UXIdeas blog

Sara Linfoot – Head of Digital Innovation @ The Guardian

Sara’s job is to maximise the Guardian’s revenue through the development of new digital concepts. Here are some key points from the seminar:

1) Understanding user engagement

Guardian divide their users into ‘Casual’ and ‘Committed’ users
‘Casual’ users will come onto the Guardian website through search engines etc. and are not regular visitors. They don’t know much about these users and do not spend much time trying to engage them. ‘Committed’ users engage frequently with the website, leaving comments, entering competitions, etc. They are invaluable to GNM and a lot of research goes into users in this group.

Guardian consider several elements when engaging users
1) Respect users – Don’t be sneaky with CRM etc. Curate online conversations. Ask them for their opinions. Don’t filter negative comments out but learn from them.
2) Give immediate responses – Show you’re listening.
3) To moderate or not? – Only take down conversations if someone flags it as ‘offensive’. Consider how a commercial conversations should be moderated (will there be slander from brand competitors, etc)?

Help users to get involved
Allow them to; comment, tag, share, add, stop, take, skip, save, mash, react, subscribe.

- Guardian got users to upload their pictures and messages for Obama in the lead-up to his inauguration.
- They identify super-users and engage with them, asking them to carry out tasks for them (e.g. give them a camera and ask them to go down to G20 protests and report back etc). This really utilises citizen journalism.

Engagement is hard to measure
When it comes to measuring the success of Guardian communities, it is important not to focus on classic metrics but to focus on measuring engagement/influence. Some companies claim to be able to do this but the Guardian believe these techniques are too long and complicated and the area is yet to be properly understood.

2) How GNM (Guardian News & Media) is embracing content distribution

Guardian’s open-platform allows users access to Guardians content and data sets, which they can integrate with other internet applications.

Examples:
- One person used Guardian’s data on MP expense claims + mashed them up with Google maps, showing where in the country different claim amount were being shown.

- Another person used Guardian’s computer game reviews and mashed them with Youtube videos of those games.

3) Maxising amplification beyond GNM channels

Guardian currently engage with users through;
User-generated content, Audio, Video, Mobile, PDA, Magazines, Online, Events, Emails, RSS and downloadable PDFs (G24) and traditional newspapers (which are still central to the Guardian business model as they can me more in depth and people still like the experience of reading them. Now though the traditional journalists are more integrated with the online journalists and sit together).

In the future they also intend to diversify into other platforms
This includes Twitter and other social media. The future of GNM is focussed on engaing users outside the Guardian channels. The aim is to provide content to users wherever they might want to consume it. The more online communities they can tap into the the better. They will communicate with people using a combination of Text, Multimedia, Data (including data visualisation) and Community.

Old and new communication models need to be integrated
Before the Internet the Guardian was a broadcaster and it’s readers consumed its messages. In early Web people started to communicate in small clusters (in forums etc). Now with the wide range of social media available, the everyone including the Guardian is interconnected. The old models are still important though and need to work with each other to be most effective.