The Digital Publishing report explores how publishers are adapting to rapidly declining print circulations and the digital strategies which are being implemented to combat the downward momentum. The industry is ever evolving and changing, therefore it is in everyone’s interest to continuously monitor what strategies other publishers are applying to grow and nurture their digital audiences, says PageSuite.
PageSuite found that driving engagement was understandably crucial for publishers. The Digital Publishing report confirmed this by establishing that driving engagement was the second most (30%) important element of the publisher’s digital strategy. However, publishers have been struggling with keeping readers engaged and 30% admit that a change in strategy is required. 38% of publishers are looking to put additional resource into creating engaging adverts and believe this will be a key strategy to increasing profitability in 2017.
A key theme throughout the findings was that video is going to be a huge growth area for publishers in 2017. This platform is an extremely effective way to boost engagement so it’s no surprise that 62% of respondents are planning to put resource into developing video content within the next 12 months.
The survey also discovered that 67% of publishers aren’t embracing and taking advantage of the newer integrated social media platforms. These platforms include Google AMP, Snapchat Discovery and Facebook Instant Articles, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages. Facebook Instant Articles seems to be the most adopted and effective for publishers in 2016 with Snapchat Discovery proving to be the least useful.
The report also shares an interesting selection of industry predictions for 2017 provided by publishing executives – including; “Video will play a huge part as far as audience engagement. The challenge is to create an efficient workflow to produce the content.” This reinforces the statement that video will be key for engagement in 2017 but is bound to come with its challenges integrating with traditional content.
PageSuite’s 2017 Digital Publishing Report can be downloaded here.
