Tag Archive for: LADbible

Twitter/X axes headlines from link posts – this is what you can do

After the recent changes to Twitter/X and Facebook, LinkedIn is probably the only social platform left where you can easily post external links – but even then it doesn’t mean lots of views of your article!

It’s all about a gradual shift in how social media firms want publishers, companies and other users to use their platforms.

These changes had been expected

Last night’s changes by Twitter to remove headlines from Twitter cards had been coming since Elon Musk posted in August about doing so.

He wants followers to stay on the channel, rather than go to read or watch something on a browser or an app ( the “esthetics” claim seems dubious.)

Elon Musk tweet on Twitter/X algorithm and keeping users on the platform

What I think people are overlooking is that he claims the algorithmic-based For You tab “tries to” prioritise posts that don’t – but whether they are able to do so is not so clear. If a post which includes a link is generating lots of engagement, I generally think it will be more likely seen in that tab than a less interesting post.

So what should we do?

Again after a change by Musk, it’s provoked frustration, slight outrage and vows to quit Twitter – but they reflect moves by all platforms to wanting to keep users where they are.

But it is also helpful to put yourself in the shoes (or hands) of the user – we generally prefer to read everything where we already are as we lazily scroll, rather than be redirected elsewhere, close the page, go back etc. And unless something really resonates with us, or captures our attention, we’ll keep on scrolling.

So we need to adapt the way we communicate on those platforms – or seek alternatives.

Like it or not, Twitter is still the place where live news and hot takes happen – the Liverpool VAR decision to the Conservative Party conference this week alone.

If we want to engage our followers, we need put more effort into thinking what our posts will look to them – and why someone would share, comment or like it, or tap on the link.

For example, do we need to rethink how we use lead images on sites and adding captions, so that the picture pulled through is more appealing and tappable?

I’ve seen some publishers manually adding an image to a post, with the link in the copy, but I’m not sure how much more appealing that is to users.

Daily Mail tweet breaking news post with link

Another way is posting a headline or teaser post, with the link in the reply – but I don’t think that is any more effective; there’s little incentive to share or like a post that says ‘read more’. All the detail you need to know tends to be in the top post.

JOE.co.uk Twitter teaser image thread

 

Interestingly, LADbible, who are at the forefront of social publishing, have appeared to stop doing that and gone back to link posts.

LADbible link post tweet

Another option to share information is in a short thread – three posts mean that all are seen in the feed and not hidden (Twitter displays the first and last two in a thread). Treat each one as a standalone post that still work if individually retweeted, with details, images/video and then possibly a link in the final one. More often than not, the first post gets the most engagement. you could space out the thread to try to get repeated hits of the top post during the day.)

The other option, is to pay – either to be verified, or use promoted posts for carousels and other features.

Having a blue tick allows you to post much longer posts – but have you tried to read one of those? It’s hard work…

For my wrestling history account, being verified allows me to post longer videos and be more visible in mentions (and possibly the For You feed, but it’s not clear.) Monthly payouts have dramatically reduced in the last couple of months, but for me it still covers the cost of the fee.

But for many big publishers, Twitter referral traffic has been poor for a long time. Sky News’ head of digital, Nick Sutton said recently:

Sky News Nick Sutton on Twitter referral traffic

What about other platforms?

You may have seen how Facebook is cutting its efforts and support to news publishers – according to Axios, major news companies have suffered huge losses in traffic in the past six months.

And the much-heralded Threads still doesn’t have the ability to post links. Besides, engagement numbers appear to have fallen off a cliff (Just checked my phone and I used the app so infrequently I had to redownload it.)

Look also at Instagram and TikTok, who don’t allow links in posts (unless you pay) – I rarely feel motivated enough to ‘check the link in our bio’.

WhatsApp offers exciting opportunities – I wrote about the potential of Channels last month and Reach have been talking about the success of interest-based Communities(but I would not want 15 messages a day from a news provider clogging up my chats!)

Slowly, many have realised that they can’t rely on third party platforms to reach their audiences – and for publishers, make money.

