The Weekly Bulletin | September 19, 2023

Catch up on your members' content, check out the community buzz, and browse through job opportunities

Author

Vahe Arabian
September 19, 2023

Hi SODP community,

Let’s recap on what’s been happening last week, the new content, industry updates, tips, and more.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Australian industry body the Digital Publishers Alliance (DPA) released its first-ever report last week, shedding some new light on the conversation around trust in the media.

I’ve previously shared some thoughts about declining trust in the media, believing that more work must be done to engage audiences before trying to win their trust.

The DPA’s new survey of more than 1,300 audience members from 20 member outlets further underpins that belief. The survey found that independent publishers are generally perceived as more trustworthy than their mainstream media rivals.

More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents either entirely or mostly trust independent publishers.

Source: DPA

Big news outlets have always been the target of some criticism, generally from those they have sought to hold accountable. The mainstream media tends to take the most flak because it has more resources to poke about in places others would prefer they didn’t.

And yet, over the last couple of decades we’ve come to see public trust in the media fall to new lows. I’m not going to argue why that is here; we’d be here all day in that case, but I will say that the term “mainstream media” now has a certain stigma around it. It’s a loaded term that many subconsciously associate with witch hunts and “Fake News”.

Regardless of the right or wrong of it all, the reality is that many audiences harbor a distrust for more prominent news outlets, and it’s this distrust that creates new opportunities for smaller players.

The DPA survey asked its participants what they liked about digital publishers, to which a significant majority replied it was a combination of their tone and approach to content alongside their diverse and alternative narratives. Relevance, interestingly, came in third.

While tone and approach to content will mean different things to different editors, to me, it speaks to a publication’s overall ethos around content creation. Smaller media outfits require a narrower focus to survive or they’ll be dragged in a million directions, wasting their limited resources.

For independents, this should mean focusing on passion niches, finding unexpected angles and then delivering them in a unique voice that resonates with your audience. Independent publishers that manage to do this will engage their audiences and build trust in their brand.

SODP POSTS

Paywall SEO Strategy: A Guide for Publishers

Audience monetization is a key issue for every digital publisher. While ad revenue remains a reliable strategy for many outlets, some may be better served by implementing a paywall.

Of 212 newspapers surveyed in 2019, 69% reported having some kind of online paywall, up from 64.5% in 2017.

There are four types of paywalls that a publisher can choose from — each with its own range of benefits. These include the:

  • Freemium paywall

  • Metered paywall

  • Dynamic paywall

  • Hard paywall

But for online publishers, successfully introducing a paid subscription model is easier said than done. One study suggests that while three-quarters of digital publishers have some form of paywall, only 10% enjoy a thriving digital revenue model.

Given the challenges of successfully implementing a paywall — from picking the best paywall service provider to selecting which type of paywall will convert visitors into subscribers — it’s essential that publishers understand how their paywall might affect their search engine optimization (SEO).

What Is a Paywall? A Complete Guide for Publishers

Despite what many consumers may believe, digital content isn’t free. Producing great articles, blogs, videos, and podcasts takes time and money.

There are several ways to recoup that cost, though the most popular remain digital subscriptions and advertising. Ads allow the audience to enjoy “free” access to online content, while subscription paywalls enable publishers to charge their audience directly.

While paywall adoption has grown since the early 2010s, gating content remains a thorny issue, with most audiences still trying to avoid paying for access.

Understanding what paywalls are, how they work, as well as their advantages and disadvantages is critical to making an informed decision when considering how one might fit within an existing business strategy.

JOB BOARD

➡️ Condé Nast’s Architectural Digest and World of Interiors are looking for an audience development manager and an associate social manager (London, UK). SEE MORE

➡️ Australian Broadcasting Corporation is looking for an experienced journalist who understands how to engage and grow the audience, how to inspire a high-performing and complex team and how to deliver real impact for the community (Ballarat, Australia). SEE MORE

COMMUNITY BUZZ

Industry News

➡️ Google September 2023 helpful content system update is rolling out. The update should take two weeks to roll out, Google said. This is the first helpful content system update since December 2022. READ MORE

➡️ Google announced that they have completely removed the How-To Rich Results. The schema for it can still be used but there will be no benefit in the search results from using it. READ MORE

Social Media Discussions

➡️ Google Bard AI on LinkedIn:

Google is nearing the release of Gemini, its massive GPT-4 competitor.

According to The Information— Google has given a small group access, signaling public release soon.

With Google's heavy amounts of data, can it compete with GPT-4?

Here’s everything we know so far:

1. Gemini was created from the ground up to be multimodal, meaning it process and understand text AND images.

2. Sundar Pichai CEO of Google recently noted: “While still early, we’re already seeing impressive multimodal capabilities not seen in prior models".

These are the highlights for last week.

Until next!

Andrew Kemp and the editorial team at SODP9