Fortune magazine CEO Alan Murray sent out the following to the staff on Wednesday:
Hello Fortune team! As we continue to spring forward through 2023, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the amazing audience growth we’ve achieved over the past few years—a trend we plan to continue! On Fortune.com, we saw 90% growth in pageviews in 2022 year-over-year, up to 427 million from 225 million in 2021. As a result, our programmatic revenue doubled year-over-year in 2022. For reference, in 2019—our first year of independence—Fortune.com received 176 million pageviews. Much of that growth has been driven by content on some of our newest desks: Global News, Success, and Fortune Well, in addition to efforts by our social media and tech teams.
We have also seen tremendous growth off platform, with syndication revenue up 87% year-over-year in 2022. Views of Fortune content appearing on outlets such as Apple News, Yahoo, and MSN were up 233% year-over-year. Brian Ernst, Executive Director of Business Development, and Ashley Lutz, Executive Director of Editorial Growth, both deserve a special shout out for their efforts in increasing Fortune’s visibility and profitability in these areas.
Over on Fortune’s social media channels, social referral traffic was up 300% year-over-year in 2022, and Fortune now has 6.5 million social media followers after a gain of 450,000 last year. Fortune added nearly 130,000 Twitter followers last year, and doubled our Instagram following to 435,000 followers. We’re now seeing 6 million social video views each month after just launching those efforts in June.
Collaboration is one of our great strengths, and it has been a driving force behind these achievements. Many of you have taken advantage of the opportunity to learn what colleagues in other departments are doing in Fortune’s monthly Lunch & Learns, which have been averaging 80 participants each session, virtually and in person.
Last month, Features Editor Matt Heimer walked us through the Fortune features process from soup to nuts, and explained what makes great print magazine content. We’re always looking for more speakers and hosts, so don’t hesitate to raise your hand.
We are also seeking participants for our other Culture & DEI Committee initiatives, especially our Buddy Program and Mentorship Program. The Buddy Program is an informal three-month long commitment. More experienced employees are each matched with a new hire to show them the Fortune ropes for 30 minutes at a time a few times a month, including a coffee break paid for by Fortune. The Mentorship Program is a professional development initiative that pairs more-experienced employees with less-experienced employees to share knowledge and skills, and to support their professional development. Please sign up here for a great opportunity to expand your own intra-Fortune network.
Finally, many of you will remember our former colleague, Beth Kowitt. Last week, her story “The Life and Death of Kent Taylor” won the 2022 Association for Business Journalists SABEW Best in Business award in the Retail category, medium division, and it received an honorable mention in the Feature category, medium division. On Slack, Features Editor Matt Heimer said, “I love it because Beth does a brilliant job of weaving together a dramatic business story with intimate personal details.” Congratulations to Beth, and to everyone who had a hand in Fortune’s latest award-winning story.
