Another popular way publishers have established themselves on new platforms is through a community-driven approach.
Take Jersey Shore Hurricane News as an example. Launched after Hurricane Sandy, this news brand focused on local New Jersey news. The brand started with a shared Facebook page and Instagram account, and it is built around contributor culture. None of the content on Instagram, for instance, is created by Jersey Shore Hurricane News. Instead, the publisher relies on its community to tag and share content using a dedicated hashtag. Jersey Shore Hurricane News reposts all user content with credit to spread goodwill and grow its following.
If you aren’t ready to turn your whole account over, takeovers can also be a great way to highlight a mix of outside content. This is the way that Quartz approaches Snapchat. Because it’s a small publisher with reporters all around the world, building a large Snapchat-dedicated team was impossible.
Instead, Quartz organizes daily Snapchat takeovers with reporters and contributors around the globe. This approach has allowed the brand to provide an ever-changing mix of interesting content and has garnered a global audience of followers.
Partnering with other publishers can also be a powerful way forward. When The Daily Beast decided it needed more lifestyle-focused content in its Facebook Live videos, it partnered with Food52. The two brands collaborate on cooking videos, cocktail tastings, and more. Partnering allows them to leverage both their audiences and reach more users than they would alone.
Other publishers have collaborated on group Facebook pages aimed at sharing a mix of each other’s content to achieve rapid growth. The Daily Dot, for instance, partnered with Nerdist, Someecards and Mental Floss on a group Facebook page that they all contribute content to. This “rising tide lifts all boats” approach has allowed the publishers involved to grow new audiences.
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- Be pragmatic
- Integrate distributed content into the newsroom process
- Build relationships with platform companies
- Launch platform-first sub-brands
- Leverage community and partnerships to be more effective
- We’re all in this together
- Distributed content: The best ways to build sustainable platform strategies
- Choose the right platform for you
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As digital platforms and their users continue to grow and change, the ways news outlets build strategies around them will, too. These are themes we believe are key for digital transformation and sustaining and growing local news.
The next API Local News Summit will be on how local and community-based media might engender a local identity and embrace their geography and history. We’ll help news leaders consider how they contribute to a community’s well-being by fostering a sense of place — and how, when done with care, this might offer new ways to sustain local news.
This guide features strategies tested and proven by local news organizations that participated in the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program along the themes of product thinking, revenue, engaged journalism, collaboration and managing change.
