All things Engagement

🚀 News Avoidance: Will this open your eyes or will it resonate with you?

Are you scratching your head wondering why some readers disengage, or why “news avoidance” is such a buzzword? This week, Francesca sat down with leading researcher Kiki de Bruin, who has spent 5 YEARS studying 4,400 self-identified news avoiders.

Kiki reveals that “news avoidance” is a deeply misunderstood term. To start with, in this digital age, people have different understandings of WHAT NEWS EVEN IS.

🎙️ Journalism is meant to solve a problem. Are you open to a radical change within your news brand?

If so, it is a must that you hear this week’s Redefining Engagement chat. Francesca sat down with Rishad Patel, Co-founder of Splice Media, who argues that traditional audience engagement often misses the mark. 🎯

He describes the “journalism industrial complex” as focusing on supply – creating content we deem important, then trying to market it. 📉

Rishad’s counter:

💡 “Why create a need when you can meet a need?”

🇵🇹Don’t underestimate the power of the Portuguese mentality and keeping things simple! 🧲

This week, Francesca Dumas chats with Catarina Osório, Publishing Manager at Contacto (Mediahuis Luxembourg), about the often overlooked nuances of audience engagement. With over 100,000 Portuguese people in Luxembourg, Contacto has built up a large community that spans generations, creating its own challenges in audience engagement. 🧓👶🧒

⚠️Catarina highlights a critical point for news publishers and journalists: “Everything happens so fast right now… if you lose time, you might lose the game.” Readers have higher expectations than ever before.

How do you walk the line between frustrating readers and driving valuable engagement? 🤔

🎧This week on Redefining Engagement, Francesca spoke with Madeleine White, VP Marketing at Poool and Co-founder of The Audiencers, about the delicate balance publishers need to strike to convert casual readers into loyal subscribers. 💙

Madeleine highlights that every conversion (newsletter sign-up, app download, subscription) involves a degree of “frustration” (paywalls, pop-ups).

🔑 The key is understanding each reader’s engagement level and tailoring the “frustration” accordingly. Show a paywall to someone who’s new to your site, and you risk losing them. Show it to someone who reads you daily and subscribes to your newsletter, and they are more likely to convert! 🤝

📢Stop Guessing, Start Listening: Engaging Your Audience Beyond the Dashboard📢

This week on Redefining Engagement, Francesca spoke with Fabienne Meijer, Head of Journalism Products at The OCCRP and Innovation Consultant. Fabienne dropped some serious truths about how newsrooms need to rethink their approach to audience engagement.

👂Hear about:

– Strategic vs. Tactical Research : Are you just trying to get people to consume existing content, or are you crafting journalism in service of your community?

– Community over Global Audience: Focus on building meaningful relationships within communities instead of chasing global metrics.

– Invest Before Asking: Build trust and credibility before soliciting feedback or expecting engagement. Be transparent about your funding and address tough questions head-on.

– Beyond the Metrics: Page views are proxies, not proof of value. Combine behavioural data (return visits, retention) with qualitative insights. Actually TALK to your audience!

Fabienne’s insight that “we like to measure what’s easy rather than what matters” really resonated. Are you falling into this trap? It can happen to the best of us…

📣 What motivates journalists to engage with their audience? It might not be what you think!

In this week’s Redefining Engagement series, Francesca speaks with Lars K. Jensen, Audience Lead at Berlingske Media, about the importance of cultural shifts in newsrooms.

Lars asks a powerful question: Are reporters being rewarded for engaging with audiences/readers? 🤔

Are they incentivised for it? Lars challenges us to rethink how we appraise their work.

“We need to know our audience in real time.” Are you pouring hours into content that’s just not landing? You’re not alone 😔

In our latest episode of Redefining Engagement, Francesca spoke with the brilliant Andrew Webb about the crucial link between content creation, data, and achieving a real return on investment. 📈

Andrew hit the nail on the head: “The absence of understanding that data is probably what is creating quite a lot of inefficiency.” 💭

He argues that just like any brand advertising campaign, content creation should be viewed through the lens of ROI. What’s the cost of transforming top-of-funnel engagement into tangible outcomes? 💰

If you’re spending countless hours on content that nobody sees, it’s a drain on resources. The solution? “Leverage technology to understand what resonates with your audience in real-time.” 🕗

ℹ️ Defining Engagement… Media brands – Where is the line between informing the public and “hooking” them into the screen? 👀

Is your definition of “engagement” benefiting your readers or just your short term bottom line?

Juan Carlos Lopez Calvet, Director of Data & AI at Schibsted Media, shares a crucial perspective this week: We don’t want engagement for engagement’s sake – we want informed citizens. He discusses the tension between chasing engagement numbers and providing valuable, meaningful content. 💙

📲Engagement shouldn’t be about keeping users glued to the screen, but about providing valuable information that keeps them coming back. 🫰

Schibsted’s approach? A metric that fits a variety of brands’ with different business models – Focusing on the number of days per week a user visits their platforms.

A metric that is positive and intended to add value for the user. Habit over time spent. 🧲

This week on Redefining Engagement, Francesca sits down with Yunus Emre Oruc to dive deep into audience engagement strategies. Yunus, with his extensive experience at Al Jazeera Turk, TRT World, and Middle East Eye, shared some powerful insights. 🏋️

🔑A key takeaway among many? Yunus emphasises that news organisations need a diverse range of perspectives to truly connect with and understand their audiences. This means prioritising fair salaries to attract talent from all backgrounds, not just those who can afford to work for less! 💰

Exceptional journalism alone won’t cut it anymore.

We must understand the “economic mechanisms” and marketing strategies that drive audience engagement and ultimately, sustainability.

Quality content is King, but the value it brings is Queen (and she wears the pants!) 👑➡️🚀

Cyrille Frank really dropped some serious wisdom on what it takes for media outlets to thrive. 🫡

This week on our Redefining Engagement podcast, Francesca chats with Cyrille Frank (in French 🇫🇷), a veteran journalist, and media consultant with a background in advertising. 💪

One of his key points? “The quality of content is indispensable, but it is not enough for the success of a publication or a media outlet. That content has to bring value.”