Up to now, most print publishers have considered digital as just a capacious electronic archive for storing articles formerly published in print – or even simply a repository for entire replica editions.
But, now, more publishers are shifting to ‘digital first’ or even ‘mobile first’ publishing, causing some hard rethinking of what print is really for, and how a print edition of a publication (or media brand, if you prefer) adds value to its readers. Digital descendants might just be in the process of forcing their print ancestors to evolve.
For readers are still a tiny bit schizophrenic: they love the convenience of digital, and moan readily if websites don’t adapt beautifully to smartphone screens, but many also value the respite from a screen, and opportunity for offline immersion that printed magazines offer. So the print and digital elements of a subscription package must be truly complementary but, at the same time, each incarnation has to provide value as a stand-alone product.
So what does this mean for publishers, and how must their editorial and production teams adapt processes and acquire new skills to deliver content in this new way? Based on my work with publishers going through this type of digital transformation, here are some thoughts on the main trends and some practical tips to help your journey.
Print can stand alone – and also be a guide to digital resources
In trade and professional markets, where audiences are fragmented and have very specific questions they want answering, digital is highly valuable as it can cater for super-small niches and aggregate historic content on specialist topics for the focused reader who wants greater depth. Print has to be all things to all segments, and thus has to provide a broad overview, and simply signpost the deeper content available online.
A good print publication has the virtue of being ‘finishable’ so that a reader feels that if they read it all – or just flick through each page – they are fully briefed on their topic, and haven’t missed any crucial stories or issues.
So, it is perhaps helpful to consider the print magazine as a summary guide to the amazing depth of the digital library or archive. And rather like a guide to a museum or attraction, print works best when it is highly visual, and shows where greater depth and extra resources can be found.
Readers are now used to more visual navigation especially on mobile devices, and expect print publications to adopt a more structured design, with multiple access points, box-outs, quotes and graphics, rather than burying nuggets of information in long copy.
Prioritising rich media and visual content
While good copy and arresting images still capture attention, readers are more likely to engage with audio, video, smart graphics or quizzes. And actionable content such as checklists, templates or flowcharts can be easily used at work to become more efficient.
So commissioning editors planning content on a new topic should assess how valuable each of these digital content types might be – and how much time and resource to invest in creating them. As subs rates are usually fixed, it’s hard to recover the additional cost of creating richer content directly from readers, so the best approach may be to go for topics with longevity, so value can build up over time, and approach suitable series sponsors.
Plus, there is a whole complex minefield of copyright and permissions around audio and visual content that needs to be carefully negotiated, quite apart from the craft skills of recording and editing.
Shifting to topic-based rather than edition-based publishing
As the digital incarnation of a media brand is published continuously, and the archive of content aggregates over time, editors need to think more about commissioning to build up resources on a long-running issue or topic, rather than filling the May edition before moving onto June. This does require much longer-range planning, and collaboration on shared topics between related publications in the same market. Most good editors can easily guess what will be the hottest topics in their market over the next year, and then plan how they might deepen their coverage over time, whilst still allowing for ad-hoc stories and events to top up.
Changing guidelines for writers and freelancers
Writers, researchers and freelancers will need to create content simultaneously for both print and digital. So they will need clear guidelines on the ratio of copy to boxes, checklists, graphics and charts, the type of audio visual content that is expected, and any style differences between headlines for print and web. Maybe a stylistic mid-point will evolve, between the short, broken-up, punchy, informal copy of the digital media and the more formal long read of print – so that the same material can do duty for both platforms.
Embracing tagging and analytics
People read online content in a different way – rather than flipping through a print magazine in page order, they arrive via search or social according to their interest, and then either disappear again or get drawn into exploring related content. So an intelligent approach to taxonomy and tagging is essential for editorial teams to power a strong ‘related articles’ function that keeps online visitors hooked. Knowing the hot topics is the starting point; then this has to be expanded to a carefully constructed taxonomy using the language of your audience. And, finally, editorial and production teams need to have a robust process for adding tags to new articles (and retro-fitting tags to the archive).
Analytics can at first feel threatening to editorial teams, but they are a powerful way to really understand how content is actually read, when, where, on what device, and in what depth, which allows publishers to prioritise the resources allocated for analysis, news, audio, video and visual content.
Encouraging reader interaction and reverse publishing
Good digital content invites readers to contribute, through comments on articles, posts on forums, or through social media. And this provides excellent feedback for editorial teams on what issues readers truly care about. Reader contributions gathered through digital media can also make valuable additions to print publications – from top tweets to in-depth first person stories.
Creating a free layer of digital content
Even professional and trade publications that are 100% subscription need to consider adding a layer of freely accessible digital content – from short news stories to summaries of more detailed features, or simply arresting sound-bites from interviews or intriguing visuals. As well as being available online, these can be promoted to a wider audience via social media and email alerts, getting even subscription content talked about.
And meatier content – such as surveys, downloads or longer articles – could be accessible only by registering and providing an email address. The Economist has proven the value of disseminating choice editorial titbits via social channels to build an email database of millions of subscriber prospects.
Bridging the skills gap
All editorial staff will need to learn about making web copy search and social friendly – crafting careful headlines and being smart about tagging. And they will have to develop their understanding of creating audio and visual content and building charts and infographics.
But there is still a requirement for specialists – in graphic design, audio and visual production. Plus, engaging an audience and boosting interaction may need a dedicated community manager. So publishers need to find a good balance between training and development for existing teams and hiring in specialist skills.
Streamlining production workflow
Web production and publishing works on a shorter lead-time than print, so editorial and production workflows will have to be streamlined and simplified. Print and digital teams may need to be merged.
Going through the digital transformation process will be lengthy and painful, as people adjust to new workflows and changed responsibilities.
How to get your teams thinking differently
So what are the first steps in rebalancing content between print and digital? These are some practical exercises that I have seen work with editorial teams:
* Mapping your audience – identify niches and sub-groups that might not be fully served right now – there may be ways to develop digital content to attract their attention when print can’t allocate the space.
* Rethinking news coverage – pick a long running news story or theme and consider how the team can create appealing articles for a free site or for social distribution, what deeper analysis can be created for subscribers online, with rich media resources, and how a reflective or explanatory print feature could be created.
* Multi channel feature planning – choose a feature idea and explore what new types of content could be created: galleries, audio or video interviews, infographics, data-sets, and then what should appear on the free web, subscriber web or in print – and how to signpost to help readers explore further.
* Rethink a print feature – take a published print feature and consider what online content could add depth and value and how to signpost this.
* Building interaction – pick a section or a specific sub-audience and develop hooks to encourage interaction – asking for first person stories, running a campaign, poll or survey, setting up a Q&A session on social media with an expert or high profile individual or using live events for a vox pop.
* Replan workflow – consider the lifecycle of a story: how it might get developed and published, first online and then enhanced for digital subscription content and print, and what this means for writers, subs and production teams.
I certainly wouldn’t want to underestimate what a huge project this type of digital transformation can be, and the amount of time that publishing teams will have to invest in re-inventing their content and processes virtually from scratch. At times, it may feel that very little progress is being made, but gradually, as more features are created in a different way, and the analytics show that readers are responding, then teams will become more confident and practised in this new approach. And the mobile and social revolution in content simply isn’t going to wait for publishers to catch up.
Once a publisher emerges with a truly digital first commissioning, editorial and production process, that provides both print and digital readers with valuable content, plus additional value when the two are brought together, then the effort will feel worthwhile.
