By Nikita Geldenhuys

A report, Private sector media and digital news, by The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, revealed some European publishers have started to move towards these formats in the last two years. These channels are referred to as distributed content, in which whole articles are uploaded to social media platforms.

“These initiatives aim at making the wider service more attractive to users by offering a way of accessing news that is more appealing than that offered by the mobile web, where pages often load very slowly and are cluttered with intrusive advertising, or are perhaps not optimised for mobile use at all,” authors of the institute’s report, Alessio Cornia, Annika Sehl, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, write.

Various European publishers are wary of using these new formats for distributing their content. Do local digital publishers feel the same way?

South African digital publishers can’t go without social media

When publishers use distributed content, they run the risk of losing some of the traffic that would normally come to their website. A decrease in traffic could mean a drop in the revenue that publishers receive for the display ads they run on their websites.

Yet social media plays a vital role in referring visitors to news websites. Chris Louw, group digital editor of Caxton Publishing’s digital division, explains that Caxton’s local media content is distributed on social media through 75 Facebook Pages, 75 Twitter accounts, and 37 Instagram accounts.

Facebook alone accounts for more than 50% of the publisher’s referral traffic.

It’s the same for Times Media Group (TMG). Riaan Wolmarans, head of digital audience development at the group, notes social media is massively important in reaching the publisher’s current audience and in attracting new readers.

Facebook Instant Articles not yet an option for the local media

TMG’s biggest venture into distributed content on social media has been native video publishing on Facebook, which Wolmarans says has proved a major success. “Our readers are consuming our video material on that platform in their millions. Our multimedia team even produces some videos in a style suited to Facebook, with differently edited versions then published on YouTube or one of our websites.”

TMG is considering Facebook Instant Articles and Louw’s team is also looking at testing the format in 2017. But Wolmarans notes the engagement a publisher could gain from using Instant Articles should be weighed up against the traffic they could lose if audiences no longer visit their websites to read articles.

“Of course Instant Articles bring their own revenue opportunities and there’s the much-touted benefit of higher user engagement, but we will need to test carefully to see how that compares with sending traffic off Facebook to our sites,” he explains.

A potential loss in traffic might be one of the reasons many South African publishers have not yet taken to distributed content. Related to this problem is the potential loss of revenue, as Louw explains, “We have found that social only content does well for us on social platforms, but gives us very little monetary return or any return on our websites.”

A commitment to distributed content like Instant Articles would also mean dedicating newsroom resources and staff to the task – a luxury many publishers cannot afford.

How will the media use distributed content in the future?

While social media in general has proven very helpful to digital publishers, it still remains to be seen if distributed content specifically is a good fit for local newsrooms.

Wolmarans does not foresee the company’s approach to conventional social media posts changing. “It will always be a solid driver of traffic to our websites, and we will invest accordingly in managing our social media channels.”

“What might change is our approach to distributed content, of course – that might ramp up considerably in years to come. Mostly we have to embrace the opportunities that social media offers us in reaching our readers, but do so carefully to protect and grow our revenue.”

Louw identifies two factors that will be vital to the sustainable use of social media by publishers going forward. “We … feel that a better relationship between publishers and social platforms will be imperative in the future. A better relationship will ensure that publishers are comfortable within social platforms to publish any news.”

The good governance of information on social media will also be important, he says. “[We] pride ourselves in producing factually correct information that enhances and informs the lives of our readers. Currently, we do believe there are not enough checks and balances within the social environment that will ensure its longevity.”

“Social networks have a big responsibility in ensuring the comfortable are afflicted and the afflicted are comforted, but at this stage the complete lack of control exhibited by social platforms have muddied the waters in an already uncertain time.”

The relationship between digital publishers and social media networks could either improve within the next year – or get very complicated. What happens going forward will depend in part on how digital publishers adapt to and innovate with new formats and channels.

Want to know what’s in store for South African marketers on social media in 2017. Read our article on “Where South Africa’s social content marketing is heading”.