Web traffic and video top priorities for publishers

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 20/05/2022

Addressing post-pandemic declining web traffic is a focus for a majority of publishers this year with 73% saying this is a top priority. 63% predict video will be more important. 43% will focus on newsletters and 33% on podcasts. Social media is important with 83% stressing Instagram while only 20% think TikTok will be important, according to a global survey by London-based tech consultancy Echobox.

”Our survey highlights the unique post-pandemic landscape publishers find themselves in from 2021 and 2022: declining traffic coupled with relatively stable ad revenue.”

“Just under half of our respondents (47%) reported declining traffic to be the most significant challenge they faced over the past year, in addition to staying ahead of the Facebook algorithm (40%), something which can have a significant bearing on referral traffic. Nearly three quarters (73%) said that traffic would be a major focus for the year ahead. Conversely only 13% reported declining ad revenues as a major concern in 2021, with fewer still citing a loss of revenue from print and live events (10%).”

Key findings:

• 73% of publishers say addressing declining website traffic is a top priority this year.
• Declining traffic (47%), staying ahead of the Facebook algorithm (40%) and growing digital subscriptions (37%) were the greatest challenges of 2021, according to respondents.

• New content formats will continue to play a vital role in publishers’ engagement strategies with video (63%), newsletters (43%) and podcasts (33%) becoming more important in 2022.

• Instagram’s appeal to publishers endures with 83% of respondents saying the platform will be more important this year than last.

• 40% of those surveyed will increase the number of newsletters they offer, while a further 24% who don’t offer newsletters will start.

• Automation will be of increased importance this year to 67% of publishers.

”The substantial number of publishers looking to grow social followers and engagement (57%) and improve the quality of published content (50%) suggest that social media and content will be two key levers for generating and maintaining traffic.”

83% indicate that Instagram will be of more importance this year than last, dwarfing the likes of Facebook. Just 20% report TikTok being more important this year.

Publishers´ social media priorities:

• Instagram 83%
• Facebook 37%
• Twitter 23%
• TikTok 20%
• LinkedIn 13%
• YouTube 3%

”The low response rate for YouTube, again, in light of the strong interest in video in the coming year, is interesting. In last year’s report, we noted that 52% of respondents believed YouTube would be of increased importance in 2021.”

“This year however, that number has  dropped precipitously to just 3%. It may be that with the planned investment in content for the likes of Instagram, publishers are tailoring their content accordingly with specific dimensions and formats in mind which do not translate easily onto YouTube.”

“ Moreover, publishers who do look to produce longer, larger format videos (typically those publishers with greater resources at their disposal) may end up bypassing YouTube altogether and using other third-party or in-house solutions to produce and host their content.”

”Our survey revealed that consolidating this subscription growth is a core focus for 2022 with newsletters the engagement strategy of choice. 64% of our respondents aimed to either start producing newsletters, or increase the number of newsletters they offer.”

The survey says respondents indicated an overwhelming interest in deepening their use of AI with 74% reporting that AI will be important or very important in the coming year. 67% described AI as being more significant to them this year than last.

The survey included participants from the following countries: Argentina, Bulgaria, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay