Audience Engagement @ News Corp VCCircle

June 11

● the art and science of getting our journalism to readers

● enhancing the reach and impact of our work

● expanding our loyal and engaged audience

● packaging and promotion; two-way relationship with readers, loyalty

What is Audience Engagement?

Catch them where they are! Go Door to Door

With the endless upheaval in technology, reader habits and the shifting business models, New Corp VCCircle needs to pursue smart new strategies for growing its audience. It’s URGENT because digital media is getting more crowded, is owned or funded by companies with deep pockets and innovating fast

Why do we need Audience Engagement Today?

● data to inform decisions

● digital first strategies

● digital experiments and results

back to the newsroom

● new areas, new learnings

● constant mapping of new digital

trends

Key tasks

Audience Engagement @ News Corp VCCircle

What lies ahead

Daily notes and engagement for Editorial

Digital first, social news desk

Being part of conversation, sparking conversation

journalism that keeps the conversation going

Key themes for VCC, few

examples:

● funding constraint for

startups

● Flipkart Vs Snapdeal

● Nikesh Arora, Softbank

● startups closing (India

Homes etc)

● devaluation (Zomato,

Flipkart etc)

● Audience mapping and insights

● Digital experiments and results

back to the newsroom

● Data to inform decisions

○ A/B/headline testing

○ identifying

themes/snackable content

○ audience insights/

behaviour/trends

○ content personalisation

& Lots more….

4 million monthly users

(2013)

22 million monthly active

users

Snapchat Close to 4

million per month. Popular

among 15-25 year olds

5.9 million Indian monthly

active mobile users (July

2015)

90% users below 30 years of

age 18-24 age group most

active In India, over 70 million

people monthly users

New areas/platforms, new learnings

Packaging on platforms, theme based/periodic experiments, test, measure, report

● Monthly magazine of Infographics on

Startups

● Monthly issue of entrepreneur profiles

● VCCEdge research reports

● Whatsapp, LinkedIn Pulse for

VC+TC+Infra

Whatsapp experiments

● Relevant content for event and training

delegates

● Event coverages. Eg. Budget live

coverage

Snapchat:

● TC Videos on product reviews

● TC Tim Cook in India (by reporter covering his

press conference)

● TC The day Apple released the latest iphone

(Coverage from the store with user reviews)

● TC audio-visual stories around these such as a

day with a Startup Founder

● Instagram: Primarily TC + all infographics from

VC, TC, Infra + All interesting images + Showcase

work done by Design for various VCC initiatives

● Flipboard/DailyHunt:

● Weekly issues on notable Infra columns, Monthly

compilation of sector specific stories

Packaging on platforms, theme based/periodic experiments, test, measure, report

Audience Engagement @ News Corp VCCircle

What lies ahead

Social Media

Social Media: Key goals

● daily distribution and

engagement

● influencer and

community management

Social Media: Key goals

● Weekly and monthly campaigns for

engagement

● Content Customised for Social

(Inspirational Investor Quotes,

Memorable dates in the deals

ecosystem, Key innovations in

startups, Silent, visual videos,

Facebook Live, Twitter polls on

stories of the day, notable influencer

quotes from stories )

Expanding Scope

● FB page for infographic only

stories from VCC, for

example

Newsletters and Mailers

● expanding newsletter subscribers

● experiments with free newsletter

platforms

● getting back unsubscribers into the

fold

● run audience surveys (with TA and

unsubscribers), prepare reports,

revise strategies and action

● reaching out to target audience,

communities, influencers

● digital outreach through mailers and

emails

● one-on-one outreach through

meetings, attending events

TA & Influencers

Quarter 1: VC, TC, Infra

● Daily engagement with Editorial

● Identifying, building on and founding

communities for all three platforms

● Influencer management – Reach out to

relevant ones, build relationships

Work on aggressive promotion, share of

social to site traffic

● Weekly social campaigns as shared for

Q1

● Work on recommendations for

newsletters

Action Plan & Budget

● Mailer campaign for Infra on the existing

database

● Mailer campaign for VC + TC, to be sent

to D&B and other sales databases

2-4 one-on-one meetings a month with

influencers/ TA

● Attending in-house events

● Share monthly reports on competitor

strategies, trends and innovations in

digital

Quarter 2

● Report on learnings of Q 1 and evolve strategies

● Work on news product suggestions on the basis of audience data

● Exploration of new publishing platforms for packaging and distributing

content

● Mailer campaign for all three platforms on new databases

● Infra launch campaign on Social

Action Plan & Budget

Infra, VC, TC

Paid promotions on social

(Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook):

● promote exclusive stories

● promote high-profile op-

eds

● a/b testing on infographic

only stories

● Posts for free newsletter

subscriptions

Budget

Infra campaign on LinkedIn (brand

building for InfraCircle)

● Inmails to top industry

veterans, government

officials, influencers

● Banner ads for Infra

● Sponsored updates

● Newsletter subscriptions

● Premium subscriptions

● All of this will reach out to

the TA of Infra.

Budget & Resources –

listed with Finance and

HR

Tools - Chartbeat

subscription, Hootsuite

subscription.