We’ve seen a refocus on owned platforms: apps, email and memberships, which is a good thing.

So…

Experiment! Try things out, see what works and analyse the data. You can still have great success on social media, but you can’t just post a link and hope it will drive great interest anymore.

WhatsApp Channels can help you reach and engage your audience 

I’m really excited by the potential of WhatsApp Channels, which are slowly being introduced here in the UK.

Messaging apps, like WhatsApp and DMs on Twitter, Insta and Facebook, is where conversations are increasingly taking place, rather than publicly on news feeds.

WhatsApp Channels: Daily Mail, LBC, SportBible

How do WhatsApp Channels work?

Unlike Threads or other Twitter competitors, it uses an app already used by millions and millions of us, young and old: WhatsApp (which is owned by Meta.)

It’s the UK’s second most popular online communication platform among internet users aged 16+, according to Ofcom, just behind YouTube (Ofcom, Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes report 2023.)

There’s more details about the nation’s use of WhatsApp in Ofcom’s Online Nation report.

Ofcom research shows YouTube and then WhatsApp are most used by adult internet users - but YouTube is most popular for 16--24 year olds

You may need to update your app to get the Channels tab – it will appear on the far left of your app, under Updates (where you could update your status, if you ever bothered to.) I think this is better that having organisations flood your chats with friends, families and co-workers.

Updates on WhatsApp channels

What’s good about it, unlike Broadcasts or previous functions, is that your name, number and (depending on your privacy setting) your profile photo can only be seen by the admin – fellow users can’t see when you join or interact with a channel and your number is protected.

For organisations, there appears to be no cap on the number of followers, unlike WhatsApp for Business (the biggest channel, WhatsApp, has 11 million followers.)

Who’s on WhatsApp Channels already?

Channels allow people to follow your brand or business (seemingly all verified to prevent fraud and confusion) and get vital information, news, or just be entertained.

Examples of brands and organisations on WhatsApp Channels

A range of TV programmes, Gen Z celebrities, sports teams and news organisations are on there already: from This Morning and Good Morning Britain to Bad Bunny and Olivia Rodrigo, top Premier League clubs (Man City being the most popular with 5m followers), the Indian cricket team and Mark Zuckerberg.

In terms of UK news organisations, there is BBC News (the biggest UK-based news publisher, with 200,000 followers), The News Agents, LADbible, JOE, Daily Mail and LBC.

But I think this has huge potential for both the public and private sector, particularly for customer service, from a UK Government account posting important policy announcements or updates on the RAAC crumbling concrete crisis in schools, or practical help with benefits, to a utility company updating customers on outages or new deals.

 

 

What works on WhatsApp Channels?

It’s far too early to say – I think it’s best to try a range of different content, not just post links, which some are doing. Judging crudely by the reaction emojis left behind on messages, they tend to perform the worst.

Think about what you or your audience likes getting on WhatsApp – why are you going to take time to tap on a link to a site and take you away from the platform you’re on?

It’s screenshots, images, videos that are natively posted and embedded – they don’t need to be highly produced, just easy to read within a few seconds (I think what I send to mates and colleagues.)

LADbible WhatsApp Channel

Adding more details into a post can really help – take this Daily Mail one, which explains the story, which has among the highest reactions (though it could be due to the death of someone who was on TV – followers can’t see the breakdown of the different emojis used)

Daily Mail WhatsApp Channel

LADbible are trying memes (as below shows, some are more successful than others…) I’m not sure recycling old memes is quite right; those that tap into ongoing conversations about news, topics and events that are happening right now would be more successful.

LADbible WhatsApp Channel

Admins can also send stickers, and polls. I haven’t seen anyone use followers’ comments (screenshotted or otherwise) as a way of turning this broadcast channel into more of a 2-way conversation or function.

