Category Archives: Audience Engagement

Branded Content in Olympics: Engagement and Revenue

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Branded content marketing has emerged as a powerful alternative for publishers seeking to deliver high-value content to their audiences while enhancing revenue, especially during major events like the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

This strategy goes beyond traditional advertising by creating engaging and relevant content that resonates with viewers on a deeper level. As publishers look to capitalize on the global excitement surrounding the Olympics, branded content offers a unique opportunity to forge meaningful connections with audiences and generate substantial engagement.

What Is Branded Content?

Branded content is a piece of content marketing media that a marketing professional creates to promote businesses or specific products in innovative ways. Unlike traditional digital marketing efforts such as ads, commercials and banners, branded content marketing isn’t about doing a direct sale, but rather establishing a long-lasting connection with your audience.

Branded content can take many forms, but is typically a partnership with a publisher and/or advertiser that work alongside a brand to create a storytelling narrative that inspires, informs or influences the audience. Through branded content marketing, a business can showcase their personality, ethos, and identity, humanizing the brand and fostering authentic and trustful relationships.

Why Is Branded Content is Important?

Branded content marketing matters because it is a long-term investment in your brand’s reputation. Besides being a great way to attract new customers by grabbing their attention with engaging media, branded content helps businesses maintain its customer base by providing entertaining and educational content that appeals to existing customers.

So, why is branded content so important for your business?

1. Build trust and authenticity

Creating compelling content fosters emotional connections that traditional marketing alone cannot achieve. Brands can create narratives that showcase origins, challenges and triumphs, companies become more relatable and this transparency establishes a foundation for a genuine and honest relationship.

By creating narratives that evoke emotions such as joy, empathy and inspiration, branded content marketing helps companies to resonate deeply with audiences on an emotional level.

2. Focus on consumers

Branded content marketing helps shine the spotlight where it matters the most: your customers.

Optimizing customer experience is a key objective of any successful marketing campaign strategy, and branded content play an important role in this journey. By creating content that is relevant, valuable and enjoyable for your audience, you can foster positive and memorable experiences.

Branded content also serves an educational purpose, offering pertinent information, addressing concerns and questions or engaging in cultural trends. Whether delivered through videos, blog posts, or social media updates, branded content enhances the customer experience, creating a more enjoyable and fulfilling interaction with your brand.

3. Potential for growth

Branded content pieces usually appears on digital platforms such as social media, the company’s website and media outlets. Because the internet is in constant evolution, there are always potential new formats or channels for branded content to emerge and become popular.

As more platforms are born and integrate with one another, so does the reach of a branded content marketing strategy, attracting consumers from different internet sources. To make sure that it is easy for customers to find the brand and its content, it is crucial to optimize all pieces of content for SEO purposes.

4. Build brand awareness

According to the International Journal of Advertising, branded content is 22 times more effective than traditional advertising. Branded content helps increase visibility and recognition of your brand by creating engaging and memorable content that resonates with your target audience. This can enhance brand recall and establish a stronger brand presence in the market.

5. Differentiates the Brand from Competitors

In a crowded market, branded content allows a brand to showcase its unique voice, values, and personality. This differentiation helps the brand stand out from competitors and can be a key factor in a customer’s decision-making process.

Examples of Branded Content

Marketing professionals can create a wide range of branded content pieces, such as:

  • Documentaries that connect the brand to impactful stories
  • User-generated content for social media 
  • Explainer series that connect websites with videos and quizzes
  • Sponsored articles in news websites
  • Case studies highlighting how the brand connects with audiences

Branded Content in Sports

Branded content in sports has become a powerful tool for marketers, leveraging the passion and engagement of sports fans to create memorable and impactful campaigns. This type of content allows brands to seamlessly integrate their message into the sports experience, providing value to fans while enhancing brand recognition and loyalty.

By aligning with the excitement and emotional highs of sporting events, brands can create authentic connections with their audience. Whether through sponsorships, collaborations with athletes, or creating unique sports-related content, brands can tap into the fervent fan base to drive engagement and brand affinity.

Brands can explore different types of sports branded content, such as influencer-driven videos, compilations of unique and impactful moments or personalized profiles of teams and athletes, brands can leverage the power of a well-crafted storytelling to reach a wider audience.

Why the Olympic Games are a Great Opportunity for Branded Content

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games present an unparalleled opportunity for branded content due to their global reach and the intense emotional connection they evoke among viewers from all over the world. With over 1 billion estimated global audience, the Olympics offer brands an unique platform to reach a diverse and engaged audience. The event’s universal appeal and the stories of perseverance, triumph, and sportsmanship resonate deeply with viewers, making it an ideal backdrop for creating impactful branded content. By aligning with the values and excitement of the Olympics, brands can craft narratives that not only promote their products but also inspire and connect with their audience on a profound level.

Moreover, the multi-faceted nature of the Olympics, encompassing a wide variety of sports and athletes from different cultures, allows brands to tailor their content to specific segments of the audience. This versatility enables brands to create highly personalized and relevant content, enhancing engagement and effectiveness. Additionally, the extensive media coverage and social media buzz surrounding the Olympics amplify the reach of branded content, providing ample opportunities for brands to leverage user-generated content and real-time marketing.

Successful Branded Content Initiatives during the Olympic Games

P&G’s “Thank You Mom” Campaign

To celebrate 100 days until the Opening Ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Procter & Gamble (P&G) released a new installment of their award-winning “Thank You, Mom” by releasing a new video, “Strong”.

The branded content piece followed the Olympic Games journeys of four mothers and their Olympian children, showing moments, both big and small, when a mother’s strength makes all the difference, building up to the moment when each child finds their own courage to participate in the world’s biggest sports event – the Olympic Games.

P&G’s branded content marketing strategy sought to reach their most important audience, moms. With over 1 billion global impressions, the campaign greatly increased P&G’s brand awareness and it is considered one of the company’s most successful worldwide campaigns ever.

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Leveraging Arena Community for Branded Content Strategies

Publishers can leverage Arena Community to forge impactful partnerships with brands and develop robust branded content strategies. Arena Community’s suite of products, including Live Chat, Live Blog, real-time engagement tools, and content moderation, offers a dynamic platform for creating immersive branded experiences. By utilizing these functionalities, publishers can host interactive live events, conduct real-time polls, and facilitate discussions that seamlessly integrate brand messaging, making the content more engaging and relevant for the audience.

These initiatives not only enhance audience engagement but also open up new revenue streams for publishers. By partnering with brands, publishers can create sponsored content and collaborative campaigns that resonate with their readers. Arena Community’s analytics tools provide valuable insights into audience behavior, allowing publishers to tailor their content strategies and demonstrate the effectiveness of branded content to their partners. This synergy between interactive online community features and branded content marketing not only boosts publisher revenue but also strengthens the connection with their audience, fostering a loyal and engaged community like never before.

Learn how Arena can help you enhance audience engagement in sports coverage.

How to live stream the 2024 Olympics

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The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are just around the corner and, at this exact moment,  millions of sports fans are wondering “Where can I watch the Olympics?”. With over 300 events divided into 32 sports categories, it can be hard for viewers to gain full access to the complete schedule and real-time transmission on traditional TV broadcasting. On the other hand, with so many competitions happening simultaneously, it can be hard for media outlets to decide what to cover. 

It is expected that the 2024 Olympics will have a thunderous impact on the U.S. streaming market, with over a quarter of all SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) subscribers signing up for a new streaming service just to watch the games, according to new research conducted by Bango. The vast majority (87%) of those paying for sports VODs are also calling for a content hub that can centralize streaming, blog posts and analysis of the competition, further facilitating access to the Olympic events. 

In this scenario, there’s incredible competition for sports broadcasters and advertisers to attract and hold the attention of their audiences. The average viewer not only wants to watch the event with live professional commentary but also interact in a more meaningful way with other sports fans and delve deeper into the Olympics. After all, it only happens every four years, and they need to make every second count. 

Why build a strategy to stream the 2024 Olympics? 

‍The Olympics is a truly iconic occasion and one of the very few global events that is able to unite and engage different sports fans around the world. Starting July 26, the 2024 Summer Olympics are expected to have a global audience of over 1 billion people during its 18 days of competition, which makes it a perfect opportunity for media companies to invest in their streaming services.

The timing to make this investment couldn’t be better, especially after the great success that companies who have betted in Olympics live streams have shown us over the last few years. 

During the Tokio 2021 Olympics, NBCUniversal used its various platforms to launch a special sports coverage, describing it as the “biggest media event ever”. With this initiative, the company saw outstanding results, amounting to an audience of 15.5 million people, with viewers streaming a record 5.5 billion minutes of events across social media and platforms such as NBCOlympics.com, NBC Sports App and streaming service Peacock. 

As for the 2024 Summer Olympics, the games haven’t even begun and the company is already seeing impressive numbers. Months before the opening ceremonies, NBCUniversal had announced that it had already sold $1.2 billion in advertising space during the Olympics, with $350 million coming from first-time advertisers.

If you are a sports, entertainment, or news broadcaster, you are probably wondering which is the best way to stream the Olympic games in real-time. What if we told you that there is an easy-to-use, no-code tool that can help you enrich your audience experience? 

Keep reading to learn more about Arena Live Blog and why it is your biggest ally in broadcasting the Paris 2024 Olympics in a more engaging way. Make sure to check out how Fox Sports Australia leverages the tool and, boy, will you be amazed.

What Is a Live Blog?

‍A Live Blog is the natural evolution of traditional blogs. Also called live updates, journalists and publishers have been using live blogs to cover events for years. 

By bringing together words, images, audio, and video, you can offer a unique experience to your audience. The result? More interaction, higher viewership, and a loyal audience that keeps coming back to your content over and over again.

How can a Live Blog help you monetize content? 

‍One of the biggest benefits of having a Live Blog set up on your website is the possibility to not only create your own content but also using different sources to enrich your content timeline. What we in Arena call a “Social Stream” allows you to bring your audience from social media to your website, thus having greater control over what they consume, how they interact with your company and each other, as well as choosing the right advertisers that truly connect with your audience. 

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Here are three simple ways you can enhance your content strategy and monetize your 2024 Olympics coverage with Arena Live Blog:

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  1. Monetization Strategies: Arena Live Blog leverages AI to maximize ad revenue through optimized ad placements, leading to higher click-through rates. Additionally, publishers can implement subscription models offering premium. By collaborating with brands, Arena enables the creation of AI-generated sponsored articles and videos, providing new revenue streams through branded content.

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  1. AI-Driven Content Creation: Utilizing AI, Arena Live Blog automates the generation of real-time highlights and event summaries, keeping audiences engaged with high-quality live content. Predictive content features allow publishers to deliver insights and updates on upcoming events, while personalized content enhances user experience by catering to individual preferences and interests.

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  1. Multi-Channel Integration: Arena’s AI tools seamlessly integrate with publisher websites and mobile apps, offering real-time coverage and interactive features. Publishers can not only pull content from their social media accounts but also share AI-generated content from Live Blog on their social platforms like Twitter, driving traffic back to their sites. Additionally, the platform allows you to connect your YouTube live transmissions with your Live Blog live streams, providing an opportunity to double your monetization for each piece of content. By using social media as a top-of-funnel tool, this strategy attracts and retains a broader audience, ultimately boosting website engagement and overall monetization.

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Using Arena Live Blog In Your 2024 Paris Olympics Coverage: Step By Step

‍Getting started with Arena Live Blog is easy. In the following steps, you will see a few ways to use the app to make your coverage more engaging for fans.‍

Step 1: Create an event in Arena Live Blog

‍The first step is to create an event using the Arena Dashboard.

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Choose your sport from the list and get started. If you don’t see a certain sport listed (e.g. Track & Field), click the “Other Sports” option.

To stay organized, give your event a name (e.g. 2024 Olympics Coverage – Basketball Game 1), enter the date and time, and description. You can also add tags and images to the event to make it even more visually appealing.

Tip: Is your event starting in just a few minutes? Choose the “Live” event status to start your event right away. If you are planning your Olympics coverage in advance, choose the “Upcoming” option in Event Status.

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To keep sports fans engaged in your coverage, there are two critical features you should turn on: Enable Comments and Chat Room. 

In some cases – like a high-stakes final event – you might want to turn on the profanity filter to keep inappropriate comments out of the chat.

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Adding Advertising Revenue To Your Coverage

‍If you have a paid account, you can add advertising to your Live Blog easily.

Simply add sponsored ads during the post flow.

 

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Step 2: Add Social Media Directly To Your Coverage with Social Stream

Live Blog Arena allows you to add channels and social media profiles to further enhance your Paris 2024 Olympics broadcast.

You can enrich your Live Blog with content from: 

  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Web content
  • Other (RSS)

Important Note: Some content may be protected by copyright. Arena is not responsible for any copyright violations. To reduce the chance of copyright problems and complaints, contact social media users in advance of adding them to your coverage and ask for permission to include them in your Live Blog. 

To learn how to set up and customize your Social Stream, click here and access the complete walkthrough.

Step 3: Plan Ahead For Surprises With Publication Planning

‍When you cover a global event like the Olympic Games, it is important to be ready for surprises and major accomplishments. For example, a country might win its first gold medal. In the Rio Olympics in 2016, Joseph Schooling won the first-ever gold medal for Singapore.

It’s not just medals. Athletes can suddenly suffer a surprising injury or break a world record that changes the outcome of a competition.

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Anyone covering the 2024 Paris Olympics needs to be very well prepared for surprises. That’s why Arena’s Live Blog lets you create content in advance. 

In essence, you can create a “reserve” of content to use when you need. For example, you might ask your assistant to write profiles on the top 10 tennis players at the 2024 Olympics because some of the most famous tennis players like Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem are not competing in Paris. By having short profiles on potential winners prepared in advance, you can impress your audience who may not be familiar with less well known players.

