How media changes to engage the audience

Media is what's around the article. You are not a beautiful site with a home page. You are the frame around the content. And it depends on it, the reader will remain on the site or leave.

What is the problem?

Media produces content and wants to be read. We receive articles in the form of links in social networks, through exchange networks, by mail, in messengers, through search. Users almost do not go to the site directly.

I'm sorry, what? Daily come from the bookmarks on the "Vedomosti"? Dear sir, you are an esthete.

Now the main distributors of media content are social networks. According to Shareaholic , social networks bring 31% of all traffic to sites on the Internet. Just a year ago, this figure was 23%. The world leader is unconditionally Facebook.
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52% of all Buzzfeed traffic falls on social networks. The main source is Facebook. Russian media from social networks attract 30-40% of all traffic, leading in the list of “donors” more often on VKontakte, sometimes losing to Facebook.


Distribution of traffic from social networks "Medusa" according to Similarweb

In such a situation, the media should catch the user, lead to themselves, process and get a loyal user. The maximum program is a regular reader.

The school of effective text “Media” conditionally divides all site visitors into “traffic” and an audience. The audience is loyal and regular readers. Traffic is a fluid concept. The stronger and more provocative the announcement, the more traffic.

For fishing there are special types of content and feed: seals, naked female breasts, lists, tests, loud headlines. Michael Stelzner (author of Content Marketing: New Methods of Attracting Customers in the Internet Age) called such content “nuclear”. Fuel is good, but unpredictable. Shoot or not shoot depends on many factors. And good media should know in advance which article will take off and traffic, and which will not.

This is exactly what Buzzfeed does (forgive us for being so original). The publication has learned to mathematically predict the success of the material in social networks. To do this, there is a special department, which is closely involved in Big Data. Experts study published materials, delve into the social networks API and make accurate predictions on what to write and how to do it correctly. It is thanks to the work of this department on Buzzfeed there are tests that collect tens of millions of views.

We strained the convolutions, but we didn’t remember in Russia a single editorial board that would seriously deal with something similar. We have decided to learn that the material has fired, already after the fact.

All act for sure. That is why cats are so popular. Rather, "seals" - the same nuclear content according to Stelzner.

The price of the "seals" is great because they, with their fluffy paws, pave the way from anywhere to your website. Alas, no ingenious investigation or interview will achieve the same effect.

"Seals" are not only collections of "12 most striped pets that will make you cry from emotion" and other victims of clickbiting. “Rules of Life” are Esquire kittens. "Kitties" is a very viral content that attracts users well.

As a result, we get two audiences that are suitable for two types of content:

• Traffic and "seals"
• Loyal readers and serious topics

How does changing the entry point to a website change the concept of media?

The entry point to the site is a specific article. In fact, this destroys the rubricator of the classic media. Now no one cares about the section in which the article is published and how it is submitted on the main page.

Bob cohn

President and COO, The Atlantic

Home page is a good way to reflect the values ​​of a publication. Design, selection of topics, interactive features, language, intonation, refresh rate, even advertising - all this speaks about who you are. Having looked at the site for 10 seconds, the visitor can understand everything about you: what the site is about, what language and in what tone it says, what topics it touches.

The main page has more marketing value, it’s a statement of the brand’s publication about itself. But with the traffic, it can not help. The main page and rubricator in this regard are greatly overrated by many editors. 9 out of 10 sessions of TheAtlantic.com and our other projects begin with the article page.


This is the main page of The Atlantic

The focus of the entire media is shifting. Now your media is around the article. You are not a beautiful site with a home page. You are the frame around the content. And it depends on it, the reader will remain on the site or leave. The man will leave when he reads the text. Unless you notice something that makes him stay.

How and from what should the article be wrapped?

Take Fox Sports for example. In just six weeks, the media increased the number of page views by 23% and by 37% the average time on the site. What did they do?

• "Semi-infinite" scroll. When scrolling through the page, the reader sees a recommendation from three similar stories,
• personalized block of recommendations based on site behavior;
• a fixed block of social buttons to comment on articles and share them easier.

Sports Illustrated in 2014 redesigned the site:

• Increased headlines
• under the article and in the left column are recommendatory blocks,
• Significantly increased social networking button blocks.

In the summer of 2015, ESPN conducted a redesign - an American sports publication and television channel, one of the largest sites in the world. In the first three months after the restart, the ESPN site increased the number of unique users by 16% compared to last year. In comparison with two months before the restart, the number of visits increased by 31%. The main change is the personalization of information and simplified navigation. They gave the entire left column for recommendations, and there are constantly sharing buttons on social networks near the text.

In the “My headlines” section, users customize the feed directly for themselves and receive news only on interesting topics. The size of the video covers was maximized.

What to do media?

• Focus on content personalization. Show users articles based on their behavior.
• Work with social networks. You post on the social network and make sure that the articles are Sheryl.
• The main page is the face of the brand, and does not need wide functionality. Make it easier.
• Simplify the design. No one needs a detailed rubricator.
• Endless scrolling helps too. True, we know from tests on Surfingbird that just a long scroll works better than an infinite one.

In Relap, we create recommendation blocks for media and help engage users. If you want visitors to stay on the site longer, find more interesting materials and watch more pages - write to us at support@relap.io