Overview: Communications Tactics

But it's possible to build tools designed to connect real experts in government, business and the media in a way that generates valuable insight for the rest of us. From our own experience developing Sidewire, a social communications platform, we know there is an appetite for expert political analysis and insight that helps sort fact from fiction …

Betts ... became the first data head to join the publisher’s board, recognizing data’s importance in growing its subscriptions and audience. Today, he heads up a 30-person team focused on customer analytics and research. Here are lessons from Betts on data maturity and driving audience engagement... While subscriptions are critical ... it’s not t…

the hallmark of a good branded podcast is that the marketing is subtle... this is something where you want to build a long-term relationship with people. It’s not about short-term conversions, or anything like that, but about having an amazing first experience with a brand.

Over the last six months we’ve been collaborating with The Atlantic to bring three interactive articles to life... We set out to create an immersive, yet thoughtful reading experience and I’d like to share some of our insights that helped get us there... live site here: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/athenahealth/.. we decided to build an …

Bots are to modern messaging apps what APIs were to Web 2.0; a way to build on top of other services, experiment, and create a new way of interacting with existing services... what inspiration can we draw from the past that might help us to think about designing Conversational UIs?

Research done independently by both Facebook and Twitter ... we are processing and absorbing a lot of information... 47% of the value in a video campaign was delivered in the first three seconds, 74% ... the first ten seconds... Content consumption in mobile feeds is inherently different from content consumption on other platforms, such as deskto…

Our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics teaches you how to set up an account that is linked to your site and recommends a few basic metrics to look at.

Cultivating an authentic, trustworthy and compelling narrative is vital to a leader’s success. This course helps leaders find their own story through personal branding; develop storytelling success with all constituencies; initiate an effective voice for crisis; interact well through social and third party media; and communicate a vision for in…

Artificial intelligence is the future of Google Search, and if it’s the future of Google Search, it’s the future of so much more... with its head of AI taking over search, the company seems to believe this is the way forward.

we’re seeing early signs that the value of a mobile user is greater than a desktop user... Facebook’s... shift from desktop to mobile has led to much higher engagement and average revenue... exactly the opposite of what everyone predicted. investing millions in rich video experiences... But isn’t a larger screen more immersive than a small mobil…

the new application is to deliver a round-up of curated news stories to readers, meant to be viewed first thing in the morning ... presented on eight different cards... the app’s content is able to be digested fairly quickly. Users can ... clicking a link to view the longer article, but they can also just use Refinery29 This AM to flip through car…

Gawker Media CEO Nick Denton was an extreme skeptic of publishers relying too heavily on Facebook. Now he's ... “all in” on publishing directly to Facebook with its Instant Articles program, a backtracking on Denton’s well-publicized lament that publishers are too reliant on platforms...Facebook, with its deep pool of accurate user data, can help …

Nice HTML5 process explainer

what started as a cynical in-joke has become a bad habit, and an excuse for enabling abuse across the web... The fact that we joke about it documents an acceptance of a culture of abuse online. It helps normalize online harassment campaigns and treat the empowerment of abusers as inevitable, rather than solvable... we denigrate a form that use…

The 12-person unit, called the social stories team, includes a variety of roles: writers, animators, graphics professionals, and producers, who create and package content for Instagram, Vine, Tumblr and Snapchat Discover.

legacy magazine has partnered with WNYC to launch an hour-long radio show ... introduced a metered paywall ... continued to attract sponsors and big names to its annual citywide weekend of panel discussions, interviews and performances.... an Amazon series premieres on February 16...

Coda’s mission is to “stay on the story” after mainstream media leaves a crisis region... We pick crises that are consequential and complex, and that can’t be understood through sporadic flashes of attention... the site won’t be trying to keep up with breaking news...watch things unfurl at the pace of evolving trends rather than daily development…

“We can’t cede the social world to large companies.”... discussed the Times’ attitude toward commenters and shared the results of a Times survey that asked commenters why they comment:... News organizations, he said, need to make building community around news more of a priority. (Though, of course, that’s easy for an editor from the Times to s…

Three months into Dialog, I’m excited to say we’ve succeeded in creating a well-lit place for thoughtful, live conversations between the Digg community and the people who make the best stuff on the Internet... Clear community guidelines work. Pre-moderation works. And most of all, the amount of personalized attention we’re willing to give each use…

Another 13 U.K. publishers are signed up to start using Facebook’s Instant Articles, including The Daily Telegraph, The Mirror, The Daily Mail and The Economist, Sky News, sports site 90min.com and The Sun.The BBC and the Guardian were the first U.K. partners, and there are plenty more waiting in the wings.

How can you make your social visuals more compelling?The Media Octopus put together an information-packed infographic on the importance of social visuals. It contains a lot of great advice and creative ideas for marketers looking to up their visual game, including these four tips for visual social success:

Ultimately, what publishers and advertisers care about most, however, is how much quality time a person spends with a story. To judge that, publishers are developing newer metrics like “time spent” reading, “scroll depth,” “engagement,” “recirculation,” “shares,” and “percentage of article completed.”

the collapse of the digital interface of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) IT system... supposed to be one of its key exemplars for GDS in showcasing its "agile" approach to delivering digital technology... the system will be 40 per cent over budget at £215m and has led to disallowance penalties to the EU of up to £180m per year due to mis-paym…

Using push notifications can be a very effective and powerful way to gain and maintain audience engagement on mobile apps. But if not done correctly, they can turn out to be utterly irritating. ... Personalization is the way forward if push notifications are to survive. 

If you create live video, here’s that table of live streaming apps you’ve been searching for.

As a reporte... there may be a simple solution to the bad commenter problem: You. When reporters get involved, it results in fewer uncivil comments, according to research... “it’s like a teacher walks into a classroom and suddenly all the kids are quiet and fold their hands at their desks.” Here are a few tips and best practices for reporters in …

uncivil comments dropped by 15 percent when reporters were participating in the conversation

a closer look at what types of comment sections news organizations ... value they are adding to news organizations’ overarching strategies...a list of questions to ask and best practices for news organizations seeking return on investment...key questions, considerations and links to further reading for evaluating what commenting strategy works bes…

benefit of building a brand that audiences recognize ... allow us to build a strong revenue model and a strong connection to an audience. If they see us on Snapchat and Snapchat has a very large audience, then they get to know and trust Vox and see it as a source that they care about... think about your brand as an interconnected ethos that should…

Empathy mapping is a way to characterise your target users in order to make effective design decisions. User journey mapping is a way to deconstruct a user’s experience with a product or service as a series of steps and themes. Put simply, these methods encourage your stakeholders to think about user needs effectively,