If you’ve got a regular user base that routinely visitors to your website, that’s commendable. But it’s not practical in today’s competitive digital landscape to simply rest on your laurels.
In order to see a significant ROI, you need to actively focus on growing your audience as well. Some publishers have done so by creating dedicated audience development teams and positions such as “Audience Development Manager.” In fact, a quick search returns over 300 roles focused on audience development! We think these are great in-house resources to have because they inform newsrooms of the impact of their quality content. However, if you don’t have a dedicated team, you can still invest in growing your audience by leveraging your existing users. These active readers are your strongest brand advocates because they enjoy and trust your publication enough to come back repeatedly. Harnessing their voice and knowledge can help you turn pageviews and bounce rates into loyal and engaged readers.
Here’s how you do it:
Social Sharing
Share good content and share it often with your followers. There are different schools of thought on optimal times for social sharing, so find one that works for your publication. It’s generally agreed though that sharing relevant content to your audience, regardless of whether it’s your own content, is important for developing a credible voice. The more your audience engages with your shares (likes, comments, retweets) the more your reach grows. Give your readers the opportunity to share your content as well, such as with an Article Share Bar — according to recent research, Facebook is the leading source of referral traffic to digital media websites. Tapping into this social network through your readers is a great way to grow your audience.
Influencers
Find out who’s in your audience is by interacting with them. If you have people engaging with your content who are influential, develop a relationship and start a conversation to gain access to a new readership. Research shows that 84 per cent of Millennials trust people over brands, and rely on the opinions of other consumers. It’s not hard to imagine that this reliance on influencers also affects where readers direct their attention and time on the web.
Commenting
Having a comments section allows your audience to discuss content with each other, creating an engaged community — and since most people go online “seeking connectedness,” providing that environment creates value for your reader. Commenting also increases your visibility in search engines with each new comment acting as “fresh” content on the page. In addition to implementing commenting, making it as easy and frictionless as possible also helps convert casual readers to an engaged audience — the less steps people have to take to participate, the more likely they will be to take them. Full disclosure: our Audience Development Platform includes a robust commenting tool.
Get Involved in Commenting
Asking a question before the comment section, having reporters visit the comment section initiating productive conversation, and highlighting insightful comments have all been shown to increase time spent on a page, as well as reduce incivility in the discussion by 15 per cent. This encourages casual readers to become more involved with your site. Getting involved in commenting is also useful to your writers, as often times additional information and angles are revealed.
Gamification
By having a reward system, template, or commenting hierarchy in place, you can incentivize readers to become participants on your website by offering them recognition and a self-esteem boost.
User Generated Content
UGC gets your existing fans more involved with your brand and fosters deep connections and relationships, but it can also have a huge impact in driving traffic to your website. For example, Time Inc.’s #HowIHoliday, #HowISummer and #ThisIsFall social media UGC campaigns resulted in a 332% YOY growth in visits from social for their Food & Wine brand. This was accompanied by increased follower growth and engagement as well.
Analytics
Discovering what content your audience is engaging with, what times of day and on what devices is key to creating more of that same great content. This allows you to use your existing readers to understand what people are looking for and grow your audience organically. Analytics can also help you increase recirculation and shares, as you can surface relevant content to each reader.
Source stories from your audience
If you want to know what topics people want to read, the best way is to ask them. In addition to being engaging, having a question at the end of your story or journalists asking questions in the comments section is a great way to understand what stories will attract readers. Research has also shown that writer involvement in the comments section can increase evidence based discussion by 15 per cent, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
Growing an audience is difficult, no doubt about it. But if you’ve got a loyal readership, you already have a leg up. Use those brand advocates to help you reach lookalike audiences, and you’ll see an exponential increase in your readership.
What tactics have you found useful in your audience development strategy? Chat with us in the comments below!
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