I don’t mean success in the sense where you start from scratch (or from the bottom as Drake would suggest) and set up your own daily newspaper. Before developing it into a successful broadsheet with a projected daily circulation of 1,865,315, amassing 1,150 departmental staff in an office on Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue along the way. This blog will not assist in turning you from a publication which is smaller than the Private Eye, or as localised as the Sale and Altrincham Messenger into a worldwide media conglomerate. Forget that, as I simply don’t have the experience to preach like that (not yet anyway). This blog is about content marketing and how you can take tips from the NYT (short for New York Times, and how I will refer to them from now on) and improve your digital content output, including creating evergreen content, reusing old content, utilising consumer data and finally mapping social influencers.
Granted, the NYT built themselves up in the pre-digital era. The paper was founded in 1851 as the New-York Daily Times, before the name was then shortened to its current guise in 1861, with its influence growing considerably over the next century or so.
Despite their long history of success, like many, they have had to adjust things that were shaken up by the influence of the internet. But what have they done and how can you learn from their publication strategies? It’s also important to consider just how and why this big content creation and distribution rethink all started.
So lets take a look…
The Introduction of paywalls in digital journalism
Much like our very own Telegraph broadsheet, the NYT has adopted a paywall system where the first ten articles are free to read (20 per month for The Telegraph) before additional articles then require a subscription. This tactic was rolled out in response to dwindling advertising revenue, and during 2011 the paper announced that their income from subscriptions had taken over their revenue gained from advertising for the first time in their history. So, it’s clear business models are being restructured, this was in response to a few thing, which were:
- Worldwide economic recession
- Digital publishing levelling the playing field
- Digital platforms taking over print
- Social media revolutionising journalism
So essentially, things went belly up. The NYT have shown that they’re extremely worried about The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed, and while they’re the world’s leading news organisation, results show that they lag behind these new publishing upstarts. The NYT released (actually Buzzfeed leaked it, ironically) a 96 page report that was published in March 2014. It’s a must read for anyone who is working in online digital marketing or content publishing. Here’s the link, you can thank me here.
Not only have they looked to match themselves with the likes of The Huffington Post, but they have also made strides to adapt to their readership switching from print to digital. Their ‘Innovation Report’ was an eye opening document, but what can we learn from it and the NYT’s strategy in general?
Create evergreen content
With a huge editorial staff on their books, with many focusing on creating timely news and features, the amount of new content which is created each hour of everyday is mind blowing. With content being pumped out in ever increasing numbers, and with much of it only being relevant for a short space of time, it now makes sense to create traffic driving articles which remain relevant for a longer period.
This ‘Snow fall’ article / multimedia feature breaks free from the bog standard online articles which we’ve been accustomed to over the history of the internet. NYT have gone ahead and altered the way they are reporting, changing the way they tell stories through inspirationally designed, and freshly thought out content which will remain relevant for longer, driving traffic when a standard article might waver after a day or two.
Take a look at this link from FastCompany which gives a run through of their ‘Snow Fall’ esque projects which have been published by the NYT over the past two years. Where Snow Fall differs from what Buzzfeed have being doing with their quizzes is that the NYT have created something which is hard to replicate and isn’t throwaway, unlike what Buzzfeed have created with their attempt to lure millennials to their website.
The jury is still out on which tactic works best, but it’s clear that the NYT and their creation of expensive and time consuming ‘storytelling content’ is almost the polar opposite to Buzzfeed. The idea is to get the balance right between effort which is put into content, its sharability, and how evergreen it is.
If you’re creating content for a client, you’ll get much more success if you publish blogs, videos or white papers which remain relevant and searchable for a long time, helping you deliver better results when it comes to collating monthly reports.
Repackage old content
Not only are they creating more evergreen content, but the NYT are repackaging old content, content which otherwise would have remained unseen and unloved, they are then republishing the content in numerous different formats. By mining their content archives and enabling the right content to meet the right readers at the right times, it takes up less time and money than creating brand new content.
By resurfacing content in a timely manner, and working hard to organise how they do so, they have managed to give stories a long lifespan.
Utilise data
This year’s innovation report looked deep into the utilisation of data in content creation and how best to use it, in regards to relevant user experience and content. Understanding your visitors and how they consume your website, through mobiles, tablets or online for example – essentially building customer profiles through their behaviours is now key when trying to attract readers
By analysing the impact of your data, you can begin to start learning and improving. You can actually take a step back before reflecting and learning lessons about what’s been working. Failure is an opportunity to learn and build from your efforts, while you should also ensure that you look at your competitors and what they’re doing.
Find social influencers
Not content with writing an article and hoping for it to take off online, the NYT have looked at finding influential people across social media who could help them spread the word. They have felt that by mapping influencers they can invest in a tactic which will eventually pay off.
One article, which was shared on Twitter by a list of their influencers, was eventually picked up by Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher who has 16.3 million followers. The process is similar to traditional PR, where the NYT builds relationships with journalists, bloggers, consultants and industry analysts.
Content marketers can therefore adapt these techniques to get influencers to not only share content, but provide it for them as well. This can help build a company brand and while it might seem organic, it’s a very calculated social tactic that you, if you’re a content marketer for a brand, should definitely be using!
Forget what isn’t working
Don’t be afraid to kill projects if they aren’t working, this will free up time for you to work on more fruitful initiatives.
Have a long term vision
Robert Martinez, the current Everton Football Club Manager has recently said that you should “manage a football team like you’ll be there forever” and the same principle could be said of working within content marketing. Having long term, not short term goals when establishing a content strategy will seriously enable you to be much better at what you do.
Take time to analyse what you’re doing and create a content calendar, focus on getting content published before then establishing how you will make it work (adopting the tactics discussed above). Ask questions about what you’re doing, appoint a strategist or put somebody in charge of distribution who can really look at the future of your output, and how you can improve in all aspects.
Recruit the right staff
You’ll need:
- Data analysts
- Visual designers
- Social media editors
- Writers (who can write purposefully for the web)
- People with an understanding of the digital landscape
- Employees with an interest in storytelling
Everyone in your business needs to be socially savvy and fully fluent in social media. If you employ people who’re a ‘big deal’ on social media in their own right, you’ll know that they know their way around the web. They will also know how to self publish and therefore will be aware of how to publish for a brand in meaningful and influential manner.
Collaborate
Make sure that your teams work together on projects for clients, ensuring there is collaboration at all stages of a project. This will improve the final product and user experience.
How can you be as successful as the New York Times?
After all of the above, you should also make sure that you don’t forget SEO (search engine optimisation) because it does still exist, even if it has been a little left in the dark, with the growth of brand publishing (the cool new way to say content marketing). Put your best foot forward and invest your time wisely, work pragmatically, with a real eye on how to successfully create tailored content. Study your competitors strategies, repackage old content, find relevant influencers and hire the right people which together, will elevate your brand, giving you tremendous results that you didn’t think were possible.
At Neil Walker Digital Group, we look to work with a model which closely follows the infographic below. This strategy combines what we’ve been offering our clients for years, as well as strategies and tactics we’ve learnt from the New York Times.
Have you read the New York Times Innovation report and adapted your content strategies accordingly? Have they worked or have you found that you’re finding successes elsewhere? Let us know on Twitter, we’re always more than happy to answer any questions about brand publishing or content marketing!