Seven lessons from FIPP’s New York Media Tour

From heritage media companies, who are continuing to transform their business for the future, to digital pure play companies, FIPP delegates were presented with the latest thinking, challenges and strategies to help them stay at the forefront for their consumers. Delegates visited these companies and got to experience first-hand the culture, buzz and energy in many of these companies.

New York Tour attendees 2016 ()

Here Christine Huntingford, vice president, FIPP, shares seven key take-away points from the Tour:

1.     Technological advances continue to develop at a rapid pace

Technology is changing at a fast pace, and it is on Tours like this that help you see how media companies are tackling this head on. FIPP delegates saw how several heritage companies are shaping their environment for today’s media consumer, as well as meeting companies using Virtual and Augmented Reality for publishing.

2.     Mobile needs to be agile

It’s not just about being on mobile platforms, but instead that companies need to figure out how consumers like to consume content and create mechanisms to deliver it to them in that way. It’s not simply about text and images on the screen; the user-experience is equally important.

3.     Refine your native advertising offering

With consumers responding better to in-feed, native ad placements more than standard banners, it’s logical that media companies will put extra resource into developing their offering. Forbes Media shared with the group their BrandVoice package, which has seen phenomenal results from reader engagement and advertiser buy-in alike.

4.     Each social media platform has its own voice

Social media channels are not spin-off platforms to serve the brands as a by-product of the website, but instead should be treated independently for the platforms that they are and the content that you share on there should be personal and created specifically for that audience. Learn how to use these social platforms properly and grow your audiences there with the content they want to see, whether it drives traffic back to your site or not, that’s not the point.

5.     Rethink how you present your content

Be inspired by new, yet simple ideas of presenting your content. If you company owns several titles, use the vertical subjects across your company to create social media groups rather than segmenting content by brand – an example of this was @thisisinsider on Instagram with @thisisinsiderfood @thisisinsidertravel @thisisinsiderdesign and @thisisinsiderpeople, where the best of each section is also brought under the mother brand @thisisinsider.

6.     Licensing and brand extensions are still a core part of many businesses

Despite there being a feeling that licensing has passed its hay-day, many publishers are still developing their brands internationally and seeing this as a significant part of their company’s revenues.

7.     Print has a place for media companies for some time to come

Yes we all know that it is in decline, but for now there is a very definite place for print. As Raj Chengappa, Editorial Director from India Today, India concluded at the end of the Tour. “We can change and we can survive!”

Creativity is contageous ()

The companies featured on the Tour included: Bloomberg, The Economist, Facebook, Forbes, Huffington Post, Infinite360, Mic, Refinery29, Time Inc., Twitter and Unruly.

Delegates were also thrilled with the networking opportunities during the Tour; being able to spend time getting to know each other and to talk about their business with peers outside of their company. 

FIPP’s next Tour is the FIPP/VDZ Digital Innovators Tour, which takes place in May, 2017. Registrations have already opened. For more information visit the FIPP website.

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