By enriching your live blog coverage in this way, you will not be at a loss when a sudden surprise happens. That means your audience will stay glued to your coverage and keep returning to your coverage over and over again

Step 4: Keep Your Audience Coming Back To Your Coverage

‍It’s a fact that sports fans have many different options to watch the Olympics. Even if a sports fan likes your coverage, they might get distracted and start watching a different broadcast. Offering high quality coverage is one way to keep fans coming back. But that’s not your only option.

You can also send reminders to your audience to invite them back to your sports coverage each day. Use the Conversion Cards feature in Live Blog Arena to invite fans to stay engaged with your Olympics coverage.

‍To activate and configure Conversion Cards, click Engagement in the left menu.‍

Step 5: Set Up Real Time Tracking‍

Besides sports knowledge, there is one more way sports broadcasters can get ahead: showing their numbers. When you can show your executives and advertisers that your audience is highly engaged, you can get promoted and assigned to more coverage.

The best part? You don’t have to wait for the event to end to get stats. With the Arena Dashboard, you can easily follow your streaming statistics in real time.

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By clicking on Analytics in the left menu, you can see your audience engagement through metrics such as Page Views and Online Users. You can also track these metrics throughout your session.

By using analytics, you will never have to guess what fans are most interested in. Instead, you can look at the analytics data to improve your coverage.

For example, you might see that engagement spikes up when you respond to comments from sports fans. In that case, you might set a reminder to yourself to glance at the comments every few minutes.

And just like that, you have created a personalized event for your audiences, using only a no-code tool and embedding the code to your website!

Prepare to hit the ground running

‍As we write this, many of the world’s leading sports broadcasters are arriving in Paris to prepare their Olympics media coverage. To compete with their reporting, use Live Blog Arena to make your Paris 2024 Olympics news broadcasting an unforgettable experience for your audience.

If you need any help to start planning your Live Blog, make sure to schedule a free demo with your sales teams to understand how Arena can help your company reach the next level. 

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How To Create A Social Media-Like Experience

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Engaging audiences and keeping them on your website has become increasingly challenging. Social media platforms, however, have mastered the art of user engagement by creating immersive, social media-like experiences that captivate their audience. The good news? You can leverage these same strategies to boost user engagement on your site.

Explore our exclusive infographic to learn how!
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Maximizing Audience Engagement After the End of Third-Party Cookies: 7 Key Strategies

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In 2024, third-party cookies are no longer supported, thanks to Google and Apple removing them from their browsers. With this significant shift, it’s crucial to act quickly and adapt your strategies to maintain strong audience engagement in the new digital landscape.

Some Important Terms To Know

There are a few key terms you should know to navigate. The following definitions will help you to understand what’s changing.

  • Cookies: files that store information about a user and their online behavior. This information enables both personalized experiences on websites (i.e., that you prefer to see basketball scores instead of baseball scores) and personalized advertising.
  • Third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are produced by a website other than the user is visiting. For example, visit an online shoe store website and then a news website. You might see an ad for shoes on the news website the next day. That type of marketing is made possible by third-party cookies.
  • First-party data. First-party data is information your company has directly collected from your audience. For an in-depth introduction, see our post What is First Party Data Anyway?

Gathering first-party data is a priority for several reasons. First, gathering a significant amount of first-party data means you’re less reliant on the major social media companies. Second, your efforts to gather first-party data will also help you focus more on keeping your audience engaged.

Preparing Your First-Party Data Foundation

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For publishers and brands new to first-party data, it is vital to create the proper foundation. Once you have these elements in place, you’ll find it much easier to accelerate your growth.

1) Align First-Party Data To Your Growth Goals

Simply gathering massive data about your audience will not accomplish anything for your business. This data collection effort needs to support your goals. With that alignment, winning buy-in for first-party data will be easier.

To build alignment, ask your team the following questions:

  • How will a more deeply engaged audience (i.e., people spending more time on your website, week in and week out) support our goals?
  • What is our reliance on third parties for growth like Facebook and other platforms? If you are uncomfortable with the answer, first-party data can help!

2) Create An Inventory of Your First-Party Data Assets

The next foundation step is to identify your first-party data assets. In many cases, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that you have significant data already. For example, consider the following examples to get your inventory started:

  • Email List. Your email list is one of the best examples of a first-party provider. There’s no intermediary standing between you and your audience with email.
  • Registered Website Users. Many websites require users to log in to personalize their experience and get other benefits. Find out if you have this type of first-party data!
  • Customer List. Publishers may define this list as a subscriber list. Ideally, your customer data goes far beyond a listing of names. You should be able to perform analytics on the data, such as identifying the people who buy the most.

3) Identify First Party Growth Ideas

The final preparation step is to brainstorm a few first-party growth ideas. It helps to frame this question as a value exchange. Ask yourself what valuable content and experiences you can offer your audience in exchange for their data.

Your historical data can offer clues to point you in the right direction. For instance, look at your website analytics (e.g., Google Analytics) and social media accounts to see what topics and themes resonate with your target audience. When reviewing these analytics, aim to develop a list of at least ten topics. You’ll use this list in the next step.

4) Identify What Kind of First Party Data You Want To Gather

There are many kinds of first-party data, so focusing your efforts on them is essential. It is generally best to focus on growing engaged website visitors and email subscribers as a starting point. If you have larger audiences and resources, gathering additional forms of first-party data may be achievable.

Launch Your First-Party Data Collection Efforts

To gather first-party data, you must convince your audience to trade their time, attention, and data for something of value. One of the best options is to offer a live community experience. These experiences help to deepen audience engagement at the same time.

5) Equip Your Team To Run Live Experiences

Offering a live experience to your audience is tough unless your team has the right tools and training. Fortunately, getting the right tools in place is easy. You can install Arena on your website in less than 10 minutes.

As you plan training sessions, look for team members with experience organizing conferences and live events. Many of those event skills will translate to the digital sphere. Once you gather a few people, it’s time to plan and launch an internal event. For example, you might host a live event for employees only to discuss the year’s priorities.

For the best results, assign one person to act as the moderator and another to act as technical support. You’ll quickly get a feel for how Arena Live Chat works. For example, you can use moderation tools to keep the discussion focused.

6) Host A Community Discussion With A Special Guest

Once you complete a practice session with an internal audience, it’s time to plan and launch a live chat experience for your audience. Refer to the list of topic ideas you generated in the “Identify First Party Growth Ideas” ideas. For example, you might host a live chat event before a significant voting day if you cover political news.

Including a special guest like a columnist, academic, or influencer in your live chat event is smart because they can help you promote the event. For example, you might invite a sports medicine doctor to join an event focused on helping older people succeed in fitness while minimizing injuries.

Offering an event like this will help you gather first-party data because the live chat session will happen on your website.

7) Put Your First-Party Data To Work

You’ve done all the preparation work to offer compelling experiences to your audience. If everything has come together, you will now have more first-party data! So, what’s next?

The next step depends on your business model. An online publisher can use their new first-party data insights to engage advertisers. Other brands can use first-party data to improve the relevance of their online advertising efforts. For example, you can improve the relevance of your advertising by sending a targeted message to your most engaged audience members.

Get Arena On Your Website Today

Getting started with Arena is fast and easy. There’s no software for your audience to download, and Arena is designed for speed! Book a demo to see how Arena can help you to grow!

