Editor’s note: we are republishing a version of the note that previously appeared as a special edition of The Fix Media’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe to get everything you need to know about the European media market every Monday, along with occasional special reports.

BuzzFeed News was a poster child of digital media ca. 2010s – a media business built on the promise of social platforms as the bright future of media distribution, offering a stable source of traffic and revenue. As everyone in the industry knows by now – made even more visibly clear by BuzzFeed News’ shutdown last week – this promise didn’t pay off.

Search traffic is a more reliable source of revenue for many digital publishers today, but it too offers no guarantees, with threats like the rise in generative AI looming on the horizon. Building a direct connection with your audience is as important as ever.

Two of the most useful tools for reaching your audiences directly, without relying on the mercy of Google’s and Facebook’s algorithms, have been newsletters and podcasts. Even though they had existed for many years, they’ve seen a spike of interest among publishers in recent years.

Taken together with mobile apps, the two formats can “form a bedrock of audience engagement for news outlets of different sizes”, The Fix’s David Tvrdon wrote last year. (Over the past couple of years David has relied on his extensive experience building both newsletters and podcasts to offer practical insights for The Fix’s readers; see, for example, his guide of 15 practical strategies to grow your podcast audience from scratch and a look back at growing a newsletter from scratch via Instagram).

Some big publishers have the luxury to rely on their home webpage as an important source of traffic, and American tech outlet The Verge capitalised on this with their last year’s redesign, which was powered by interesting insights into where the media industry is heading. The Fix’s Anna Sofia Lippolis reported on the story last December.

Then there’s community building, both online and offline. For more insights here, I recommend you start with David Tvrdon’s overview of different digital community building platforms, as well as Hleb Liapeika’s interview with Tamara Novel, Events Manager at EURACTIV.

Source of the cover photo: https://unsplash.com

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