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Case Study/ The GuardianHow a modern day newsroom uses social data at its core

The Guardian/ Case Study 02

1821YEAR FOUNDED

161,152THE GUARDIAN DAILY CIRCULATION

183,595THE OBSERVER WEEKLY CIRCULATION

130 MillionUNIQUE WEBSITE VISITORS PER MONTH

At a glance/ About The Guardian

Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com which, with 130 million unique browsers a month*, is one of the largest English-speaking quality newspaper websites in the world. Since launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents over two-thirds of The Guardian’s total digital audience.

The Guardian is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning revelations based on the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014, The Guardian was named newspaper and website of the year at the Society of Editors UK Press Awards and is the most trusted news source in the UK (Ofcom digital media report, 2014).

Industry Media

Headquarters Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU

Founded 1821

Circulation The Guardian circulation: 161,152 daily The Observer circulation: 183,595

Recent awards Awarded the National Newspaper of the Year in 1999, 2005, 2010 and 2013

*source The Guardian Press Page http://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office

The Guardian/ Case Study 03

The general elections of 2015 would elect the 56th parliament of the United Kingdom. Culminating with the announcement of the result on 6th May 2015 each of the 650 parliamentary constituencies elected one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons.

The 2015 elections were the first general elections following the end of a fixed term parliament and were predicted to be a ‘too close to call’ result. Many believed the elections would result in a second hung parliament, similar to the 2010 election.

As with many political events, media attention around the election campaigns and results would be rife. The Guardian has been published for the last 195 years, and has serious credentials when it comes to providing coverage of UK politics.

The Guardian’s aim for the duration of the election campaign was to be the foremost publisher of content for younger audiences, and provide the content that engaged this demographic more than any other newspaper.

Background

The Guardian/ Case Study 04

What The Guardian did ...The Guardian increased its volume of mobile users among the 18-24 year old bracket by 18%

Appealing to the youth vote is always an important aim for any political party in the run-up to a general election. In the five years since the last general election, smartphones and social media have heavily impacted how politicians and their parties talk to a nation of technically savvy millennials, many of whom are voting for the first time.

Targeting millennials and being able to create relevant content that would resonate with the student demographic was a critical goal for The Guardian.

Brandwatch Demographics provided the publisher with the ability to isolate political conversation online to a smaller group of individuals: students.

Making use of this allowed The Guardian to identify more about the people, specifically millennials, behind the conversation. The data the institution was most interested in included:

• Account type (whether they are an organization or an individual)

• Gender

• Interests

• Profession

• Location

Demographic Insights

The Guardian/ Case Study 05

The insights pulled from the research allowed The Guardian to understand how conversations shifted within different segments of its key audience. It also helped improve campaign targeting and media planning, so the publisher could ensure the content it created around the election campaign was relevant and reached the right people.

Using these kinds of insights helped The Guardian uncover which activities, topics and articles were helping drive young readers to its content. By gearing its work around this data, and producing mobile-optimized materials, the newspaper managed to increase its volume of mobile users amongst the 18-24 year old bracket by 18%.

GROWTH OF MOBILE USERS

69%

VOLUME OF UNIQUE VISITORS TO GUARDIAN MOBILE WEBSITE

SHARE (%) OF UNIQUE VISITORS TO GUARDIAN MOBILE WEBSITE

16% 17%

28% 26%

18% 19%

16% 15%

21% 23%

2,364 2,799

3,969 4,213

2,653 3,1792,342

2,5513,087

3,694

• 18-24 • 25-34 • 35-44 • 45-54 • 55+

The Guardian/ Case Study 06

What The Guardian did ...The Guardian included social data in its editorial and social articles to gain a real-time competitive edge

Unique, informed content

The general election was one of the most heavily-covered events of 2015 by global media.

Media publications were fighting for readers’ attention and aimed to produce the most compelling analysis of how the election campaign was panning out.

The election campaign itself saw a number of live debates between the parties, for only the second time ever in the UK. These live debates were televised across terrestrial channels and saw the media in a frenzy to become a key part of the conversation.

Brandwatch Analytics gave The Guardian the ability to monitor how the public were reacting to the debates as they unfolded, and allowed it to publish relevant, unique and timely stories to gain a real-time edge. These were published across the news outlet’s social media platforms as well as featuring in its liveblogging commentary articles.

38%18,975 authors

62%30,963 authors

GENDER SPLIT

The Guardian also used social data within its long form content. Sophisticated analysis of data taken from social media has a certain agnostic, unsolicited quality, something The Guardian were keen to exploit as a unique editorial advantage over competitors.

