What I’ve Been Reading: Why are publishers losing Google audience, peak subscription not yet reached + a major news event through the lens of a Facebook group
The latest What I’ve Been Reading digest – which is a round-up of interesting bits from the cross-section of digital journalism, digital communications, social media, search and more – is below.
Before I start it would be remiss of me not to mention the sobering news this morning about the changes at my former employer Reach where I spent more than a decade. To all those receiving and making the announcements, I hope you’re as okay as you can be and the offer of a conversation is all I can offer if you feel that would be of value – ed@almaonline.co.uk – and I am happy to listen. The advice I can offer is trust in the process and it will feel like everything is about to move 100mph, but there are steps to follow and you’ll be supported in those I am sure.
Why are publishers losing traffic from Google? – Thomas Baekdal – a strong in-depth look from Thomas into what’s been happening with Google search and publishers. This year has seen not just social audiences falling away to news publishers, but with the frequency of Google core algorithm updates also search audiences become increasingly volatile. Although overall ‘news’ interest does seem to be falling, which Thomas outlines with a series of graphs, then my view would be that the audience is becoming more targeted in what they search. People know how to use Google better than they did, and they use it very frequently, so searching for specifics will be becoming more common-place (and Google encourages this with smarter and smart auto-suggests, tweaking Google Discover to be your interests etc). I also think the rise of Discover will also be a factor, people are lazy in consumption habits (or creatures of routine), and so Discover just giving you what you want (for example my wife only really uses Discover for news consumption now via Google) rather than needing to search for it may also be a factor in the decline. It all supports the need for building direct distribution channels with digital audiences and also for building up expertise, authority and trust on topics by journalists and publications.
No sign of peak subscription: Consumers continue to grow their subscription portfolios – Jack Marshall – some interesting data about what people are choosing to subscribe to, the challenge within the news industry is the breath of subscription packages you’re up against within a household. It’s not just media, there’s beer, there’s meals, there’s kids entertainment – everyone is wanting you to subscribe. “The groups most likely to own at least one subscription include men, people earning over $100,000 per year, and 25 to 34-year-olds.” this caught my eye as the challenge with much of subscription journalism is that it has the danger to just hyper-serve an elite, but the data point is also encouraging because 24-34 is a reasonably young demographic to be subscribing digitally and so gives hope that the normalisation of subscription could be coming. This data is from the US, so comes with a health warning for other markets where propensity to subscribe is lower and different.
How Storm Ciaran played out in a Facebook group – Dan Slee – looking at a big news event through the lens of what was shared in a Facebook group. It’s easy to say ‘no one uses Facebook anymore’, which isn’t true, it is still the parish pump for many people and is particularly prevalent on a hyperlocal level. Dan’s analysis is spot on and shows the importance for me of journalists building connections and trust within those groups and the key takeaway is how visual these groups are becoming – pictures and videos. That’s how people share and communicate. The old adage, a picture says a 1,000 words, it appears on Facebook this is very true. How are you visualising your work and making it relevant?
A reminder that last week I’ve ventured into the world of editorial consultancy, launching an audience development consultancy – called Alma. We have some exciting projects we’ll be sharing in the weeks ahead and it was heartening to receive so many messages of support as we announced our new venture and next step. Thank you to everyone who took the time to get in touch.
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