What I've Been Reading: Hyper-targeted local ads can still work + creating the journalists of the future
Plus how the destiny for media is still, for the moment, in its own hands (just about)
Good afternoon,
Got my head down on a number of projects at the moment - which have shifted forward thanks to the general election being called (good news and bad news all at once!). So here’s a quick spin through three things that have caught my eye in the past week or two…
How TAPinto sells local ads across 90 news sites - Simon Owens - well worth subscribing to get the full info and insight on this, but Mike Shapiro hasn’t given up on being able to carve out a space to sell very targeted local advertising. What’s crucial about TAP is they’ve been able to scale it into multiple markets and fairly quickly too. In the UK then there’s InYourArea, LocalIQ and The Lincolnite’s MyLocal platform all doing similar-type things. There’s still a sustainable business to be made by going very local it would seem.
Journalism schools must move beyond reporting to prepare graduates for modern media roles - David Cohn, Poynter - a really good read about ensuring journalism graduates aren’t just set up to be reporters (while still of course being a fundamental skill). Go look at the jobs boards of any media organisation and there’s newsletter producers, social video roles, engagement editors, AI-assisted reporters. If you’re not being prepped and prepared for the modern newsroom environment then you’re paying a lot of money for essentially being prepared to party like it’s 1992. Evolving journalism training so it is practical and robust at understanding the fast-changing and evolving landscape, and includes input from those at the coal-face, is really important to ensure whatever the journalism course those undertaking it are getting value for money and the best-chance of being the next generation of media leaders to find solutions to the set of problems we don’t know awaits the media industry yet.
We can still be in charge of our own destinies - Jeremy Clifford - a few weeks back then Jez penned some thoughts after the latest Wan-Ifra conference in Copenhagen. This bit stood out for me…
Create your newsroom around values. Identify your reader proposition. Set your KPIs and dashboards in a way journalists can identify and understand. Build habits around tools like newsletters. And focus on the content that your audience most engage with.
And then repeat, regardless of media and journalism then it’s being consistent which is the key to success and grinding out a path to growth.
Plus I think we’ll see increasing collaboration. On a very practical level, for general election hustings, then Blog Preston - the hyperlocal title I run in Preston - we’re putting on hustings in conjunction with The Lancashire Post and The Lead. Many hands make light work, we know we’ll get better attendance, candidates get to speak to largest possible audience at once and it shows the audience that media organisations are focused on the story itself - not tit-for-tat. We’ve had a great response already and it should be a great debate.
Thanks for reading this week and I hope you find these insights useful, feel free to send me anything you think I should be covering to ed@almaonline.co.uk.
Keep going and have a great rest of the week.
Ed