The Guardian/ Case Study 07

There is plenty of data, however, to give a clear indication at this stage in the campaign of what is working and what is not. And at first glance, there is plenty for Labour to be cheered about. An analysis by the Guardian and the social media monitoring company Brandwatch of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and a number of the other sources found that the party was by far the most mentioned party on social media, with more than 1.5m mentions compared to 902,000 for the next closest, Ukip, and 855,000 for the Conservative party.WHO IS WINNING THE ELECTION BATTLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA? — THE GUARDIAN

Looking at the period from early March 2015 to the election results in May, The Guardian saw online mentions of their publication rise by 645.36% (see chart). The socially-informed campaign generated a notable rise in social engagement for The Guardian’s political articles.

GENERAL ELECTION 2015 & THE GUARDIANMENTIONS OVER TIME

0

20k

40k

60k

80k

100k

MAY 2015

82,206MENTIONS

APRIL 2015MARCH 2015

The Guardian/ Case Study 08

The student population of the United Kingdom was a key demographic for The Guardian for the duration of the election campaign, but the publisher was not the only media publication chasing the attention of this group.

Dominating share of voice – how much The Guardian brand was talked about compared to its primary competitors – was an important element of the news outlet’s campaign performance tracking.

Not long into the campaign, The Guardian managed to nail the formula and pulled ahead of the pack. In fact, in just one week, links from The Guardian were shared 30,708 times in conversations relating to the election - a number even greater than the 28,129 and 15,820 shares that the BBC and The Independent managed to generate in the same period.

0 4k 8k 12k 16k 20k 24k 28k 32k

BUZZFEEDTHE SUN

VICETIMES

FINANCIAL TIMESDAILY EXPRESS

HUFFINGTON POSTDAILY MAIL

DAILY MIRRORDAILY TELEGRAPH

INDEPENDENTBBC

GUARDIAN

UNIQUE AUTHORS

Understanding share of voice is an important component in both market research and competitor benchmarking. It is a top line metric, but a crucial one for an industry dominated by eyeballs, awareness and attention.

Dominating share of voice

The Guardian/ Case Study 09

By using Brandwatch Analytics, The Guardian were able to understand which topics and interests were being discussed by its target demographic the most, presenting opportunities for its journalists to create content that was more likely to resonate with this audience.

This understanding of its audience allowed The Guardian to dominate share of voice (with the student demographic) over other publications for the duration of the election campaign. Figure 2 demonstrates how when looking at conversation about the individual parties, The Guardian completely overshadowed its competitors, with their links being shared 31,808 times in just one week, 76% more than their main competitor the BBC.

0 4k 8k 12k 16k 20k 24k 28k 32k

BUZZFEEDTHE SUN

VICETIMES

FINANCIAL TIMESDAILY EXPRESS

HUFFINGTON POSTDAILY MAIL

DAILY MIRRORDAILY TELEGRAPH

INDEPENDENTBBC

GUARDIAN

MENTIONS VOLUME

“What I like about Brandwatch is the ability to to split the online conversations by general topics and [political] parties. This allowed us to understand how well our content was performing against our competitors on certain subject areas during the elections”TESSA NYMAN, CONSUMER INSIGHTS MANAGER, GUARDIAN NEWS & MEDIA

The Guardian/ Case Study 10

The Guardian’s bid to be the foremost publisher of political content for younger demographics during the 2015 election proved to be an overwhelming success.

Using Brandwatch Analytics throughout the campaign, The Guardian demonstrated how modern, forward-thinking media institutions can gain a competitive edge in a marketplace where advantages are slim and competition is fierce.

Conclusion

The Guardian/ Case Study 11

About

BrandwatchBrandwatch is the world’s leading social intelligence company. Brandwatch Analytics and Vizia products fuel smarter decision making around the world.

The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering the world’s most admired brands and agencies to make insightful, data-driven business decisions. Vizia distributes visually-engaging insights to the physical places where the action happens.

The Brandwatch platform, ranked highest in customer satisfaction by G2Crowd in the Winter 2016 social media monitoring report, is used by over 1,200 brands and agencies, including Cisco, Whirlpool, British Airways, Sony Music, and Dell.

Brandwatch continues on its impressive business trajectory, with more than 50 percent of revenues now from North America.

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Brandwatch. Now You Know.

The GuardianGuardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com which, with 130 million unique browsers a month, is one of the largest English-speaking quality newspaper websites in the world. Since launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents over two-thirds of The Guardian’s total digital audience.

The Guardian is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning revelations based on the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014, The Guardian was named newspaper and website of the year at the Society of Editors UK Press Awards and is the most trusted news source in the UK (Ofcom digital media report, 2014).

theguardian.com

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