New data from Chartbeat shows that for the first time, mobile direct-to-site traffic has surpassed Facebook referrals. With all of the discussion around the duopoly and the lack of control publishers have over their traffic, Chartbeat took a look at its data to observe traffic differences since the Facebook algorithm changes were announced in January. Overall traffic to publisher sites has not declined — it’s remained steady. “For as long as we can remember … mobile readers = social readers, where someone on mobile most likely found your content from Facebook. Our latest data shows that’s no longer the case. Now, mobile readers are arriving to a site (website or app) directly to the homepage or section front more often than from attributed social platforms, namely Facebook.”
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Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Use annual events to experiment with storytelling approaches, form audience/content teams, and stretch resources. “Like a lot of newsrooms, we deal with coverage of certain events every year. For us at the Anchorage Daily News, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is one of those events … The Iditarod is important, but we also felt like it was a good vehicle to experiment with some coverage concepts that could ultimately have a more strategic payoff. The stakes were much lower than, say, an election. We’re heavily focused on growing digital audience and looking closely at what content resonates with readers and what doesn’t.”
Expanding from USA Today’s list of general topics — breaking news, sports, technology and others you’d expect — its app now allows users to also pick from a list of suggested narrower topics, things like midterm elections, virtual reality and social security. Further suggested topics exist within stories, too — a story about Uber rolling out an emergency feature displays an “Add Topic” button for Uber, for example. Users can mix and match topics to receive the news, culled from across the USA Today Network, that’s most interesting to them. “We’re helping folks organize all of the information that’s out there … and find something of relevance,” said Jason Jedlinski, head of consumer products at USA Today Network.
The German digital media group, which owns Business Insider, Bild and Welt, has spent the last 18 months developing a GDPR consent management tool, which can also be adapted to address cookie-consent requirements under the pending ePrivacy Regulation once it is finalized, according to the publisher. A consent management platform is a technical capability needed by any company that wants to capture what personal data its audience and customers have given it permission to use. That information is then relayed to all partners that publisher works with in its digital advertising supply chain. The aim is to ensure that all data needed for activities such as personalized advertising is only used when the user has given consent.
Research shows that minority customers regularly receive worse customer service than whites in ways that are not immediately obvious to onlookers (or even managers). These results prompt a couple of questions for executives and managers. One, does your company hire individuals to interface with customers? Most likely, the answer is “yes.” Two, do you know if your employees are treating all customers equally? The answer here is probably “no.” This is, in part, because many aspects of customer service are intangible, nuanced, and difficult to observe. A well-designed internal audit can help you understand exactly how your employees are treating customers, and can help you formulate changes to implement.
One job in the digital economy falls predominantly to women. It’s an oft-overlooked position, drawing on both marketing and editorial skills, that has become increasingly critical both to business success and online discourse. The pay is poor, and the respect can be limited. Take a look at the job posting for any social media manager. Social media managers are “the behind-the-screens labor involved in media and technology, central to propelling our digital economy forward,” says Brooke Erin Duffy, who is an assistant professor in communications at Cornell. Between 70 and 80 percent of social media workers self-identify as women on the salary compilation site Payscale.
“Female journalists who cover Elon Musk have the same personal rule: Mention his name on Twitter at your peril,” writes Erin Biba. “That’s because there is an army — mostly young, mostly white, almost entirely men — that marches behind him. These MuskBros, as we call them, make it their mission to descend on women who criticize Musk, and tear them to pieces. I know, because it has happened to me. More than once.”
Dutch custom builder RemetzCar has released new images and a video of its newly finished Tesla Model S shooting brake, which reportedly will make its debut next month in the Netherlands.