When it comes to any news item, PR pros constantly try to weigh a range of variables to create the best strategy for their company or clients. Some of their top of mind questions include: what days are the best to attract the most readers? What types of articles garner the most eyeballs? What news cycles should we try to have a voice in – and which should we try to avoid? How can we best navigate a negative news cycle? While there is no formula that works for every scenario, knowing what people actually read can help.
That’s why we are excited to share our second annual State of Media & Readership Report, which takes a closer look at some of the major trends, insights, stories, and key learnings from news people read in 2023.
What are the takeaways from 2023?
We analyzed more than half a million articles for this year’s report. Our goal was to provide you with the most actionable, data-backed insights to help inform your media strategy in the year ahead.
Some of the key takeaways include:
- News cycles move fast. An article receives 76% of its readership within the first 3 days of publication, on average. Communicators should prioritize responses and correction requests immediately.
- Mind your social commentary, CEOs. Social issues emerged as a hotly read topic among CEO news, attracting more readers than CEO stories relating to the economy, layoffs, leadership style, politics, and more.
- AI is hot, but articles attracting readers are concentrated. AI got a lot of coverage in 2023, but PR professionals should be wary of making the centerpiece of their strategy. 7% of articles made up nearly 50% of readership on the topic.
- Paywalls aren’t a dead end. It’s easy for comms pros to dismiss paywalled articles as being siloed and limited in reach, but there is also opportunity. Data shows that when a paywalled article get’s syndicated there is a +35% bump in readers, compared to just a +15% bump when the original source is non-paywalled.
- Layoffs frequently spotlight missteps. Navigating layoffs or restructures is always going to be challenging, but a few things made them decidedly worse from a readership perspective. Temporarily closing offices to conduct virtual layoffs is one way to draw eyes (McDonald’s) – it led to a 66% increase of readers – and rescinded job offers following layoffs is another – the company saw more than 13x its typical readers (Flexport).
There’s a lot more to unpack in this year’s analysis. Download the full report to see all the findings.