How the Economist has boosted readership via social media

Denise Law, the community editor at The Economist, writes about its social media efforts in the past year.

Law writes, “We have made huge progress so far. The Economist’s social-media following expanded by 55% year-on-year. Unique visitors from social channels are up 40% during the same period. Remarkably, monthly social-media engagements rose nearly 90% year on year despite fewer users logging onto Twitter and Facebook tightening its algorithm. Digital subscriptions, meanwhile, increased by 31% year-on-year in the second half of 2015, proving that people are willing to pay for high quality content despite an abundance of free alternatives.

“None of this was an easy feat. Here are the eight most important lessons we learned in the past year.

1. Identify your problems and build a strategy that solves them

“In finding new subscribers, The Economist faces two main challenges. First, there’s a whole universe of people who have no clue we exist. According to Pew, 60% of Americans have never heard of us. Second, many think we cover only economics and finance when in reality we’ve been writing about politics, culture and other topics since 1843, the year we were founded.

“Social media plays a crucial role in helping to solve these problems. Our mission is both to raise awareness about our brand and to change misconceptions about what we offer. We do this by showcasing the breadth of our journalism in a variety of formats as well as responding to angry queries by readers when we post, for example, a film review.”

Read more here.