How To Improve Audience Retention

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Audience retention is one of the most important signs of a healthy digital publisher (or almost any other business that depends on its website for growth). When retention is high, there’s less stress to replenish your audience constantly. In other words, your audience-building efforts start to compound like money in a savings account!

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Declining or low retention of users on a website is an early warning indicator that your business is in serious trouble. To find out the state of your retention, open Google Analytics (or your preferred analytics solution) and dig into the data.

Defining Audience Retention Success: 4 Measures

Like many other success factors, determining audience retention success is best viewed through multiple metrics over time. Start with these four metrics.

1. Audience Composition: Returning vs New

Look at your website analytics for the past month (or better, the last 90 days) and see how your audience breaks down between new vs returning users. You always want a combination of both types of users. However, the critical measurement is the percentage of returning users over time. If returning users are falling as a share of your total audience, it means your audience is losing interest.

This data point can only be understood if you consider your broader strategy and the other measures below. For example, building your sports audience may take some time if you recently changed your strategy to emphasize sports coverage over politics. Your returning audience share will fall during that phase, and your new visitors will increase.

2. Audience Retention By Segment

Viewing your online audience as a single aggregate has its limitations. That’s why we recommend applying segmentation. For example, Google Analytics lets you track “Audience by Cohort” on a time basis. For example, you can compare the behavior of people who first discovered your website in January vs those who discovered your website in July.

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Analyzing audience cohorts by start date is helpful because it can tell you which marketing strategies work best. In one month, you might offer a series of live chat experiences with special guests and pull in a large audience of new visitors. Cohort analysis makes it possible to track the subsequent behavior of those new people. You might find that this live chat-related audience is most interested in live events on your website, so you’ll need to keep offering those experiences to keep them engaged.

3. Engagement

Engagement measures like – time on page, bounce rate, and number of pages viewed per user – also contribute to retention. Keeping a close eye on these engagement metrics matters because they signal a good match between your content and audience interests. Let’s consider each of these engagement metrics in greater detail.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of users who immediately leave your website after arriving. Generally, a high bounce rate is a cause for concern. For example, you might have used aggressive search engine optimization techniques to get a specific page ranking high in Google. However, if that page fails to satisfy users and many leave in seconds – you have a high bounce rate. In that case, search engines will likely view that page negatively, and your traffic will likely suffer.

Time on Page

Attention lies at the heart of online success whether you are a digital news publisher looking to generate leads for a business or make sales. If time on the page is very short (i.e., under 30-60 seconds), that is an early warning sign that your website needs to make a better first impression.

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Improving time-on-page performance requires both technical and editorial improvements. From a technical point of view, use tools like PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your website. Using a content delivery network (CDN) may help improve speed. Evaluating the speed of applications and services running on your website is vital. Arena Live Chat, for example, is designed to be a lightweight application that runs fast. Editorial improvements may include writing more SEO-friendly headlines and making your content more accessible to scan.

Number of Pages Viewed Per User

Users who view multiple pages are highly likely to be engaged. Since these users are seeing more of your content, there is a higher chance that they will convert to paying subscribers, join your email list, or convert in another valuable way.

Arena Live Blog is a powerful way to lift your page views per user because of the way it presents content. In publishing, a live blog often provides breaking news updates on a new story. For example, post updates at the end of each inning of a baseball game. Once someone reads your updates for the first or second inning, they’ll likely keep returning to your website as the game progresses.

4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Increased customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of the ultimate measures of successful retention. Unlike the other measures reviewed above, CLV is a lagging indicator. That means your efforts to improve retention may take weeks or months to translate into higher customer lifetime value.

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Your customer lifetime value will likely hold steady or improve if built on a solid engagement foundation. That said, drawing a straight line between a specific page and a purchase can be difficult. After all, many people may not be ready to buy a subscription after they land on your website. It may take multiple visits over weeks before a person fully appreciates your brand and decides to buy.

If Your Online Retention Is In Trouble, Try This

Improving user retention – which ultimately contributed to higher customer lifetime value – takes several strategies. Put the following options into action, and you’ll quickly turn around your retention numbers.

Find Out What’s Working And Do More Of It

There’s almost always something that is working well on a website. Start by looking at your top pages – those URLs that have received the highest number of pageviews and highest average time on site. Identify the patterns in those pages and do more of what’s working!

Interview Your Super Fans

Staring at analytics data will give you some helpful clues, but there’s a danger with relying too much on numbers. You may lose focus on the fact that your online efforts are ultimately aimed at connecting with people! On the other hand, life is short, so it’s not practical to reach out and talk to everyone.

The compromise solution is to contact your super fans. It’s easy to find these fans. Check your social media and email marketing service to find people who have engaged the most with your content over the past month or two. Set up a call with 5 of these super fans. Ask them what they like most about your website (get specifics!) and what they would change.

Offer New Interactive Experiences To Your Audience.

Presenting content in a novel way is an underrated way to lift audience engagement. For example, create an online event where you discuss current affairs with a few panelists. This could include offering in-depth coverage of a war or election with experts. Arena Live Chat makes it easy to create a live chat experience on your website quickly.

Increase Online Retention With Arena

Arena is the secret weapon major online publishers like Globo, Fox Sports, and the Japan Times use to lift engagement. Discover Arena’s solutions for media and publishers.

Publisher Revenue Beyond Ads and Subscribers

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Publishers have long earned most of their revenue from paying subscribers and advertising. Publishers have innovated new technologies to lift advertising revenue and entice subscribers. Despite these efforts, publishers have lost tremendous revenue to digital advertising platforms. Below are some winning strategies publishers have taken to evolve their revenue streams.

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Start With Maximizing Advertising Revenue

In the short term, publishers can earn more advertising revenue because dollars are shifting away from social media. Twitter’s much-publicized difficulties under Elon Musk’s leadership – chaotic layoffs, increased inappropriate content, and more – have advertisers seeking new opportunities. For publishers committed to quality content and long-term audience engagement, there is a tremendous opportunity to win advertisers to your platforms, especially if you can offer brand-safe environments.

While significant, winning advertising dollars from other platforms will only take you so far. It’s also essential to take a hard look at the publishing business model.

Why Now Is The Right Time To Invest In Revenue Diversification

There are four reasons publishers need to invest resources into revenue diversification.

1. Generative AI Opens New Threats And Opportunities

The boom in generative AI technology poses many challenges. Governments and companies are concerned about AI safety. However, publishers are uniquely positioned to succeed with AI for a few reasons. First, publishers know their audiences deeply to direct generative AI tools effectively. Second, publishers have robust quality control mechanisms to verify sources and maintain high standards.

To discover more about how generative AI can lift publisher revenue, see our post: 5 Use Cases for Generative AI in Publishing Right Now. With editorial oversight, generative AI can dramatically increase your output and boost your ad revenue stream.

2. Economic Worries May Hurt Traditional Revenue Sources

While fears of a 2023 recession are easing, elevated inflation and interest rates continue to pressure many consumers and companies.