All publishers are trying to find the formats that work and the frequency of posting. I think less is likely to be more – no-one likes the group chat that is spammed by someone posting too often, or even worse, with your notifications going crazy (hopefully many publishers have learned their lessons from push notifications. I say ‘hopefully’…)

Think about discovery of the WhatsApp Channels outside of the platform too. It was hard to find details of organisations via Google (there are a lot of worrying-looking imitation WhatsApp accounts of BBC News there) and I saw that LADbible had promoted theirs via an Insta post (though you had to go back to their bio to get the link – a joined-up Meta operation where you could add a call to action button to View Channel would be great.)

How can you evaluate success on WhatsApp Channels?

On the face of it, it is just emoji reactions, though I hope and expect WhatsApp have an analytics dashboard for admins on audiences, engagements, views and forwards and timings.

What you ideally want is followers to engage with the message and forward it onto a group or other contacts. When they do, they see the original message plus a big View Channel call to action button.

Liverpool WhatsApp Channel message forwarded on

According to the same Ofcom report, 13% of users get their news from WhatsApp. I expect this to increase as more and more people use this service.

Ofcom news consumption report 2023: One in 10 of us use TikTok as a 'news' source

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This Reuters digital news report can help to change your social media approach

Today’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism digital news report provides some much needed-momentum to some media organisations, businesses and brands alike to rethink how they use digital and social media.

The report talks about how we face “a continual transformation of digital”. But far from being something that should terrify us, it’s a really exciting time to change things, become more insight-driven, experiment and innovate – and reap the benefits.

The old way of just posting the same series of article links on Twitter and Facebook, or the same video with the same post copy, isn’t as effective as it once was.

I’ve pulled out some of the most relevant findings and how they can be useful to your business.

Where do people get their news or information from?

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism digital news report 2023: where people get the news from on social media

The report notes that social is growing as the main way people get their news, and it claims there has been a steady decline in people accessing websites and apps directly.

Despite some of the headlines, Facebook is still the most important platform to share news – although this will likely decline as Meta shifts away from prioritising and investing in it. One of the country’s biggest digital publishers, LadBible, still enjoy huge success on there, using performance data to inform them what posts to put on there.

Twitter can still work for big events, newsworthy moments and particularly to appeal to those working or interested in the media, politics and finance. But I’m sure a lot of you have seen how news is not driving engagement as much, generally.

It’s interesting to see how ITV News has cut back on posting and being more focused on what they share, redirecting efforts to other platforms (more of which later.)

The report also shows increases in YouTube and WhatsApp, both of which generally have untapped potential for many organisations.

Getting your news into the WhatsApp ecosystem is key – that’s where people mostly talk, share their thoughts and forward on things to group chats of like-minded individuals, rather than be criticised or put down on public forums.

Think about how you use WhatsApp – personally, I use it the most of any channel to share and read stories that I exchange with family, mates and colleagues. I think there’s real opportunity there, especially with the community group function, for organisations.

YouTube is still generally underutilised, particularly by brands, who still see it as a dumping ground for TV ads and don’t maintain and grow it. Though it has proven fruitful, there is so much more opportunity than just putting clips of your output on there – smaller, digitally-savvy operations have been making some great and popular bespoke shows and content – some slick, others just two experts chatting about topics and answering viewers’ questions. The chance to monetise is probably the best of the platforms, too.

I’ve seen a lot of chatter today about the stats showing an increase in TikTok usage for news – but Instagram is still twice as big a source, including among 18-24 year olds. The visual element is crucial, but put effort into the post copy too – tell the story there. How many times have you really bothered to go to the link in the bio unless you’re really motivated?

Surprisingly, there was no mention of LinkedIn, which has increasingly become influential and a powerful tool to promote your work, engage and connect with people.

What I also felt was missing from the report was the importance of your own platforms (a view Thomas Baekdal is a big advocate of.) Social publishers can change your business model overnight and seriously affect your distribution. We’ve seen how BBC News under Naja Nielsen and ITV News under Stephen Hull and Matt Williams are investing in iPlayer and Sounds and ITVX, and it has paid off. And Global are providing news content from LBC in their app, which houses The News Agents. Live tweeting has been replaced by liveblogs on news sites – something ITV News was doing a decade ago, under Julian March and before that, Andrew Sparrow at the Guardian.

