Native Ad on Forbes Cover, Facebook’s Mobile and Video Push, the Times’ Instagram Strategy, LinkedIn’s Gains in the Media Race, Make Your Pages Panel Work Harder and Take the Afternoon Off, TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week, InDesign CC Tip: InDesign CC 2014.2 Release Notes
Welcome to TFP’s roundup of news and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing stories about Forbes’ decision to run a native ad on its cover, Facebook’s push to improve the mobile news experience and provide more tools for video publishers, how The New York Times is reaching out to a younger audience on Instagram, LinkedIn’s gains in the media race, and more.
- Forbes ran a native ad on the cover of its latest issue, breaking one of the few remaining taboos in the publishing industry, according to Advertising Age. It reported that the cover treatment, a teaser for a Fidelity infographic, brings the practice of native advertising into “mostly uncharted waters for magazines,” with publishers struggling to offset declines in newsstand sales and advertising revenue.
- As Facebook continues its pursuit of content partnerships with publishers, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said at a recent conference that a big focus is on mobile, noting that “reading news on a smartphone is still a really bad experience most of the time.” A Hollywood Reporter article covering the event said the social media company is also making a push on the video front to provide more tools like auto-play to publishers, many of which are reporting a higher level of sharing and engagement around content on Facebook compared with that on YouTube.
- Facebook-owned Instagram is also getting a lot of attention from publishers, including The New York Times, which is ramping up activity on the platform in efforts to grab the attention of young news consumers. Digiday reported the newspaper recently increased its number of Instagram accounts for various departments to eight and plans to launch a primary account within a couple of months. Rather than trying to drive traffic to the newspaper’s site, the goal is to build brand awareness with “incredible visual storytelling,” said Alexandra MacCallum, an audience development editor at the Times.
- In the race among social media platforms to get into the publishing business by either hiring their own editorial staff or pursuing content deals with traditional publishers, LinkedIn is often overlooked as a competitor, according to a report by Gigaom. It detailed how the company is taking steps to build its media business and factors leading to its success, noting that it brought in nearly half a billion dollars from advertising last year, putting it ahead of all but the top-tier publishers.
- On the Technology for Publishing blog: While working on a project in InDesign recently, TFP’s Mary Lester re-explored the Pages panel looking for an easy way to keep track of her page count and discovered a number of new ways to work better and faster. She shares those tips in her latest blog.
- Data is playing a leading role in content decisions these days, but efforts to better target content can fall short if it isn’t managed well, according to survey results highlighted in our Infographic Pick of the Week.
- We also bring you InDesign CC 2014.2 release notes, detailing several new features including Creative Cloud Libraries, an updated Welcome Screen, the ability to print the current page, and more.
Image: Advertising Age
This Week in Publishing appears every Friday on the TFP blog. Every week we compile interesting and noteworthy stories from the publishing world and put together a wrap-up to help our readers stay up-to-date. Think we missed something great? Leave a comment below and let us know!
Posted by: Monica Sambataro
