but weekends are slowest online.” (p. 86)
Personalize content to engage readers
The Times plans to create a section of the homepage that uses reader patterns to customize a list of content that readers missed but would most likely want to see. “Though all readers would see the same top news stories, the other articles we show them would be customized to reflect what they haven’t seen.” (p. 37)