These economic concerns are already starting to impact the media industry. According to a June 2023 CNBC article: “Over the last six months, higher prices have led nearly 80% of consumers to cut spending on nonessential goods, like entertainment, home decor, clothing, appliances and more.” That reduced spending will likely cause advertisers to rethink and reduce their advertising budgets.

Many consumers are already thinking about cutting back on their spending. A National Research Group study found that 28% of consumers plan to decrease their subscriptions in the next six months. While the NRG report is focused on digital media subscriptions like Netflix, consumer cost-cutting measures may spread to publishers. 

In addition to consumers, advertiser spending is expected to decline in several categories next year. MarketingProfs points out that advertising spending is forecasted to decline in automation, financial services, alcoholic drinks, and tourism in 2023. 

3. Social Media Companies Retain Significant Audience Share

Large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have had a challenging 2022. Even Google, which earns most of its revenue from advertising, is looking for ways to improve efficiency. For creative publishers with valuable audiences, there is an opportunity to grow as ad budgets shift.

It would be foolish to write off social media companies and platforms entirely. TikTok, for example, has over 1.6 billion users (86 million in the US). The potential collapse of Twitter and troubles at Facebook don’t mean social media is over, just that the landscape will likely undergo massive shifts.

4. Generation Z and Millenials Are The Future of Audience Growth

Taken together, millennials and Generation Z represent the publishing industry’s future. As of 2022, these two generations represent approximately 42% of the US population (source: Statista). In other words, engaging Gen Z and Millennials is non-negotiable for publishers.

Many publishers are struggling to earn attention from these growing groups. The American Press Institute (API) found that one-third (31%) of Gen Z never check local news outlets, and 33% never check national news outlets. Further, Americans aged 16-40 overwhelmingly rely on social media to discover news. This suggests that engagement and loyalty to social media platforms may be higher than traditional news outlets, or it could suggest that social media platforms simply offer the interactivity and community that younger generations expect.

Evolving your digital presence to offer more interactive and social experiences is necessary. This innovation involves adding technology like Arena Live Chat to your website so that your audience can interact with each other. It also means making editorial changes, like creating more video content, including short-form videos.

To show what’s possible when revenue diversification is done well, let’s look at the New York Times.

Publisher Revenue Diversification Success: The New York Times

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The New York Times has transformed itself into a digital media success story in the past few years. The news organization has pursued several revenue diversification strategies to succeed and is reporting that it has already surpassed its 2025 goal of 10M subscribers and total revenue greater than $2 billion. As of 2022, 80% of the company’s 10.98 million subscribers were digital-only. 

The company’s digital success is supported by a robust diversification strategy that includes publishing, app, and game space acquisitions. Over the past few years, the company has acquired the following properties:

  • The Athletic. The New York Times acquired this sports-focused publisher in 2022, which had 1.2 million at the end of 2021. The sports-focused publication covers over 200 clubs and teams as of 2022.
  • Wordle. In 2022, the New York Times acquired Wordle, a word puzzle game website, for at least $1 million. Wordle, which launched in October 2021, had over a million users by January 20202, according to The Street. 
  • Audm. In March 2020, the New York Times acquired Audm, an app that offers long-form reporting and stories in audio format. 
  • Wirecutter. Founded in 2011, the shopping recommendations website was bought by the New York Times for $30 million in 2016. In 2021, a standalone Wirecutter subscription was priced at $5 per month or $40 per year. 

These moves have added new capabilities, audiences, and revenue sources to the company that goes far beyond traditional news.

Revenue Diversification Options For Publishers

The following strategies represent new ways to offer value and generate revenue. These revenue streams are the lifeblood of niche digital properties. Adding one or more of these strategies to your strategy can be a game-changer.

1. Use Live Chat And Live Blog Experiences

Keeping your audience engaged on your digital platforms is vital. Audiences expect a fast and social experience thanks to the popularity of social media. Adding a live chat (or a live blog) to your website is a great way to meet those expectations.

These content experiences offer high rewards for the effort invested. You can create a live chat experience that creates additional advertising space on your website in less than an hour. Likewise, a live blog providing coverage on a trending topic can feature a mix of original content and social media updates. Live chat and live blog experiences keep audiences engaged longer, which means more advertising revenue.

2. Affiliate Marketing With Generative AI

Affiliate marketing means earning a commission when a person makes a purchase based on your recommendation. The Amazon affiliate program is the largest and best-known affiliate program on the market, but it is far from the only one. The industry is set to grow $14.3 billion in 2023 and generated $14.3 billion globally (over $5 billion in the US), according to Influencer Marketing Hub.

The Wirecutter, best known for publishing detailed reviews of products like kitchen appliances, electronics, and apparel, has most of its revenue from affiliate marketing.

3. Offer More Pricing Options With “Choose Your Own Price”

The rise of streaming services and losing interest in cable TV points to an opportunity for publishers: unbundling. Instead of offering a single paid subscription, look for ways to sell different tiers at different price points. Each option also unlocks new ways to increase the publishers’ advertising revenue. For example, some advertisers may be interested in digital-only, while others prefer omnichannel campaigns.

  • National Geographic. This classic magazine is highly popular with Millennials (one-third of its subscribers are Millennials). National Geographic is also ranked number #1 among MRI-measured magazines for its Generation Z reach1. The publisher revenue stream comes from four distinct offerings: National Geographic Premium, Nat Geo History, and two child-oriented offerings. In addition, the publisher continues to offer print-only options as well. 
  • Single Website Subscription. Take the New York Times, for example. Subscribers can choose to subscribe to a single website like The WireCutter for $5 per month or access this publisher as part of the “All Access” subscription at a higher price.
  • Ad Supported Pricing Tier. Streaming video services like Netflix, HBO, and Disney have positioned ad-supporting pricing as an option. These more affordable options are a way to grow your content revenue stream for consumers looking to cut costs. According to The Verge, Netflix’s ad-supported tier has 5 million subscribers as of 2023.

4. Ecommerce

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Direct product sales beyond a subscription are becoming more common for news publishers. For publishers with a passionate fan base, putting your logo on an everyday item is appealing. Let’s look at a few ways publications leverage ecommerce to supplement their content revenue stream.

  • UFC. According to Gen Z’s Favorite Brands report, UFC is one of the most popular sports brands for Gen Z. It is viewed more positively than the NBA and NFL brands. The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) is a media property with a significant online ecommerce presence. UFC’s ecommerce offerings include merchandise inspired by its best-known participants like Connor McGregor, Izzy Adesanya, Alexa Grasso, and Holly Holm.
  • Morning Brew. The Morning Brew, a news email newsletter, offers playful apparel (e.g., Future Rich Girl onesie) and professionally oriented products (e.g., Microsoft Excel function guides and other MBA-style business education offerings).
  • Sports Illustrated. The SI Shop offers a wide range of products, including Sports Illustrated products and a fan shop (i.e., products for pro football, pro baseball, college sports, and pro hockey). 

Directly selling products may not be a good fit for every publisher. Recommending products (i.e., affiliate marketing) to your audience is another way to diversify your reliance on an ad revenue stream.

