A day late with my usual round-up, but I do have a good excuse. Through Alma, the audience development consultancy I’ve launched, we are working with The Lead to launch four pop-up email newsletters and special print editions for towns and cities often overlooked outside of the major cities in the UK and outside of London.
There’s more information in the launch article for The Lead about what we are going to be doing in Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Teesside and Bolton – we announced our intention to launch yesterday and hope to be getting going in the early part of 2024.
Proud places. Big places in their own right. With a sense of identity and lots of stories and organisations to dig into. Our weekly email newsletter will get under the surface of the places and people who make these towns and cities tick, and also look to offer solutions for how changes can happen.
I’m also keen, as we’ve stressed in the launch piece and I’ve had conversations with existing media in these locations, to work together to produce strong, bold and imaginative digital storytelling and investigations about local issues. It’s not about seeking to replace, it’s about complementing and going beyond the cut-and-thrust of hour-to-hour digital publishing. I spoke to Press Gazette about why we’ve gone with a newsletter format and weekly cadence of publishing for the newsletter – and then using print as a one-off promotional vehicle and to make the stories very tangible and real for the places we are publishing in.
If you’re in one of the places mentioned, I’d love to chat to you about what we should be covering and we’re also open to pitches from freelance journalists particularly on education, health, climate, inequality and other topics The Lead writes about frequently.
And now for some interesting bits I’ve spotted around in the inter-section of digital, journalism, audience and more…
Forums see major lift in Google organic traffic – Chris Long – there’s been widely written about downturns in Google audiences particularly to publisher-driven websites in the last few months. The frequency of Google updates has been increasing. So who is winning? Because the general law of digital audience in my experience is when someone is down, someone else is up. This post from Chris Law caught my eye as he dug into the likes of Reddit, TripAdvisor and other essentially UGC-content-forum sites which are seeing stark rises in traffic. Are non-traditional places a part of your digital distribution strategy? How do you engage with these types of sites?
Here’s how 13 news outlets are using LinkedIn newsletters – Nieman Lab – I am finding the majority of insight and analysis, and interesting links about digital media I find are now shared via LinkedIn rather than X. LinkedIn is really ramping up the tools available for publishing – offering longer posts, the ability to create articles in a WordPress type way and also their newsletters option too. This deep-dive has loads of great ideas for how it is being utilised. The debate on LinkedIn that I’ve seen tends to be a lot more constructive than X ever was, and whether it has the potential to drive significant value for publishers and digital content creators is yet to be fully proved by these newsletter case studies give food for thought.
BBC hits back after open letter from commercial news publishers over local expansion – Press Gazette – the row between the BBC, over its local news expansion, and commercial news publishers is intensifying. There are valid points on both sides, the BBC enjoys a digital advantage because of its no-ads digital publishing model and vast cross-promotional ability but at the same time it does need to evolve its output to be fit for purpose for 2023 and beyond to justify an ever-increasing licence fee. I think there’s a real opportunity missed in all this to reinvent local audio and broadcasting, instead from what I can see so far (based on output in Lancashire where I live) it’s putting out more police crime appeals, covering live news (that was already covered), Local Democracy Reporter stories and a bit more social video. Here’s my take, from October, on how the BBC could meaningfully invest in local journalism and supporting the local news ecosystem at all levels. I’d also encourage you to read this take from WalesOnline editor Steffan Rhys about how they are attempting to diversify audience sources but the challenge the BBC expansion puts in the way.
Inside the Metro newspaper and news operation – The Business Leader – there’s some real in-depth pieces being done by Graham Ruddick via the Off To Lunch podcast, getting into real depth with business leaders and those making things happen. His pod with the MD and the editor-in-chief of the Metro caught my eye on how they are evolving and tackling challenges in both digital and print. Always fascinating whenever the lid is lifted by any publisher.
And that’s it for this week, as ever you can subscribe for my email newsletter which means you get this round-up first direct to your inbox and please do pass on to anyone you think may find it interesting.
Next week’s round-up will be the last one for 2023 and then I will be back for 2024 with lots of interesting bits I’ve uncovered in my digital journeys and readings.
Ed Walker 