How to run Your Business Blog Like a Media Publisher

If you’re running a business blog you need to start thinking like media publisher.

And the best way to start is by watching those journalism trends closely.

What’s your corporate blog got to do with the business of news?

Let me add a full disclaimer here to make my bias clear.

I got my start in the newsroom – spent close to a decade there, and a piece of my heart will remain close to the presses.

But dramatic overtures aside, and this is why I’m making the plea:  journalists are trained to find things that people care about. And while many beloved titles battle under the digital revolution – and the dominance of Google and Facebook – you’ll find incredible insights and new content approaches to writing web content by paying closer attention of the strategies adopted by media publishers.

Now let’s dig into the latest insights, and how you can apply them to your business blog.

Platforms Control Access to Audiences

This month, Reuters released the report, More Important, But Less Robust? Five Things Everybody Needs to Know about the future of journalism.

Its first trend to watch was the continuing control of Facebook and Google have over online audiences. Last week, I discussed the struggles faced by digital news outlets like Upworthy and BuzzFeed as Facebook and Google siphon the bulk of the digital ad spend. If your audience is on Facebook, you need to be there, of course. Learn about the platform, what works, and the features they’re prioritizing. Facebook’s shift to video meant brands and publishers that got on the trend early would have been able to capitalise on the increased visibility.

Because things can change very quickly in the land of Facebook, and when they do…

Remember when Facebook killed Pages?

The fallout was intense.

In a post on Medium, Filip Struharik, a Slovak journalist, detailed the impact of Facebook’s experiment to move pages out of the newsfeed into a separate Explore tab. Slovak media pages reported dramatic drops in organic reach, up to two-thirds.

The pages bloodbath became known as Facebook Armageddon.

While it affected anyone running a page, news organisations who had come to depend on Facebook for traffic were pummeled.

It also marked a turning point in how publishers packaged their content. Facebook pivoted to Video and publishers quickly invested in studios. Well, Facebook ended up changing its mind again…studios that invested in video.

So, again, invest the time and resources into Facebok if you find you’re getting great traction there. I set up a Facebook page after the apocolypse and the page ended up earning reasonable organic reach, driven in part by the admins engagement, sharing and tagging followers to expand reach.

Farewell Facebook, Hello SEO

While Google is also not an owned platform, news publishers are attracting readers by optmising their content for SEO.

Look, there over 3 billion internet searches per day, and most people start their buyer journey online.

News publishers – specifically those serving the needs of a targeted group – are reporting significant gains in traffic since they’ve refocused on SEO.

The Texas Tribune started optimising stories with a combination of SEO-friendly headlines and finding relevant angles for readers in Texas.

They’re doing it by niching down and giving readers exactly what they want, and what other larger news outlets can’t give – a new, local angle.

Emily Roseman, research project manager for the Single Subject News Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, breaks down the Texas Tribune’s approach to driving traffic with SEO.

The first element was optimisng headlines, and Texas   chief audience officer tackled this one with “Headline Hoedowns”.

With a whiteboard and marker on hand to take down ideas, the group brainstormed search versus social headlines, thinking through the best keywords for the search version. This daily habit trained editors and reporters to think strategically about their stories’ headlines and the opportunity SEO brings to their pieces.

Another tactic focussed on finding unique angles to trending events.

Back in June 2016, when Aman Batheja (the Trib’s political editor) noticed several people tweeting about Brexit, he wanted to think of a Texas angle for the story — leading him to ask: could Texas ever secede from the United States?

Aman assigned the story to a reporter and then came up with a strong search headline.

The resulting explainer piece on why Texas could not secede from the rest of the country did quite well for search traffic, drawing over 53 percent of total page views for this story.* Its editorial headline read: “Texplainer: If Brexit Can Happen, Can Texit?” Meanwhile, the story used the SEO headline/URL: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/24/can-texas-legally-secede-united-states/

You can check the Texas Tribune’s slide deck on choosing headlines here.

When you’re planning a digital content strategy for your business blog, brainstorm for SEO-headlines and bringing unique angles to popular stories will help you to create relevant content your audience cares about.

If you want to win the search rankings, a professional can optimize your site. But if you’re on a budget, you can try some free SEO tools on your own.

I wrote more about free SEO tools here, and Moz has regular Whiteboard Fridays where they discuss the latest SEO developments in a super non-technical way.

The Brutal Battle for Online Attention

The Reuters piece highlights an alarming trend: people are avoiding news.

“In 2017, 29% of our survey respondents globally said they often or sometimes actively seek to avoid the news (Newman et al., 2017). People turn off the news because it feels irrelevant and depressing and does not help them live their lives; they often turn to entertainment or social media instead (Toff and Nielsen, 2018).”

(Side-bar: Here’s a lot to take in here. When you follow news and you actively engage, you’re making a choice to be informed. It’s active citizenry and it’s good for democracy. So, are people turning away from that? But this is another discussion, for another day.)

I want to come back to the ideas about readers believing two things:

• News is irrelevant
• It doesn’t help them live their lives

We can even disconnect these sentiments from news, and throw the spotlight back onto our digital content. How does it help the reader? How will it transform? Do you include links to stats and analysis on important industry events? Do you share resources that will help them improve their lives?

To create content your audience craves, conduct surveys and check social media. Tools like Answer the Public also show you the types of questions people are asking. For instance, if you’re a social media consultant you may want to create content around social media management tools and the business benefits of social media.

Make Your Business Blog a (Good) Habit

Researchers from Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern examined indicators of continued subscription. They found habits were key to retaining subscribers.

The recommendation is for newspapers, even smaller, local publications, to send email newsletters to encourage regular reading.

Well, easier said than done, right? The study calls on news publishers to create a mailing list to build regular readers.

via GIPHY

“One recommendation is email newsletters that readers can skim,” reads an excerpt of the findings published on NiemanLab.

This practical tip is one marketer know well.  They even coined a saying: the money’s in the list.
Don’t worry if you have no idea where to start. You can get free masterclasses from list-building expert Amy Porterfield. A tool like Revue also lets you set up a newsletter for free.

For more on how you can your content strategy and business blog with the fundamentals of journalism, check out my post.