This continues a series on advice for new top editors in Digital First Media newsrooms.
Editors need to understand and pursue mobile opportunities.
In more than one-third of Digital First Media news operations, we get more than half of our traffic on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Just as the computer reading experience is different from the print reading experience, the mobile user experience is different from the desktop or laptop experience.
You need read and view your products on your smartphone and tablet (and recognize that they aren’t the same thing), both on the apps and on mobile browsers. Know what your mobile users are seeing and experiencing.
The news business hasn’t done enough to master mobile opportunities. You need to lead your organization in becoming the mobile leader in your community. Identify things your news staff can do to improve your mobile content and experience. Work with tech and sales staffs to improve the mobile content, experience and revenue opportunities.
I have written a lot about mobile opportunities in this blog, most notably my 2009 call for news organizations to pursue mobile-first strategy. I think my 2010 suggestion for a mobile-first project for your community on the go would still be a good idea for many news organizations to undertake to build your mobile audience and your mobile capabilities. (With both of those links and the others below, keep in mind that the suggestions I made may need updating if you apply them today.)
Other things editors should do to pursue mobile opportunities:
- Discuss mobile issues in your newsroom meetings. Look at how your apps and mobile site are displaying at that moment on various devices.
- Designate a newsroom mobile leader to direct and stimulate your newsroom’s consideration of mobile opportunities.
- Discuss how to engage the mobile audience in the day’s news.
- Lead experimentation in your newsroom with mobile tools and engagement techniques.
- Consider development of smartphone and/or tablet apps for special projects that have some shelf life, might be useful for the mobile community or might be particularly effective in the tablet experience. Beyond the value of the app itself, part of your benefit from developing an app is that you gain skills in developing and designing your app.
- Advocate in the budgeting process for more and newer mobile devices for your staff and/or for stipends reimbursing staff for using their own devices.
- Use tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Tout on mobile devices yourself.
- Tell your sales colleagues about all mobile projects you undertake, so they can explore the revenue opportunities.
How is your newsroom pursuing mobile opportunities?
Related reading
Newspaper Association of America SenseMaker report on growth of the mobile audience
Cory Bergman’s 5 ways mobile will interrupt journalism like the Internet did a decade ago
Other earlier posts about mobile strategy
- News companies need to help local businesses pursue mobile opportunities
- How news organizations need to change to pursue a mobile-first strategy
- Students’ media use shows journalism’s future
- Tomi T. Ahonen’s view of the present and future of mobile
- Experts’ view of mobile: the opportunity of our lifetime
If you’re another Digital First editor (or a leader or former leader in another organization) and would like to propose a guest post as part of the series, email me at sbuttry (at) digitalfirstmedia (dot) com and we’ll discuss. Sue Burzynski Bullard provided such a post on organizational tools and Nancy March wrote one on balancing work and personal life.
I’m not interested in a post of general leadership tips. I’d rather have a post on a particular leadership topic. Feel free to suggest a post that might address a topic I’ve already covered, but from a different perspective. I welcome posts that disagree with my advice. I will invite a few editors I respect to write posts.
Earlier posts with advice for editors
Blog about your newsroom’s transformation
You’re a role model; be a good one, like Dave Witke
Do what you say you’ll do — by being organized
Lead and stimulate discussions of ethics
Stand for accuracy and accountability
Deliver criticism with a challenge
How do your daily budgets reflect multi-platform planning needs?
What new beats would help newsrooms cover local news better?
Why editors should be active on Twitter
The Buttry version of social media best practices for editors
How the crowd can save your career
Leading your staff into the Twitterverse
Mentors don’t always see their seeds blossom
Upcoming topics
Here are topics I am planning on covering in this series (the order is tentative). The posts probably will run every few days for the next few weeks. What other topics should I cover?
- Time management
- Developing new leaders
- Diversity
- Teamwork
- Hiring
- Firing
- Fun
Steve,
You are glossing over here. There is really no tangible advice other than, “think about mobile and tell your sales staff.” I think you will find it a little easier to think about if you break it down into tangible categories.
