Digital Publishing
3 mins read

The Must-Read Publishing Stories You May Have Missed Nov 23, 2018

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

8 key media statistics from 2018, how to make Facebook a friend to your publishing business, and more…

+1 new friend request

Facebook doesn’t give a flying fig about your business. They have their own goals, and if those intersect with yours, it’s a happy accident.

Yet our feature this week from Kevin Anderson on ‘Making Facebook a friend to your publishing business’ isn’t satirical. Despite the year that the troubled platform has had, there are still ways to use Facebook as part of an audience and business development strategy, which are teased out in this detailed piece.

The bottom line? Zuckerberg’s platform can still be part of an effective strategy, but you have to be data-driven and focused on your business, not just Facebook’s mercurial algorithm changes.

@WNIP

8 key statistics from the Media Moments 2018 report

It’s been a pivotal year in media, with so many developments across different areas, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the pivot to paywalls, milestones in reader revenue and programmatic trends. Here are 8 key statistics – one from each section of the report – and why they’re significant in today’s media landscape.

What’s new this week

Making Facebook a friend to your publishing business
You can still use Facebook to build your business. You just have to be as unsentimental and self-interested in building your business as Zuckerberg is about building his.
Media M&A market booming, as companies seek to innovate through acquisition
PwC’s new report finds that deal volumes have reached a two-year high in Q3, registering a 9% increase compared to the same time period one year ago
Every publisher is launching a subscription model. Is there a ceiling?
How can you look at the success of the subscription programs at The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times and not want to get in on that action?
Deepfakes can put the credibility of news organizations at stake
We are now entering an era when the video footage we see with our eyes can be manipulated in a very sophisticated manner.
How the Financial Times is using storytelling for subscriber growth
The FT has 12 ongoing podcasts of which the FT News podcast has reached a monthly user base of 1 million. Its audio listeners consist of 60% millennials, and 60% non-subscribers. 
3 (more) stats that prove how newsletters create community engagement
Interactions with newsletters aren’t visible in the form of likes and shares in a news feed, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less an indication of belonging. 
Engage your mobile audience: how to create mobile-friendly stories
Although technology has changed the distribution of news dramatically, the stories are still told in the same way as they were 100 years ago.
Podcast: Trint founder Jeff Kofman on why journalists should be entrepreneurs
Jeff Kofman talks about the dark abyss of transcription, whether Google and Facebook are serious about funding journalism, and the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media.
3 years to a million paying supporters: Guardian’s alternative model of growth without paywalls
The news that The Guardian has become sustainable with the help of its reader-supported business model comes as a welcome surprise.
Recklessness, a reckoning, and the road forward: The role of media institutions today
The media and information industry is in an age of recklessness. Fueled by misinformation, lines are being crossed. And this is taking a serious toll on the trust in and value of the media.