Digital budgeting

1. Digital budgeting GateHouse Media News & Interactive

2. Agenda • Why budget for digital? • Your news meetings • When should you meet? • What should you discuss? • Sharing the budget • Sample budget • Put your plan to work • Sample digital schedule • Digital tools • Takeaways

3. Why budget for digital? Digital shouldn’t be an afterthought. • Do you know what you’re doing tomorrow online? • You plan for your print paper; why wouldn’t you plan for digital? You don’t just produce a newspaper anymore. So know what you have and what you need for digital. • Don’t shortchange your online readers (there are at least 12 million a month across GateHouse), plus your social media followers.

4. Why budget for digital? Digital shouldn’t be an afterthought ASK YOURSELF, YOUR NEWSROOM: • What online content worked and what didn’t yesterday? • What multimedia will you produce today? Tomorrow? • When will you engage on social media? • What will you live tweet today?

5. Why budget for digital? “Your company is no longer a newspaper. A newspaper is just one of the many things your company does. Your company is a media company, who needs to offer news and information to your readers in whatever format they wish to receive it.” • Buffy Andrews, social media coordinator, York Daily Record/Sunday News

6. Your news meetings When should you meet? Morning • You’ll need some time to get some information for the meeting, so consider gathering at about 10/10:30 a.m. • This meeting will look at the digital and print budgets laid out last night and adjust as needed. • The meeting will focus on how, where and when you will present news throughout the day. This meeting is more about today’s news coverage than it is about tomorrow’s newspaper.

7. Your news meetings When should you meet? Late afternoon • Your afternoon meeting should not just be about handing responsibility from the day to night staffs, but also getting the ball rolling on your budget for tomorrow. • Get all the morning people back together, plus your night crew, at whatever time both are in the building.

8. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • What multimedia will you produce today/tomorrow? • p.m. meeting: Discuss what stories are being worked on tomorrow (and throughout the week) so you can consider multimedia options, e.g. video, map, pdf of documents, etc. before it’s too late to shoot video, grab documents, etc. • a.m. meeting: Review last night’s plans. Discuss breaking/developing news and what multimedia can be produced today.

9. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • What worked online yesterday? What didn’t? • In the a.m. meeting, use these tools to inform your digital budget: • Google Analytics (for most popular stories, search, referrals) • Most commented • Conversations on social media You want to determine what’s buzzing. And what did people NOT respond to so you don’t spin your wheels next time?

10. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics, most popular • You may be surprised at what stories draw interest. It could help decide if a story should be followed the next day. It can also help decide what sorts of things you shouldn’t waste your time on anymore. • Run a report (Behavior>Site Content>All Pages>Page Title) to find the top pageviews from yesterday.

11. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics, most popular • You can also create a custom report that sorts by visits instead. This helps address a scenario such as: • 40 people read a long story that extends over 3 online pages vs. 100 people read a short 1-page story. Which is more popular? The 1-page story. But a regular report will show the 3-page story at the top because it has more pageviews (people click three times to read the whole thing). This custom report sorts in a different way to make the 1-page story rise to the top.

12. #1 #2 #3 Fill out this custom report as shown on the next page. Hit SAVE at end.

14. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics, most popular • To run that custom report, you would click on Customization, choose that report, change the date range to what you want and it will show you the top stories by visit. • You can schedule it so that report is sent to you daily. • Click on Email, fill out the info in the pop-up box. Frequency = daily.

15. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics - referrals • Determine how successful yesterday’s posts were on social media by checking the referral stats. This will show how many people clicked through to your site. Here’s how ...

16. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics - referrals • This Facebook post was viewed by 1,299 people. But how many people actually clicked to read the whole article on our site?

17. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics - referrals • In Google Analytics, go to Acquisition>Social>Landing Pages

18. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics - referrals • You will need the article ID# from the URL.

19. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics - referrals • Plug the article ID# in to the Analytics search.

20. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics – referrals • Click on the headline that matches your search. You’ll come to this page, which shows any social media networks that sent traffic to your site. In this case, Facebook sent 251 visits.

21. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Google Analytics – referrals • Although almost 1,300 people saw that post on Facebook, only 251 clicked on it. You can gauge by what your other stories have garnered in the past whether this is successful for you or not. • This can help you determine the best kind of content to post to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

22. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Most commented • Check out the Most Commented bucket on your homepage to see what stories have people talking. • Use that to inform your poll question, your Facebook posts, your Tweets. It may suggest you should follow up on something with a day-two story.

23. Your news meetings What should you discuss? Conversations on social media • Take a look at what you posted on Facebook, Twitter, etc. yesterday. Did anything generate a lot of conversation? • Should you follow the story today? • Does it inform today’s poll question? • Do any comments require you to answer questions, provide info?

24. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • When will you engage on social media? • Sample Facebook/Twitter schedule shown later in this presentation; also includes suggested web updates throughout the day. Have this with you at the meeting to fill out. You don’t have to follow the exact timing and content of the schedule, but it gets you thinking about the type of content you could post and the frequency at which you could post it. Develop your own schedule.

25. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • What will you live tweet today? • As you review coverage at the a.m. and p.m. meetings, try to identify at least one thing, every day, that can be “live tweeted,” meaning the reporter will tweet updates live throughout the event or meeting. • PROMOTE: Let your readers know on your website and Twitter what you’ll be live tweeting later that day or tomorrow. What @reporter account and/or #hashtag should they follow?

26. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • EVERGREEN ANNUAL ITEMS • Keep a Google Doc or add to a shared Calendar annual evergreen events and days • Local annual events such as town pride day, holiday parades • Anniversaries of big news – fire, murder, opening of business, establishment of city/town • “Holidays” such as Administrative Assistants’ Day, Grandparents Day, Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

27. Your news meetings What should you discuss? • Build callouts and post to social media around these evergreen topics leading up to and/or on the day of the event.

28. Sharing the budget The best way to share • Your budget should be accessible to everyone – editors, reporters, photographers, designers. • The most efficient way for everyone to access the budget is as a Google Doc shared in Drive. • Drive>Create>Document • Click on “Untitled document” and give it a name. • The file saves as you go. Multiple people can be in the file at once. • When you’re done, click Share. • Invite People: Plug in the email addresses of the people who need access to this file. You can reuse the doc for each day, week.

29. Sharing the budget

30. Sharing the budget Give reporters power • Although reporters should continue to discuss story ideas with assignment editors, the reporter should be the one responsible for adding a story to the budget. • When plugging their story in to a template, they will be reminded of the digital components they should be thinking about. • They will be reminded, hopefully before it’s too late, of what else they should gather while on assignment.

31. Sharing the budget Give others power • In general, your digital editor should not be the only one thinking digitally. It should be top-of-mind for all staff. By sharing the budget with everyone, you expose them to the template and empower them to contribute. • Photographers can poke in to the budget to get an idea of art that is needed. • Designers can take a look to think of graphics, layout ideas. • Editors can fill in the blanks, clean things up, identify gaps.

32. Sample budget A template to follow • Between print and digital, there are a lot of moving parts. Most of us have the mental checklist of print elements to consider memorized. But we don’t always remember all there is to do digitally. • Each editor and reporter should post a digital checklist (sample available) at their desk and run through it as they develop their stories. Run through it again when pitching the story to an assignment editor and when adding it to the budget.

33. Sample budget A template to follow • If you use a template or shell from which to build your budget everyday, it reduces the chances of forgetting something. • Budget at least a week out. • The next page offers a sample budget template. Each staff bylined budget item should include this list to start, to get people thinking about the blanks they should fill in (also refer to the digital checklist). Delete whichever items aren’t filled in to eliminate budget clutter. List all you know for print AND online. In addition to print deadlines, list times items will be posted online, and in which section (carousel, top stories, etc.).

