BEST PRACTICES: MANAGING MOBILE CONTENT

BY DAVID ARKIN

GATEHOUSE MEDIA/NEWS& INTERACTIVE

Mobile content is a tricky animal and we have to look at the management of the

content in a very different way than we do with our websites. Here are three best

practices:

1. Direct feeds from your newspaper just don't work - for the most

part: While we believe that some feeds, like news and sports (as long as small

announcements aren't falling in those sections) are OK to come from your

website, there are other topics, like entertainment, which include too many long-

form features (like artist features) that just don't work on your mobile site. Why?

By looking at mobile analytics, readers in the entertainment category are much

more likely to click on to-go-and-do information and reviews opposed to long-

form features. Features is another good example of a direct feed that doesn't

work. Mobile readers likely want recipes, tips and other ideas they can store, but

aren't interested in that 20-inch feature on a chef. Consider when you're on the

move, what kind of quick content you want to digest.

2. Create specific mobile feeds: Categories like entertainment and business

are great examples where all of the content produced for your website will not

transition well to mobile. Consider if you are reading a mobile site, how

uninterested you would be in a business people in the news brief or an

announcement about a chamber mixer. That's fine content, but much more

appropriate for someone who is at a desktop and can explore many more sections

of your website and has more options they can make about content. Another

example would be creating an "editor's pick" section that you would select certain

stories to feed into your mobile site, a best-of your site, if you will. By creating

sections that are mobile only, allows a newspaper to pick content that just makes

sense for mobile. This can be done by creating sections in your backend that are

labeled just for mobile and are fed to your mobile site. When you publish a story

to your website, if it's appropriate for the web, simply move it to a mobile section

that will be fed to your mobile site. It's all about making smart decisions for both

platforms and automatic feeds don't always work.

3. More evening content: Analytics have told us that our traditional website

readers - isn't it funny to call website readers traditional? - want content at key

times throughout the day: 6-8 a.m., around noon and 4-5 p.m. Mobile readers

seem to want content during those times too, but also want content between 7-11

p.m., our analytics show. What does this mean? Newsrooms have to feed the 9-5

audience for sure, but need to find avenues to have a consistent flow during those

evening hours, a challenge for sure, since that's when many in of our newsrooms

are fully focused on putting out a print product. However, through a smart look at

all of your content, when it's being produced and what can fill those key gaps,

newsrooms can be successful with moving content during the evening. This takes

looking at content that is website appropriate and examining what has an

immediate need to go up and what can filter through the evening. Build a list of

regular-appearing content and when it could move in the 7-11 p.m. range. Also,

every day you should build a web budget that notes when that day's content,

especially those stories that are surprises, will go up and how that content can

feed an audience that wants content later in the day. It's a challenge for sure,

because news that breaks and that happens throughout the day, has to go up right

away. Finding a mix between what has to go up now and what can go up later in

the night, is tough, but jumping into a few tests will help your newsroom figure

out the right mix.

There's no doubt that mobile is our future, but the same way that we have worked

to understand readers of our traditional website, we have to do the same for this

growing and changing audience. Study, study, study, your analytics and make

shifts in newsroom workflow to make sure that your content is engaging and

connecting with that audience during the right time of the day.

David Arkin is the executive director of the News & Interactive Division for GateHouse Media