Do you invest in your audience or target audience before asking?
📢 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 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 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. ie. 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…
Watch the full interview to dive deeper into:
- The power of product thinking in journalism.
- Building community on platforms like Reddit.
- Measuring engagement beyond the superficial metrics.
There are also so many great analogies in this episode to help remind ourselves and simplify the process. 🍩🧀🍷🥯🧁
We know your time is valuable – simply browse the episode chapters below and choose the segments you’re most eager to hear.
00:00 Introduction to Engagement and Career Journey
02:53 Defining Audience Engagement
07:31 The Importance of Meaningful Engagement
09:27 Measuring Engagement Effectively
11:08 Insights from Community Engagement
15:41 Challenges in Audience Engagement
17:33 Building Trust and Relationships
23:37 Effective Strategies for Audience Engagement
25:05 Engaging Audiences in Journalism
28:51 Baking Audience Engagement into Editorial Processes
33:58 Common Pitfalls in Audience Engagement
39:48 The Role of Technology in Audience Engagement
46:17 Future of Audience Engagement: Personalization and Community
47:38 Practical Engagement Hacks for Journalists
