Dive Brief:
- Digital publishers are hitting growth walls, but some tactics are proving effective.
- Online lifestyle publisher PopSugar made video the key element of its Facebook strategy last year, and was able to increase its 30-second Facebook video views by making a couple of "eye catching" changes. For example, PopSugar added on-screen text for silent viewing.
- The publisher increased its fashion videos from 21% “real view” counted as 30 seconds or longer to 42%.
Dive Insight:
Even though PopSugar’s experimenting has been effective, digital publishers overall are realizing that early stage rapid growth in viewership isn’t sustainable. Business Insider’s traffic grew 10% in 2015, compared to 80% in 2014, and Gawker Media actually had a 16% year-over-year decrease in unique visitors.
Growth can become an issue for digital publishers looking for additional funding. Ken Doctor, principal analyst at Outsell told Digiday, "There’s that sense that not all of these digital news startups will see continuing hockey stick-like growth. Fall behind in growth, and the current value of these companies may plummet; it’s a momentum game, win or lose."
For digital publishers, and really publishers overall, seeing stalling growth rates there are new ways to get content out there such as through Facebook’s Instant Articles, and for a select few, Snapchat’s Discover portal. And coming soon they will be able to get mobile traffic from Google's open source Accelerated Mobile Pages project.
That being said, with Instant Articles Facebook comes out ahead since those readers remain within the Facebook ecosystem instead of on publishers’ websites, even if the publishers get ad revenue from the app. And the sputtered growth rates for publishers comes just as social platforms have slowed their referral traffic. The answer for these publishers, in the ever expanded field of online publishers, will be to build deeper partnerships with social platforms.
"You don’t want to be a second- or third-tier partner. It’s going to get harder and harder to break through unless you bring something differentiated, innovative and attention-grabbing. The marginal players going to have a challenge," Digitas LBI Chief Content Officer Scott Donaton told Digiday.
