Some more pearls of wisdom from the recent AOP Crunch event. The morning closed with a panel discussion with Ian Betteridge, Susie Boone and Emilie Riis, chaired by Jeremy King.
The panel threw up loads of useful tips. Here are twelve of them: 1. If you assume that what you’re doing now, you’ll still be doing in six months’ time, then you’ll probably be out of business. 2. Don’t be afraid to try something “silly”. Empire’s three-hour podcast was its most downloaded of the year. 3. Make your journalists fall in love with data, which they should monitor through good (and honest) dashboards continuously. 4. Study the stories that don’t get the traffic. Look at those articles at the bottom of the stats, not just those at the top. 5. Don’t think in terms of “capturing” your audience’s attention, but instead of “captivating” it. 6. Alexa skills and the like: start small and grow. The challenge is to find one that will be used, repeatedly. 7. Be honest and transparent all the time: never try and hoodwink your audience. 8. Throw in the odd curveball. If your editorial programme is determined by AI alone, then where will the surprises come from? 9. New product development: there is no need to be pixel perfect. Get an MVP out there and test it. 10. If you’re the boss, then say “yes” to more new ideas. 11. Make sure you’re measuring the right things; nowadays, it all about engaged users. 12. Time is the greatest currency right now.
One other thing, on the subject of top tips, we held our latest webinar on Tuesday, entitled “7 Top Tips for Saving Time & Money on Editorial Contributions”. You can view a recording here.