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism digital news report 2023: people prefer to read news than watch or listen

Also, and this seems to have been overlooked, all audiences – including 18-24 year olds – prefer to read text-based versions of news than listen or watch something. Future online news habits will evolve, with more audio and visual formats, but investing in your website is still a sensible move.

Who do people get their news and information from?

Animal from the Muppets hitting 'like'

Mainstream outlets and journalists still are ahead on Twitter and Facebook, but that’s not so clear cut on other platforms where smaller and more niche media, and especially more personalities and ordinary people, are influential.So, it’s not just thinking about what your reporter or chief executive posts, but how you encourage people with an engaged following on a niche subject you’re talking about to share/post about what you are doing.

Unless it’s genuinely useful and informative to that audience, will trigger an emotional reaction, or is visually attractive enough for them to stop scrolling, it’ll be hard to get your followers to read the post, tap on the link – and you’ll be lucky to get them to share or like it.

Rather than pump out posts, think about why someone would want to share it: as Jeff Jarvis acutely observed a decade ago, primarily we share things as it reflects how we want to be seen by others, or a reflection of our beliefs.

Think before you post: what do I want someone to feel about this post? How can I encourage them to read/watch or share/like it?

Think about the messenger too – it’s often better to show the beneficiary or human side to the story, than a dry corporate voice. ‘Ordinary people’ as the Reuters Institute call them, can deliver your messages with greater success.

For ITV News, taking a ‘people like me’ approach to The Rundown series on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok has really paid off, with a regular set of younger multiskilled producer/presenters selecting, presenting and editing the stories.

I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with communities on Twitter and Facebook, setting up accounts on niche interests and cultivating and engaging a following on subjects from ‘on this day’ memories of WWF wrestling to non-alcoholic beer. If you share something that appeals to that audience, and appear genuine and credible in that sphere, it can fly. Think about how you can do that, or how you can tap into that community as a welcome addition, not an awkward outsider just pushing your links.

It’s been pleasing to see the evolution of how these groups are treated. Once dismissed as “echo chambers”, now they’re talked about more as “communities”, with a range of views on like-minded subjects.

 

Who chooses what news and information you see?

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism digital news report 2023: how people get their news

I was a bit surprised in the presentation of the report’s findings that the authors jokingly said: “Don’t worry, we won’t talk about AI!” Thanks to Dataminr’s Kirsten Dewar for raising it in the Q&A. Yes, there’s been a lot of attention on it recently, not helped by some alarmist or misleading stories, but it has the potential to be a gamechanger in terms of production and promotion.

TikTok has enjoyed huge popularity with its AI-backed For You Page, but many don’t regard it as machine-based as it is so accurate so quickly with identifying your interests. It’s notable that of the options given to people in the survey, they preferred the idea of having stories automatically selected based on what they’ve previously consumed, rather than by an editor, as they have been for decades in broadcasting, print and on websites.

Experimenting with AI, with human oversight, is not a new phenomenon. I read many years ago how PA news agency were experimenting with machines writing fact-based articles, including election results. With limited resources, focusing on the content that really serves your audience with machine-based pieces for the more low-level news could be the way forward.

But please, always check it with a human editor…

 

In his excellent newsletter, James Ball talked about how at BuzzFeed he wrote four different headlines and after 15 minutes’ performance, the computer selected the one that was doing the best.

And LadBible revealed their ruthlessness when it comes to poor-performing content – if a post is not doing well within the first hour, it can be reworked – or removed completely.

I also wonder what the difference is between AI overseen by a person and data-based decision-making? I’ve had many experiences where senior figures want to go with their instinct of how to present or promote a story – but looking at what audiences actually have engaged with previously on the topic should play an equally strong role in informing what stories to cover.

The Telegraph, for example, has done a very good job in building their subscription business, serving stories that appeal to their audiences through their STARS audience metrics, which provide a far more sophisticated way of measuring success than the ‘most read’ stats. Dan Silver has talked about this in great depth.

