If you read our blogs (and of course you do), you’ll know that we’ve done a project exploring the user needs approach to content strategy and creation.
It’s compelling stuff. Not only has it been shown to work - and at the BBC, no less - but it’s also a useful framework to start discussing and auditing established practice at newsrooms - whatever they look like.
One of the most quotable stats we’ve come across thus far is this:
70% of content produced at one BBC World Service hub fell into the ‘update me’* category, yet drove only 7% of traffic.
It’s striking. This could be an argument that newsrooms should reduce this kind of content, but nuance is our friend, and here’s why that’s not quite the conclusion you should draw.
*The ‘Update me’ user need does exactly what it says: it’s a regular news story that tells you what happened. You can read more about these categories here.