5. Digital Audio

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Podcasts like Serial, This American Life, and The Daily built significant listener audiences. Recording and producing a podcast requires relatively minimal equipment ($500 or less on equipment). Some publishers, like the BBC and NPR, repurpose existing media to podcast form. That is an intelligent way to increase the publishers’ advertising revenue from your existing content.

Instead, the key draw to a podcast is the quality of the content. The content doesn’t have to be scripted in advance to succeed, either. Many of the most successful business podcasts, like Mixergy and Entrepreneurs on Fire, are interview based.

Creating a podcast creates a new revenue stream for publishers. Podcasting ad revenue was up 26% year over year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), in 2022. From a revenue viewpoint, the most successful podcast genres include comedy, sports, and society & culture.

Diversify Your Revenue Stream With Arena

Publishers like Globo, Fox Sports, and the Japan Times already use Arena to grow their audiences and advertising. Discover how you can increase publisher revenue with Arena’s solution for media.

Second Screen Tech: Should You Buy vs Build?

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Second-screen experiences – watching TV with your smartphone as a second screen – has fast become the new way to experience TV. Research shows that most Millennials and Gen Z audiences experience Gen Z this way. If you don’t offer a second-screen experience to your audience, your audience is at risk of disengaging.

The Second Screen Decision: Build or Buy?

Rolling out a second-screen experience to your audience is an important organizational decision. Like other transformational changes, there are a few ways to pursue this objective. Broadly speaking, you can build a solution using your technical talent or buy an existing solution and configure it for your needs.

There’s no single ideal choice in the buy vs. build debate. Instead, it’s important to think through the options to select the best choice for your circumstances.

Download our white paper “Generation Z and the Rise of the Second Screen” and transform your engagement strategy today.  

Building a Second-Screen Solution

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Creating your second-screen solution from scratch is a good idea in some situations. Discuss these issues with your team to see if this route fits.

1. Available development resources

Creating a new technology is resource-intensive. The first step is checking the availability of development or engineering resources. You may need multiple specialists to cover back-end development, front-end development, and the user experience (UI/UX). If you have staff available, creating a bespoke solution is powerful because you have a blank canvas to create your solution.

2. Priority on technological innovation 

Building a second-screen solution may also be a good option if your organization emphasizes technical innovation. Once upon a time, this consideration applied mainly to technology companies with deep pockets. However, some media companies are increasingly establishing significant apps and other technologies. Building from the ground up is a good pick if this is the case.

3. Maximizing broadcast rights 

Broadcast rights and similar arrangements give an organization a unique asset, mainly when these rights come with exclusivity. In this case, your organization has a substantial staff dedicated to video production, editing, and related disciplines. With that level of talent and unique content, creating your second-screen solution may be a good choice. 

4. High levels of fan engagement

For organizations with exceptionally high fan engagement levels, building a custom second-screen solution might be a good fit. If you already have millions of fans on your website and apps every month, developing a custom experience makes sense. You already have a significant amount of first-party data to draw upon to inform your solution.

Buying a second screen solution

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There are a few situations where buying a second-screen technology off the shelf and customizing it for your needs is wise.

1. Limited development resources

What can you do if your organization’s technical and engineering talent is fully booked? The answer lies in using a low-code or no-code solution. Arena Live Chat may be a good pick in this situation. You can install Arena in less than 10 minutes and launch your first session in less than an hour. 

Arena is designed with a non-technical end user in mind, so that marketers, content teams, and producers can quickly get up and running on their own.

2. Fan engagement challenges

Do you need help to hit your fan engagement goals? If so, you are far from alone. Earning and retaining Gen Z engagement can be difficult because of their digital preferences. 

Gen Z are social natives, so focusing solely on TV isn’t common for them. Many Gen Z (and Millenials, for that matter) frequently use their smartphone to check email, social media, chat with friends, and look up information while watching TV. To keep them engaged, offering a compelling second-screen experience on your website is vital.

Buying a second screen solution for your website is crucial when fan engagement levels are low or falling because of the speed it provides. For example, you can add Arena Live Chat to a website in less than an hour. Your audience already knows how to use online chat, so there’s a minimal learning curve for your audience.

3. Limited or no access to TV or equivalent streaming content

Creating a second-screen experience when you don’t have rights or access to TV or streaming content takes creativity. It may not be possible to create short video content like highlight clips or clips from TV shows. In this case, your brand has to offer something highly engaging and easy to access for your audience on their second screen.

Let’s give an example. Your online audience includes a large number of music fans. You’ve found out that many of them also enjoy the annual Grammy awards show. There’s just one problem – you don’t have the rights to broadcast the show. Don’t worry – you can still keep your audience engaged on their smartphones while watching TV. 

In this situation, a live blog on your website is a great option. Before the event airs, your team can post interviews and speculation about the upcoming awards. As the awards show airs, post reactions, context, and short interviews about the performances and surprises in the show. You can win your audience’s second-screen attention by regularly posting new updates as the Grammy Awards are given out. 

To increase audience engagement even further, offer a live chat experience on your website to discuss the broadcast live. Your live chat will compete against social media, email, and other digital activities for your audience’s attention. Make your live chat unique by inviting exciting guests and experts to share their thoughts and answer questions to stand out and win.

Two Second-Screen Solutions To Take For a Test Drive

Choosing the right second-screen technology for your needs takes time. Testing a tool with your audience is one of the best ways to find out if the solution is right for your needs. Arena’s leading second-screen solutions – Live Blog and Live Chat – offer a free trial to see how they work for your audience. 

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Both can be installed on your website in minutes without any engineering support. Learn more about how Arena helps you build online audiences on your website. You can grow audience engagement, earn more first-party data and win with Gen Z.

Get More Gen Z Sports Fans With Second Screen Strategies

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Keeping Gen Z and Millennials engaged with sports requires new strategies. Relying on a traditional TV broadcast to connect with fans is no longer enough. Find out new ways to reengage your younger audiences. The solution starts with understanding the rise of second-screen behaviors.

What Is The Second Screen Experience?

The data on TV and digital habits is clear. The majority of Gen Z (born 1997 to 2012) and Millenial (born 1981 to 1996) viewers are switching back and forth between their TV and other devices while watching. The smartphone is the primary second-screen device for most Gen Z and Millennials. 

Switching back and forth between the TV and their phone is the new reality. You can either fight this tendency by insisting that audiences put down their phones, or you can adapt. There are only a few situations where asking people to switch off their phones is feasible, like live theater or movie theater. The best bet for sports is assuming your audience will check their phones during a game. The question is this: will they find your content or not?

Download our white paper “Generation Z and the Rise of the Second Screen” and transform your sports strategy today.  

Sports Team Strategies

For sports teams, increasing fan engagement is critically important for a few reasons. Sports teams earn billions of dollars from ticket sales: an estimated $20 billion in 2019. There are also merchandise and other product sales to consider. Unfortunately, many in Gen Z – 47% – have never attended a pro sports game. That low attendance figure puts the industry’s future in question.

Adapting to changing viewing patterns starts with giving fans more opportunities to engage with your brand.