Who recommends news to you goes back to my earlier point on influencers – not necessarily celebrities, but those with engaged audiences on specific topics. Those less trusting of the media are more likely to engage with stories shared by individuals they respect.

For example, at the Department for Education, we had great success with getting high-profile individuals to share our content, despite their regular criticism of the government, because it was designed to resonate with them on an issue they cared about.

Are you turning people off your stories?

Reuters Institute digital news report 2023 presentation by Nic Newman

Who hasn’t got a news alert that startles you – only to find out it’s of no interest to you at all?

A one-sized approach to the news and audiences is in the past – appoint reinforced by the report’s findings. At least the BBC, to their credit, are testing the ability to personalise text alerts.

This quote from the report’s lead author Nic Newman stood out to me:

“It is clear that many websites and apps are optimised for those that are super-engaged with every twist and turn of today’s news (and politics) agenda. But these approaches also seem to be turning large sections of the public away – with potential long-term implications for civic and democratic engagement.”

It’s no surprise that national politics is one of the biggest news turn-offs for the less news-obsessed. Focusing on the beneficiaries of government policies, or those disadvantaged by them – real people – has been a far more effective way to tell these stories where needed.

And it’s not surprising that interest in news has sharply declined in recent years – I sometimes feel bombarded by content, posts that are not relevant to me. This goes back to my earlier points on insight-based decisions on what to cover and what to post.

Thankfully we’ve seen a decline in clickbait and more sensationalised social posts, reinforced by changes to Google’s search rankings system, and there’s been a flourish of new “varied ways of connecting with audiences”, as Kamal Ahmed put it: personality-led posts and content, explainers, data journalism, fact-checking.

This is an approach that companies can utilise too. There’s no one magic solution – it’s having a range of storytelling techniques and using your previous experience of these formats to judge which is the best one to use in that instance.

Talking of which, I really enjoyed BBC News’ TikTok explainers of key political and economic topics, like this chat with Faisal Islam, made by Jan Bruck

@bbcnews

No gobbledygook allowed. #dragraceuk #bagachipz #rupaulsdragrace #inflation #bbcnews

♬ original sound – BBC News

A quick word on podcasts – a hugely popular format, but one that still has a long way to go in news, with only 8% listening monthly. Looking at the top 10 suggests more creative ways to talk about the news (and please, less of a focus on Westminster!) Certainly making video versions and promoting clips on social can help drive traffic.

That’s all well and good, but how do you make money?

This has been the big dilemma for news organisations. I’m still surprised to hear some news chiefs talk about social media being a source of income – I think gone are the days of large financial support from platforms to do news on there. And apart from YouTube, monetisation is poor.

Publishers talk about a mixture of income revenues – for example, LadBible and The News Movement are tempting brands and businesses with their knowledge of audience insight, data and social storytelling.

That best data comes from owning your own platforms. As Naja pointed out, data from social channels is “a marketing ploy” – it’s not the same as your own stats.

I was editor on The Sun’s website during a difficult time as we were working out how best to work with a paywall. I was an advocate then – even if I didn’t have all the answers – and seeing how other news providers have successfully done so, I still believe it’s the only way forward now.

It will be a difficult conversation for audiences – the UK was the lowest of 20 major countries for paying for news – but declining ad revenue isn’t going to save your business. Portraying these reader revenue models as having greater benefits beyond just news could be one solution. The Telegraph has established an award-winning games and puzzles section, for example, along with high quality, distinctive journalism.

More and more of us supporting individuals and smaller teams on Patreon because we enjoy their podcasts, and to a lesser extent Substacks. What can we learn from those successes for more established outlets?

If you want to hear the news slightly differently…

Hannah Vaughan Jones and I have been experimenting with putting some of these ideas into action with a show called Sorry You Went Viral: all about the stories that people are sharing and enjoying on social media – and the human side of what it’s like to go viral.

Check the show out on YouTube and podcasting platforms – or search for the show name on your social platforms.

I’d love to know with you about what you’re finding is working successfully for you or your organisation, or if you want to chat about how you can put some of these changes in place.