In January of 2018, Facebook changed its News Feed algorithm to prioritize more “meaningful interactions” from friends and family. The algorithm doesn’t just promote posts with the most comments but rather posts with replies to comments that can propel a conversation forward. As Facebook de-emphasized content from businesses and brands, many publishers lost significant referral traffic and had to re-evaluate their strategies to maintain and grow their readership. Facebook’s algorithm change was a challenge to most publishers, but particularly difficult for the ones that relied heavily on the social media platform to distribute content and drive traffic. So, over a year later, let’s take a look at what publishers are doing to replace that lost referral traffic. Many changed their approach on Facebook and explored different social platforms for distribution, such as LinkedIn or Instagram. They also took a look within to see how they can tweak their internal strategies.     

More than ever, publishers are looking for new ways to strengthen and diversify their content. Today we’ll explore how podcasts can allow them to do this. Over the last year, podcasts entered the mainstream world in a big way, with a whopping 73 million Americans - about 26% of the US population, listening every month! With podcasts being around for significantly longer than a year, it’s only natural to ask, why are they only taking off now? In this post we will walk through why publishers are investing in this form of content, as well as provide some examples of how publishers are utilizing podcasts to diversify their strategy.

When used correctly, social media can be one of the most powerful forms of marketing and one of the most effective ways to grow your audience. For publishers, social media offers an opportunity to distribute content, reach new readers, and engage with their audiences. In this post we dig into what each of these channels can do for your business and offer some goals/guidelines for each one.

Whether you want to add social proof to your content or support your article with real life examples, embedding content from your comments section can add a ton of value to your website. If used and placed correctly, your comments can become part of your content itself, providing context, depth, and real-life examples/opinions to your articles! 😱 Additionally, when readers see that their comment was featured or integrated into your piece, it highlights the direct influence they have on the content they are consuming. Readers become more committed to the success of your site if they see that they’re valued and heard. They will also be more willing to take actions that grow your engagement, such as sharing your articles, initiating more discussions, and consistently coming back for more!

We have news! Today we are announcing a change to how we display comments within long threads. We call it Collapsed Replies, and you may have already seen it either here on our blog or across sites that use Disqus.

We have an exciting update to share today! As you saw in our last blog post, we recently introduced text formatting options to the Disqus platform. Well since then, we decided that the text formatting bar needed a little addition, so we partnered with Giphy to integrate a GIF library! GIFS are an easy, fun, and low-effort means for readers to engage with their favorite sites and for publishers to better connect to their audiences.

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the hysteria, jokes, memes, articles, and watched the 2 documentaries about the infamous Fyre Festival🔥. If not, please shield your eyes, stop reading now, and don’t come back until you do! Because spoilers, y’all!!

Text formatting options, one of our most requested updates, is now available on Disqus. If you comment with Disqus regularly, you may know that Disqus already supported HTML tags to format text within comments. This update makes formatting options more visible and accessible to users and easier to use with simple one-click options.

In 2018, we saw a variety of emerging trends coming from the Digital Publishing world. We witnessed many publishers go back to basics with increased investments to SEO, which is a more stable and predictable traffic generation strategy-- versus Facebook, for example. Additionally, publishers explored the next frontier: AI, to help deliver more relevant and engaging experiences for their readers. This is a fairly new area for publishers, and if done well, it can create a serious competitive advantage. For example, the New York Times utilized data science and machine learning to determine the optimal time to show subscription prompts to readers thus increasing their subscription-based revenue . Many digital publishers made subscriptions their main priority, which is an effective strategy since it is an owned and operated monetization and distribution strategy. In addition to these traditional tactics, new website redesigns, increasing partnerships, podcasting, and networking events all contributed to the success of digital publishers in 2018 🎉.

Hard as it is to believe, 2018 is now coming to an end, and it was a rollercoaster year for digital publishers. From dealing with the fallout of Facebook's dramatic Newsfeed changes, which resulted in significantly reduced reach for most, to navigating the complex path to GDPR compliance and the ensuing changes--  publishers faced several new challenges in 2018. And while a constantly shifting digital landscape can be hard to navigate, it also opens the door for new opportunities to evolve and grow. Throughout 2018 we saw publishers give alternative platforms a fresh look, leverage new technologies, and adapt their strategies in order to grow their audiences and businesses.