On Tuesday, we held our ‘Content Creation Special – Q&A’ webinar, in which the eight contributors to the content creation special we ran in the May / June issue of InPublishing magazine answered questions.
There were lots of insights and good advice – I have paraphrased one from each of the panelists below:
- In managing their content, publishers should aim for a 'single source of truth' – a single story in a single place ready to be reused across multiple channels with no duplication of effort. (Sara Forni, product manager, innovation, Atex)
- Editors are faced with two key questions about AI: What can it do? What can't it do? And once they've worked that out, they should focus on the bits AI can't do because that's where publishers can add value. (Ian Carter, chief operating officer, Iliffe Media)
- For publishers of independent consumer titles, like Reclaim, readers expect original, unique, engaging, inspirational, beautifully crafted content, with an authentic, friendly and accessible tone of voice. It's very human! (Loma-Ann Marks, editor-in-chief, Reclaim)
- When tagging your content, think not just about how readers can discover your content, important though that is, but also how you want to analyse the performance of your content. Those tags might relate to the formatting, positioning or type of article, or a commercial sponsor or campaign id, and as such should remain hidden from your audience. It is these hidden tags that provide deeper actionable insights. (Stewart Robinson, managing director, Full Fat Things)
- Hello! has launched a number of highly successful podcasts and vodcasts. Two particularly successful ones have been aimed at significant subsets of the Hello! audience: fans of all things Royal and mid-life women. Vodcasts have proved more commercially successful than podcasts because they allow for more sponsorship and product placement opportunities. (Arianna Chatzidakis, creative content director, Hello!)
- Certainly in the world of B2B, journalists need to be so much more than good writers. They need a wider, more varied set of skills; to be more analytical (to be able to answer the ‘how’ not just the ‘what’), to be proficient at public speaking and comfortable on stage, to be good conveners of reader groups and associated content and to have excellent collaborative and interpersonal skills. (Luke Nicholls, publisher of edie, Faversham House)
- Publishers should be constantly reviewing their picture and image editing / enhancement capabilities and tool sets. What works well now might not work so well in the future and, conversely, what is not possible now, might well be possible in the future. Technology never rests. (Derek Milne, commercial pixometrist, Pixometry)
- Intelligent application of AI generally will result in 20-40% efficiency improvements within editorial teams. In some specific cases, it can be even higher. Typically, AI delivers efficiency savings in three areas; i: By acting as a co-pilot, assisting journalists with headline prompts, summaries, recommendations etc; ii: In areas of content distribution, particularly via personalisation and SEO optimisation; iii: Layout automation. (Jeroen Goemans, managing director (EMEA), WoodWing)
In seventy-five minutes of in-depth Q&A, there was loads more advice and insight, which you can catch by watching the recording here. (You will need to fill out the registration form and then you’ll be directed to the recording.)
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
