Media responses to our 'actionable user needs' white paper

Soon after we published our white paper on actionable user needs, it became clear that there is a need in the industry for 'something new'. Something that helps them create more engaging news content and appeal to new and existing audiences. People are open to considering new journalistic approaches, and it looks like the industry shares our enthusiasm for audience needs! We've seen references to our work in articles and social media posts, and we want to thank everyone who helped spread our message.

Completely in line with the 'keep me on trend' user need, here's a compilation of what got published online and on social media about the Triple N project and user needs research we did with Dmitry Shishkin.

If this won’t at least pique your interest to find out more about the white paper, we don’t know what will!

Articles by online media

Journalism.co.uk

In their article ''Actionable user needs' make for more efficient newsrooms', journalism.co.uk writes that "Too often, the bulk of stories amounts to a fraction of traffic. A new report by smartocto shows how data can be used to create articles your readers want", and that's exactly the message we wanted to get across. Readers need more than just breaking news, and it's worth the effort to also cater to their other needs.

Yes, we just moved from an era when relying on your journalistic gut feeling was just fine, to suddenly having to use data to justify your decisions. But exactly what data would you need to do that? For that, you'd first need to know what your audience wants in order to track the right metrics. And then comes the tricky part: writing for those needs.

Enter the actionable user needs! Useful alerts and insights that help steer you in the right direction.

Recuro

This article was originally published in Swedish, but Google Translate is a great help here.

'How to work with the content, to optimize the conversions' is all about conversions, and the great-quality content that you need to stimulate them. It can be quite complicated to determine exactly which article contributed to a conversion, because it usually takes place after the reader has had time to visit multiple times and establish a connection with the brand.

However, a good data-informed approach can help you pick out the conversion superstars. The article goes on to explain that reuse is a good strategy to make the most of these, but also points out that the 'user needs' approach is helpful to create quality in the first place. And smartocto is the tool that gives recommendations based on needs that have not yet been covered.

They conclude with this: "A publication is not a one-time event but the start of a knowledge journey. (...) [Q]uality must be delivered every day, in order to retain subscribers." And we couldn't agree more.

Social media reactions

On Twitter, we saw references to the aforementioned journalism.co.uk article:

And it got picked up by others, too.

Some also refreshed their memories by referring to presentations where our project partner Dmitry Shishkin mentioned the user needs approach years ago.

Louise Story, The Chief Product & Technology Officer & Chief News Strategist of the Wall Street Journal, was happy to see their own user needs work being mentioned in our white paper.

Dmitry Shishkin published a LinkedIn article titled ''Actionable user needs' at the heart of your content strategy', where he talks about his experience working with us on the Triple N project. For him, "getting involved in the project was a no-brainer. As a consultant, you dream of projects like this one."

He had already learned a lot about the user needs at the BBC, obviously, and saw more and more other brands experimenting with them as well. To work with us on bridging the gap between theory and practice was the next step.

More LinkedIn users noticed our publication and were kind enough to share it with their followers.

And one of our clients chimed in too, saying "[i]f we media people don't watch out, we'll deliver just news. Stories with facts. And while that's fine, it's just not enough."

It's great to see that DPG Media continues to experiment with the user needs approach, after its brand DeMorgen participated in the Triple N project. They've even created their own model to serve as a guideline for future user needs projects. (This post was originally published in Dutch.)

We're thrilled to see that our work is being picked up, that it has reawakened interest in previous research and projects done by others, and that it has activated brands to start doing their own user needs work.

That is exactly why we started all this: to show the media how valuable an audience-first approach is, and to help you achieve your goals with smart technology. Don't hesitate to contact us for more information on our actionable user needs solutions, and if you haven't yet, download the whitepaper!