Leverage your athletes are creators

Start by looking for ways to involve your athletes in the creative process. Sports fans love understanding their favorite athletes’ daily life, training, and lifestyle. Take a look at Neymar Jr, a well-known Brazilian football player. His social media accounts have over 200 million followers. Some of his most popular online content includes a training video (over 250,000 views) and a video about his family story (1 million views).

While individual star athletes likely have the greatest name recognition, you don’t have to restrict yourself to those parts of your team. Clips and interviews with your team’s coaches, trainers, mascots, and others can create content. For example, check out Gritty – the official mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers – who has 1 million TikTok followers. 

Host an ask me anything (AMA) for your fans

The chance to ask questions and connect with your athletes is another way to connect with your fans. Use live chat on your website to organize an ask-me-anything with fans – a great way to grow fan engagement right before your next game.

Second Screen Strategies for Publishers

Your approach to second-screen content and experiences depends on your assets. For publishers with broadcast rights or another onsite reporting presence, your second-screen experience should support the TV experience. For other publishers, you can create a few different kinds of coverage like reaction videos, or AMAs as described above.

1. Improve your short video experience

Short-form video content – think TikTok videos – are one of the most popular forms of media with Gen Z. According to a 2022 survey, Gen Z uses YouTube and TikTok more than any other social platform. Meet this preference by creating more short videos like short interviews, reactions, and highlights.

For inspiration, take a look at the NBA’s TikTok channel. The channel’s videos include classic content like highlights from games. Other videos include “Celeb Row In Miami,” – featuring the celebrity guests attending a Miami game. 

To grow engagement further, use a mix of scheduled posts (i.e., explainer videos explaining the free agent process) and live posts (e.g., comment on a record-breaking game). 

2. Explore the intersection of tech and sports 

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Innovations are coming to sports, and fans want to know more about it. For example, some sports coverage has recently looked at the impact of artificial intelligence (e.g., robot-umpires). There are other angles to explore, like advances in sports medicine to improve training and performance results. 

Offering coverage on brand-new technologies – or including new technology directly – is a powerful way to make your coverage fresh and engaging. For example, Stats Perform offers performance analysis of more than 500 sports teams worldwide. This kind of data-driven sports coverage offers a new perspective. 

3. Use a live blog to cover games

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Most Gen Z and millennials watch TV with smartphones in their hand or nearby. The most popular second-screen behaviors include checking email, browsing social media, online shopping, chatting, and searching for information. 

With these behaviors in mind, you can succeed online by giving your audience a timely mobile experience. A live blog is a great fit for a second-screen experience. Your audience can quickly look up the latest post, skim it for additional information, and then go back to watching TV. 

A live blog is a great venue to invite sports influencers to participate in your coverage. One approach is to ask outside contributors to create content on a specific theme.

Take inspiration from the NFL, which invited Lisa Nguyen and Katie Feeney to create content related to the NFL draft in 2023. Working with influencers with millions of followers may be outside your budget. Fortunately, tools like Upfluence and Storyclash make it easy to search for influencers by audience size and other filters. 

Inviting influencers to contribute to your coverage is a great way to augment your in-house talent. Even better, working with Gen Z influencers goes a long way to unlocking Gen Z audience engagement. 

How To Launch Your Second-Screen Experience Quickly

Designing a detailed strategy for second-screen engagement may be wise if you’re working on a high-profile event like the Super Bowl. In other situations, there’s significant value in just getting started, launching a second-screen experience fast, and seeing what kinds of experiences resonate with your audience. 

Launching a second-screen experience on your website is fast and easy with Arena. You can install Arena in minutes without any development resources. Find out more about how Arena helps publishers and brands build online communities. 

5 Second Screen Habits To Connect With Gen Z

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The growing popularity of second-screen behavior while watching TV is here to stay. It’s vital to understand these new habits to win in keeping your audience engaged, especially if Millenials and Gen Z matter to you. Together, they make up 41% of the US population and are the future.

Second Screen Habits: What The Data Tells Us

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Once upon a time, second-screen behavior was described negatively as multitasking. The world has changed – these habits are how today’s audiences engage with TV programming and online information. 

Let’s examine how common second-screen behaviors have become with Millenials and Gen Z audiences. The following data is based on a 2021 survey of 1000 adults. 

1. Three Quarters of Millenials and Gen Z Are Heavy Second-Screen Users

A recent survey found that the overwhelming majority of Gen Z (76.5%) and Millennials (76.4%) state that they “often” or “always” browse the internet on a separate device while watching TV. In contrast, the same measure for overall US adults is 62%. 

2. The Smartphone Is The Default Second-Screen

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Not surprisingly, smartphones are the second-screen device of choice for Millennials and Gen Z. Surveys estimate that 96-98% of Gen Z own smartphones, while about 95% of Millennials own a smart phone. In comparison, 85% of the US population as a whole owns a smartphone. 

3. These 5 Types of TV Shows Have The Highest Second Screen Usage

The story starts to get more nuanced when discussing the specific TV shows associated with second-screen behaviors. The top five TV genres with high second-screen usage include reality shows, talk shows, game shows, live sports, and children’s shows. 

While second-screen usage is widespread in these genres, it is still common elsewhere. For example, the sitcom genre has 50% second screen usage. 

If you’re unclear where to focus your second-screen resources, start with the top 5 genres first. You’re likely to get the greatest payoff for your efforts there. 

Download our white paper “Generation Z and the Rise of the Second Screen” and transform your engagement strategy today.  

4. What Second-Screen Activities Are Most Popular?

The most popular second-screen activities include the following:

  • Check email
  • Social media
  • Texting/message
  • Playing games
  • Shopping
  • Looking up information

Only a tiny fraction (10% of the population is engaged in professional work while watching TV. For the most part, second-screen behaviors are leisure-oriented.

5. What About Second Screen Social Media Usage?

Social media platforms are not equal regarding the second-screen context. For Gen Z, Instagram is the most popular second-screen platform. Millennials prefer Facebook while watching TV. 

What The Rise of Second Screen Behavior Means For You

There are a few significant implications for second-screen behaviors. Your audience’s attention will drift away toward their smartphone regularly while watching TV. Given that tendency, the next question is: how can you offer a compelling digital experience that keeps your audience engaged?

Start by checking that you have the right building blocks for second-screen success. The following checklist will ensure you have everything you need to start.

1. Have You Participated In A Second-Screen Experience Recently?

There’s nothing like direct experience to understand the second-screen experience. This is one of those rare times when you can watch TV and call it work! 

Pick a show and pull out your smartphone while you watch. Go through the most common second-screen activities like checking email, social media, and texting with friends.

Reflect on your second-screen experience. What did you like most? Did you find your attention wandering from the TV? Did you connect online with other people watching the same show?

2. Are Digital and TV Teams Aligned?

For broadcasters, aligning your TV and digital teams is a powerful way to deliver a second-screen experience. For instance, if your new season launches on Thursday night, then your online team should have content prepared to build anticipation in advance. 

3. Is Your Social Media Prepared For Engagement?

Social media is one of the most popular second-screen activities. Given that reality, getting your social media staff ready for engagement is vital. You can start by creating and scheduling content to align with the TV show. Aligning is easiest with traditional TV broadcast schedules. With streaming, there is usually some online buzz when a popular series is about to become available. 