Deployment
– How does your site look on mobile? There is a good chance it looks like crap. That is probably going to be your first and biggest problem.
– Define your resources. Do you have somebody that can actually build an app for you? How much to get an indie contractor to do so?
– Ask yourself if you really need an app that lives in the various app stores (Apple App Store, Amazon Appstore, Google Play, BlackBerry World, Windows Phone Marketplace). Because, you know what? You probably don’t. Most media properties think app, app, app. But that is not necessarily going to work for you because app discovery in the various stores is bloody awful. Only go to the app stores if you app actually does something unique as opposed to repurposing your content for the app model. Can the user play games on your app? Find directions and local businesses? Take pictures and upload them to your site? Or is it just article and video? If it is the latter, ditch the app. It is not an effective use of resources. Look at the Financial Times model and note how successful it has been without the app stores.
– Seriously consider responsive design. You want your readers to experience the site on their smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops? Responsive design (a mix of HTML5 and CSS and some other tricks) can make sure your content automatically resizes to the screen the device is on. The Boston Globe was one of the first big newspapers to go completely responsive with BostonGlobe.com. We employ it at ReadWrite.com and completely killed our Android and iOS apps.
Social
– Easy social: People click through on their smartphones and tablets from social sites. Facebook in particular but Twitter too. If you get on the top boards on LinkedIn, you can do surprisingly great traffic. This is actually a lot more about writing headlines for social and making sure the content is unique to the social site than any particular big ticket strategy.
– Dark social: You know why you don’t need to build an app? Because there are a ton out there that are doing it better than you and can easily find your content. Zite, Flipboard, Pulse, News360 are all apps that millions of people use and are finding your content from. Email is also considered dark social and where do you read most of your email these days? On your smartphone. The morning newsletter from your publication is NOT dead.
Partnerships
If you are an editor in a newsroom or running a media property, you know who knows more about mobile than you do? Just about everybody.
Those apps that are aggregating your content and sending you pageviews? Yeah, you can approach them about your own hosted section. Flipboard and Zite both have branded sections on their apps for specific publications (ReadWrite.com is on both and we love us some Zite).
Also talk to developers that specialize in this type of stuff. The people you get to build that responsive site can be worth more to you than the code and support they apply to you business.
Rethinking the ad model
Ads are different on mobile. And that sucks for most newsrooms and sales forces because they really have no idea what the hell is going on any more. The ad experience is different. Pre-roll ads really upset mobile users, more so than the Web.
Inline ads that scroll with your content (or in your content, but that is still fairly nascent) can work. Engaging ads, like those made by Boston startup Jebbit, show more ROI. You old banners ads are just not going to work anymore. There is no room for it.
There is also the native/sponsored avenue. Most journos are going to cringe at this, but the marketers love it and it is an easier sell for the sales team. Native ads (articles that are written and paid for by brands or sponsors) can be inserted into a news feed on a mobile device without really disrupting the flow of your own publication. Facebook is employing ads embedded in the stream to great effect on mobile and turned its mobile ad business from nothing to hundreds of millions of dollars basically overnight.
Hope that helps.
Dan
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I couldn’t stop nodding my head while I was reading this post. I do most of my reading, and quite a bit of writing on my iPhone. I commute daily, by bus, several hours each day to my full-time job. I use that time to scour the new sites, check email, correspond with editors I’m working with on articles and cruise the Internet in general.
It amazes me how some up and coming, and some even established social media news sites have slow or even poorly designed mobile access. I’ve turned down a few writing contacts because I felt their mobile availability was sub-standard. Who wants to wait over 30 seconds for a page to load or go searching for an article that should pop right up with the tap of a fingertip?
If you want to grow followers and attract more productive and seasoned writers, make sure your Mobil applications are up to the task.
Great article!
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[…] « Advice for editors: Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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[…] Lead your newsroom in pursuing mobile opportunities […]
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