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A collection of blog posts or articles that feature quotes or insights from the Twenty-First Digital team.
Publishers are following in the footsteps of advertisers that have pulled money out of Twitter since Elon Musk took the helm six months ago. Some media organizations are now doing the same, and no longer paying to promote posts on Twitter to draw more eyeballs to their stories or sponsored content.
“Publishers are seeing the platform as toxic and unstable, and no one really wants to put their budget or energy into maximizing a platform that feels toxic and unstable,” said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of Twenty-First Digital, an audience development and marketing firm, in an email. Chowning’s “handful” of publisher clients that previously retained ad spend with Twitter have walked away from the platform, she said.
DIGIDAY | FEBRUARY 22, 2023
ChatGPT’s arrival accelerates lifestyle publishers’ move away from SEO-driven content
The arrival of generative AI chatbots brings with it a unique threat to publishers that produce online content to answer the simple questions readers enter into search engines. These chatbots — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing — have the potential to take away a portion of publishers’ search-driven traffic, with their ability to generate answers to prompts without requiring a user to click through to an article.
Lifestyle publishers’ “most valuable assets are their photography and visuals that they may bring to a piece of content” now that ChatGPT is in the picture, said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital.
DIGIDAY | AUGUST 29, 2022
How Dateline NBC looks to grow its podcast business with Apple
Dateline, NBC’s true crime newsmagazine show, is offering a paid podcast subscription through Apple’s in-app product offering subscribers an ad-free listening experience across Dateline’s roster of nine podcasts and showcasts, one-week early access to new episodes and series and bonus episodes every month.
While making additional revenue is a benefit to a media company with an Apple Podcast subscription offering, “as a broader audience development strategy it has its challenges,” said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital, in an email. Mainly, that the listener is subscribing through Apple, not a publisher’s own platform, meaning the data is not theirs. “I’m not getting an email address, any first-party data or the ability to interact with that subscriber on my terms,” she said.
digiday | AUGUST 4, 2022
Grid hires 3 journalists to boost political, news coverage ahead of midterms
Grid’s political coverage is due to its editorial approach, in which stories are often written collaboratively by members of the newsroom, in a style that aims to put headlines into context by showing how they intersect with global affairs, health care and the economy — such as how the war in Ukraine is impacting gas prices in the U.S., and the role climate change has played in inflation.
“That’s a great way to take what is often a very confusing topic and bring that back to people and make the connection to something that’s already important to them,” said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital. “You’re connecting the issue to the politics, to the elections and to the people who are making decisions, so that ideally people who have interests in [a topic like education] can vote with an educated mindset.”
digiday | march 28, 2022
The definitive Digiday guide on how publishers are using newsletters
In general, news publishers tend to create one flagship newsletter, and then grow to offer other topic-specific newsletters. It’s a crucial first step in testing new coverage areas and seeing what news subscribers will pay for. Email newsletters are “typically the first step in getting someone to convert to a paying member or subscriber,” said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital.
digiday | january 24, 2022
Publishers use subscriber-only events to sweeten subscription pitches
Subscriber-exclusive events can serve as a “strong” retention or acquisition tool, according to Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO at audience development agency Twenty-First Digital. “I think the most compelling component about a strategy like this is the exclusivity feel behind these events.” The data publishers can gather from their audiences, such as their interest (or lack of interest) in certain topics or events, can also “help media organizations understand their audience better,” she said.
a media operator | OCTOBER 14, 2021
Most of the social media content that could negatively affect teens is coming from peers, lifestyle bloggers and influencers, according to Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital.
Publishers “have a duty to help drown out some of that other content” by creating an inclusive and diverse space on these platforms “to help create that balance,” Chowning said.
a media operator | July 6, 2021
Bundling Products to Boost Subscription Conversions
Chowning also believes this simplifies the subscription offering for Outside. One subscription “is much easier to market, manage, and grow.” However, the challenge for the publisher may be to “convince a Yoga Journal reader that an Outside+ subscription makes sense for them,” she said.
Digiday | April 30, 2021
Inside The Wall Street Journal’s latest push for new subscribers
Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital, said the Journal’s multi-channel campaign strategy was a solid play to fight through a challenging business climate for publishers in which many are seeing a drop in direct traffic. “We’re thinking some of this has to do with the decline in the print distribution,” which is usually “one of their biggest branding plays,” Chowning said.
Digiday | march 24, 2021
How PBS NewsHour is adapting its digital video programming strategy to a quieter news cycle
“It’s a great example of a legacy publisher adopting a newer strategy and seeing success with it, and very much at the right time too,” said Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of audience development and marketing firm Twenty-First Digital.
digiday | September 10, 2020
“Their editorial is truly top notch and I think that is driving a lot of their success,” said Melissa Chowning, the CEO of the audience development consultancy Twenty-First Digital, who pointed to The Atlantic’s strategy of emphasizing how subscriptions support its journalism. “That said, The Atlantic seems to have employed a model that other publishers should be able to leverage.”
What’s New in publishing | September 27, 2019
Melissa Chowning, CEO of Twenty-First Digital which helps publishers with audience development says, “There is no greater marketing tool than quality content. If you don’t have that, little else is going to work to develop a strong audience for your brand. And of the quality content that publishers have, evergreen content is the crown jewel.
Digiday | April 22, 2019
In pivoting to paid, publishers run into tech headaches
Conversely, publishers with legacy print magazine businesses are frustrated by how difficult it is to connect those operations to their digital infrastructure, thanks partly to fulfillment providers, who are loath to surrender information that might make them less important to their customers. One fulfillment provider recently took more than nine months to build an API that would give a client access to information about their print readers, said Melissa Chowning, the founder of audience development consultancy Twenty-First Digital.
Digiday | April 19, 2019
How Facebook is spending more to ensure wary publishers rely on it less
That frankness contrasts with Facebook’s earlier style of interacting with publishers, when it would regularly try to steer them toward a new product it was working on, with the promise of an increased audience. “To some publishers, it’s almost become a bit of a punchline: ‘Here’s what Facebook says we should focus on today,'” said Melissa Chowning, the founder of audience development consultancy Twenty-First Digital.
Digiday | February 18, 2019
In an era of loyalty, newspaper publishers focus on time spent and frequency
“Publishers are now looking at their content with a much more intentional focus,” said Melissa Chowning, founder of audience development consulting firm Twenty-First Digital. “They’re more emulating what content marketers have done for years.” The implications of changing metrics ripples out to editorial strategy. Publishers including The Seattle Times are identifying which stories lead to the most new subscriber conversions, then adjusting editorial strategies accordingly.