There’s an even better way to engage your audience socially: set up a live blog right on your website. All the social features your audience expects – liking, commenting and sharing – will be there. Even better, you can curate a brandsafe experience, so that your audience doesn’t get turned off by inappropriate or off topic content. 

4. Have You Tested Your Website For Mobile Lately?

Searching for information about what they’re viewing is one of the most common second-screen experiences. With that behavior in mind, taking a few minutes to test your website on an actual smartphone is smart. Smartphone simulators are helpful for testing but don’t capture the experiential side.

While viewing your website on your smartphone, take note of the following:

Speed

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In a second screen context, the speed of your mobile website is critically important. Your audience might check their phone for a few seconds, and if your website is too slow, you’ll lose engagement.

Navigation

Is your website navigation easy to use on a mobile device? Plenty of websites streamline navigation for mobile, but it is easy to go too far with this.

Sharing Features

The most common second-screen activities are using social media and looking up information. To grow your audience, your website needs to make it easy to share pages, articles, videos, and more on social media. Check if your sharing functionality runs smoothly on a smartphone. 

5. Offer A Chat Experience

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Chatting and texting are one of the most common second-screen experiences. That’s an opportunity to increase audience engagement on your website! With Arena Live Chat, you can plan and launch a live chat experience in minutes. 

Arena Live Chat includes both manual and automation moderation features which means you can offer a brand-safe experience to your audience, on your own properties, while collecting first party data.

Our research has shown that Gen Z prefers curated social experiences – think Discord – versus older feed based platforms with less relevant content. Arena makes it easy to meet these expectations right on your website.

For more guidance on getting started fast, check out our guide: How To Setup A Second Screen Experience In Less Than An Hour.

The Next Step To Launch Your Second-Screen Experience

Second-screen behavior is very popular with Gen Z and Millennial TV audiences. Your audience is going to pick up their smartphone while watching TV. The only question is whether or not they will pay attention to your brand at those moments. Offering an online community experience on your website is one of the best ways to grow audience engagement. Find out more about Arena’s community experiences.

Gen Z Wants Something Different From Social Media

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Gen Z’s passion for social media is well documented, so much so they’re often referred to as “Social Natives,” but a recent development is challenging our understanding of this generation.

Gen Z (born 1997 to 2012) is increasingly moving away from traditional feed-based social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. According to Impero research, 65% of Gen Z users feel more confident using community-focused social media apps like Twitch and Discord. This shift in focus is a return to the pre-social media Internet communities like bulletin boards.

What We Know About Gen Z’s Online Habits

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To put the shift in Gen Z online behavior into context, it’s helpful to look at a few numbers.

  • Facebook: 49% of Gen Z use Facebook according to a 2022 survey, making it the 4th most popular social platform. In contrast, 69% of Millennials prefer Facebook over other social media platforms.
  • Twitter. 47% of Gen Z say they use the micro-blogging platform in 2022. Once again, Millennials are a larger share of the Twitter user base. One estimate pegged Millennials at 80% of Twitter (source).
  • Discord. While much smaller in absolute terms, Discord has attracted significant Gen Z engagement. Insider Intelligence estimates that 35% of all Gen Z are on Discord. Gen Z is an influential audience for a platform with approximately 140 million monthly active users in 2021.

Of course, there are exceptions to this pattern, like TikTok, which has a similar feed-based experience. Nonetheless, the increasing popularity of smaller online communities tells us something important about the evolution of Gen Z in the digital age.‍

The Problem With Big Platform Feeds‍

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Imperso’s research Gen Z’s top concerns in the online world includes seeing themselves as unique, a sense of community, voice, and privacy considerations. The Pew Research Center also points out that “Gen Zers are progressive and pro-government, most see the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity as a good thing.”

Large social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are not well-positioned to meet Gen Z expectations.

Gen Z’s concerns over the big social platforms are unlikely to be fully satisfied soon. Take privacy as an example. Facebook’s history of privacy scandals is well documented, of large fines, legal problems, and more. Under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter has reduced its safeguards that discouraged misinformation, a move that alarmed many and caused advertising spend to plunge 89% since before his takeover in October.

Curated Communities Are Winning

Discord offers an interesting case study showing how to create more focused communities. While Twitter primarily operates as a fully public platform, Discord offers more curated experiences. To understand Discord’s appeal, briefly covering a few critical details about the platform is helpful.

Established in 2015, Discord first rose to prominence in gamer communities. The text and audio-based platform offered an easy way for gaming enthusiasts to gather and enjoy games together. Each Discord server comprises multiple channels, some open to all (e.g., general chat) while others are restricted (e.g., announcements or rules).

While video game-related interests remain the most popular on Discord, the platform is evolving. There are Discord servers for book enthusiasts, education (e.g., communities focused on learning a language and science), cars, and sports.

In contrast to other platforms, Discord servers have a few points in common. They are focused on a specific topic. These communities also offer the kinds of social functions that Gen Z has come to expect, like social reactions, private messaging, friend requests, emojis, and more.

In contrast to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other larger platforms, Discord does not have advertising in the traditional sense. The lack of powerful advertising tools may discourage some brands from pursuing platforms like Discord, but building a focused online community revolving around your online brand is worth the effort, even if that specific platform is not for you.

Why Relying On Social Media Platforms To Engage Gen Z Is Risky

Maintaining an active presence on social media platforms is still essential. Gen Z is still very active on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. At the same time, those platforms are noisy, with many different kinds of content. It can be tough to build an engaged community when there are so many distractions one click away.

Putting all your community-building efforts into social media also comes at a significant cost. It means you are depending on another company to access your community. They can change the rules (and pricing) suddenly. Apart from that concern, you’re very limited in how much data you can gather. Building your online community on your website is vital, with third-party cookies set to disappear soon.

3 Ways To Make Your Website More Engaging For Gen Z

Attracting and keeping Gen Z audiences engaged on your website is easier when you use the following best practices.

Mobile Optimized

Smartphone ownership and use in Gen Z is very high. Approximately 85% of the US population owns a smartphone, while 98% of Gen Z has a smartphone. Therefore, your website must look great and respond fast to mobile devices. Gen Z also loves video content – as shown by their heavy use of TikTok – so make sure your videos look great on mobile.

Social Media Style Functionality

Gen Z will not spend all their time browsing product pages or other forms of static content. They expect to have a social experience. Fortunately, Arena Live Chat offers an easy way to offer this experience on any digital platform you manage.

Brand-safe Community Experiences

Deloitte research found that diversity is crucial to Gen Z. Also, Deloitte found that Gen Z judges companies based on their “ethics, practices and social impact” along with the quality of their products. Running your online community in a socially responsible manner is one way to show you understand Gen Z needs.

Offering a brand-safe experience through moderation is also important given the age of Gen Z. Many in Gen Z are not yet adults, so a reasonable level of moderation is essential.

Grow Your Online Community For Gen Z

Gen Z is the future, so it’s time to prepare for them. Find out how Arena can help you build an online community on your website.