15 April 2014
The BBC today announced that bbc.com reached a record 96 million unique users and generated an all-time high of 1.3 billion page views in March 2014. BBC World News welcomed its five millionth Facebook fan and new figures also reveal that the BBC is by far the most-shared news brand on Twitter (source: Newswhip), with its stories shared a record 2.71 million times across the month – almost 50% more than any other publisher. The driving factors were its coverage of major global news stories including the crisis in Ukraine and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the increased popularity of bbc.com’s feature sections including BBC Future, BBC Travel and BBC Culture.
The site, which offers up-to-the minute international and local news and in-depth analysis, saw unique user figures up 26% on the monthly average of 76 million, whilst page views rocketed by 35%. Over 34 million video views were seen during the month, with a record-breaking 11 million viewed via the bbc.com apps.
James Montgomery, Director of Digital and Technology for bbc.com, said, “As the leader in global breaking news, our users rely on the BBC to provide impartial and accurate news on developing stories and significant global events, whatever their nature or location. We are incredibly proud that so many people chose us as their trusted source for news on the major stories that captivated the world last month.”
March also marked a record month for traffic across the five feature sections of bbc.com – BBC Travel, BBC Future, BBC Autos, BBC Capital and BBC Culture which together attracted 7 million visitors and 63 million page views; resulting in a month-on-month increase of 42% and year-on-year growth of 106%. Popular articles included: BBC Future’s ‘The Future of Safe Sex’ which received over 269,000 page views, BBC Culture’s ‘Beyond Jodorowsky’s Dune: 10 Greatest Movies Never Made’ attracted almost 3.2 million views across the month and BBC Travel’s game ‘Geoguesser’ ‘How Well Do You Know The World’ drew an impressive 270,000 unique users.
Jonathan Fildes, Managing Editor, Features, BBC.com added, “The feature sections offer users of the site an alternative and in-depth take on a variety of current and unusual topics complementing bbc.com’s news output. We are delighted that these sections are growing in popularity and drawing record figures from fans of bbc.com.”
Bbc.com has seen a rise in mobile usage of 88% year on year to 24 million browsers per month, whilst figures for desktop have remained stable at 56 million. (Source: Press release)
4 May 2010
The AIB is enthusiastic about the possibilities for social media tools such as Twitter and Ushahidi to enhance news reporting and the creation of factual programming. We have already seen Twitter used for breaking news in countries from Haiti to Ukraine (and I am hearing about some interesting tools being developed to analyse Tweets to discover changing opinions – I will be giving more details when we are allowed to). They are also great tools for promoting broadcasts and we will be using them extensively to publicise the People’s Choice award in this year’s AIBs.
However, I remain to be convinced about Twittermedia‘s enthusiasm for the new ability to be able easily to enter Tweets in a news story. They highlight ReadWriteWeb’s story on HP and Palm as a great way to convey reactions to a story without having quotes from different people spread round a story. While it is great to be able to provide accurate quotes and Twitter helps in this, a key role of journalism and factual broadcasting is to provide a context and develop a story around individuals’ comments. I hope that we do not see the rise of articles which rely just on picking out a number of Tweets without explaining them and referring as well to those who are not Twittering (yes, they still exist).
14 April 2010
Twitter, the service for online messages that are limited to 140 characters, has not had a clear plan for gaining revenue up until now, despite attracting tens of millions of users who post 50 million messages every day.
But yesterday the company announced “Promoted Tweets”, which are basically adverts. Initially they will be on search results, so that the first result displayed for each search may be an advert. Adverts will start out as normal Tweets posted by the advertiser and when they appear in other people’s search results they will be labelled “Promoted by…” so you will be able to identify them.
Depending on the initial success of this initiative, Twitter has plans to put Promoted Tweets in other places, such as on websites related to Twitter and even to the Tweet stream of individual users. Full details of Promoted Tweets can be found in the Twitter blog here .
Twitter has proved itself to be a vital source of breaking news (for example, during the Iranian election demonstrations or after the earthquake in Haiti) and there is now even a website dedicated to the best tools for using Twitter in journalism and media. So Promoted Tweets represent an interesting new opportunity for factual broadcasters and programme makers. It allows them to reach an audience that is interested in current events and active in reporting.
But the use of Promoted Tweets has to be handled carefully since their announcement has not been well received by Twitter users. TechCrunch report that 71% are against their introduction. Twitter hopes they will come to accept them and is stressing that they will only allow Promoted Tweets that “resonate” with the users; the company explains this as meaning that they will verify that Promoted Tweets are relevant to users and that if users are not interested in particular ones and do not click on them, then Twitter will stop showing them. However, it is not clear exactly how this procedure will work.
Broadcasters are well placed to offer Promoted Tweets that do “resonate” since they can address an audience interested in news. They can use them both to promote existing content and to help create new content. Examples might be:
– Promoting current affairs programmes to those searching for topics related to the subject
– Researching stories with Promoted Tweets asking for input from those with experience of particular subjects (and with location now being added to Tweets, the research will be able to focused on particular geographic areas)
– Encouraging those with breaking news to submit stories to your news service
Promoted Tweets promise to help in creating and promoting programmes. It is the sort of innovative tool we are looking for in the “Most Creative Marketing Strategy” award at the 2010 AIBs.
Reporters including Steve Herman – a long time correspondent for Voice of America (pictured) who has covered the White House extensively – and others from CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post have all been locked out of their accounts.