34. SAMPLE BUDGET TEMPLATE

35. Sample digital checklist Here is a sample digital checklist for a reporter to hang at his/her desk

36. Sample digital checklist Here is a sample digital checklist for a digital editor to hang at his/her desk

37. Put your plan to work Posting your content online • The night before, your news meeting discussed: • what will be covered the next day • deadline, length for print • what multimedia will be produced • what will be posted to social media • what will be posted online

38. Put your plan to work Posting your content online • This morning, the news meeting discussed: • a review of last night’s plan with adjustments from today • deadline, length for print • what multimedia will be produced • what will be posted to social media • what will be posted online • timing of online posts Now that you know what’s coming, it’s time to organize it.

39. Put your plan to work Posting your content online • Come up with a daily schedule that posts content online throughout the day – web updates, Facebook, Twitter and other (e.g. Instagram archive photos on Thursdays; post food photos to Pinterest on Mondays). • Use the sample digital schedule coming up as a starting point. Breaking news and top headlines should be included throughout the day – swap out for other things in this sample as you see fit. • Have the schedule with you at the meetings and fill in the blanks.

40. Put your plan to work Posting your content online WHERE ON YOUR SITE? • You should think about what fresh content will be posted to key areas on your website, such as the carouseland Top Stories. • Have the sample digital schedule with you at the meetings and note which items will post to which spots on your site. You could also use a separate website placement schedule (also provided).

41. Sample digital schedule

42. Sample digital schedule * Staffed newsroom, tweak to delay content Friday for non-staffed newsroom

43. Website placement schedule CHOOSE ONE FOR EACH: FEATURES CAROUSEL TOP STORY CHOOSE ONE FOR EACH: FEATURES CAROUSEL TOP STORY CHOOSE ONE FOR EACH: FEATURES CAROUSEL TOP STORY

44. Digital tools Here are some tools you can use for online content: • STORIFY: Curate tweets, Facebook posts and photos to tell a story through the eyes (and smartphones) of your readers. • MAP: Use Saxo to pinpoint a place on a map. Or use a Google map to show multiple points in relation to each other; can draw lines to connect points or show boundaries. Google Fusion pulls info from multiple files to layer information on a map.

45. Digital tools Here are some tools you can use for online content. • MEOGRAPH: Create a presentation that can include photos, video, audio, maps, text and links. • INSTAGRAM OR VINE VIDEOS: Shoot 15-second (Instagram) or six-second (Vine) videos using an app on a smartphone. Share the video with your social media followers. • What other tools are you using and comfortable with?

46. Digital tools Where can you learn how to use these tools? • GHNEWSROOM: Check out ghnewsroom.com for all kinds of information. • DIGITAL BLOG: Specifically, you can find a lot of information at Nicole Simmons’ blog, ghnewsroom.com/blogs/nicolesimmons

47. Takeaways • GATHER INFO: Arm yourself with information about what’s happening online before you meet in the morning. • A.M. MEETING: Discuss how you’re covering the news today first. Then consider how it will look in tomorrow’s paper. • DIGITAL SCHEDULE:Fill in this schedule while you’re meeting. Have a game plan for online like you do for print. • SHARE: Share your budget with everyone. Empower reporters to add their stories so they can fill in the template and be reminded of the digital things they should consider.

48. Takeaways • TEMPLATE: Restructure your budget to include a template of print AND digital things to plan/follow. • P.M. MEETING: Talk about tomorrow’s print and digital plans; not just a handoff from day to night staffs. • DIGITAL TOOLS: Learn and use digital tools to enhance your web presence. Think multimedia for every story. Not everything will make it in to print. That’s OK.

49. More information • If you have questions or suggestions, contact New England Regional Digital Editor Nicole Simmons. • nsimmons@wickedlocal.com • ghnewsroom.com/blogs/nicolesimmons • 508-626-3923 • @Digital_Nicole • Instagram: WickedLocalPix

50. Digital budgeting GateHouse Media News & Interactive