Content Strategy

The 2 Most Important Things in Media

The 2 Most Important Things in Media

Entering 2018, it's easy for publishers to remain in defense mode as they brace for another year of battling the duopoly. The growing space occupied by Facebook and Google continued to be a neverending ping pong battle in 2017, with Google eventually clinching the year by bringing more traffic to publishers than Facebook. It's been a delicate, nerve-racking dance for publishers to play the platform game, and it's even caused some rivalries to transform into alliances.


For us at RebelMouse, 2018 is about continuing our goal to create and fuel content that doesn't fight the platforms, but rather allows content to move across platforms seamlessly. Ease across platforms enables organic growth — a term some consider to be obsolete.

But in reality, organic defines the two most important concepts for content this year. Organic reach and organic loyalty are crucial springboards to amplifying your message and creating new loyal followers.

Organic Loyalty

The concept of loyalty has made quite a lot of evolutionary growth over the past several years. From the birth of the home page to the rise of social, what creates loyalty changes as often as the algorithms do.

You can pay for loyalty by giving into pay-to-play entirely — organizing sweepstakes and posting clickbait — or you can connect with people in a deep and meaningful way. In 2017, you saw this happen with BuzzFeed's powerhouse Tasty. By deep diving into niche, relevant, and reliable content, new loyal followers can be created consistently. There's no way to master reach without organic loyalty. The truly valuable and beloved companies have built a sustainable content model — one that drives repeat, direct visits.

Companies who abandon the priority of building a loyal audience are deciding — consciously or not — to build a much less ambitious business. A business that relies on an ecosystem that can change its rules on a whim. They're also unlikely to build a substantial extended audience because they lack the consistent seeding of content that loyalists bring to the table.

We now live in an ecosystem where one viral moment isn't enough to garner meaningful awareness for your brand or media company. It takes many shining moments that nurture your followers into a loyal partnership with your content.

Organic Reach

Facebook traveled a turbulent road in 2017, battling both the fake news fiasco and the fallout from Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The shakeups forced the platform to enact sweeping changes throughout the year, including implementing new guidelines for publishers. The adjustments brought on more algorithm changes, which has led to an ongoing headache for publishers who are fighting to stay on top of how to "win" on Facebook — publishers that are already dealing with fleeting rules and a market oversaturated with content.

Visibility in the News Feed is competitive. RebelMouse worked hard last year to stay on top of every algorithm change and pivot within the platform for our clients, allowing them to instead focus on dynamic content creation. It paid off for new media properties like Azula, who saw 398% growth in their Facebook traffic after switching to our platform.

Growth like Azula experienced can only happen by vigilantly keeping up with the ebbs and flows of Facebook. This means understanding what kind of content and strategies are creating organic reach at a particular moment in time. For instance, earlier last year we learned that long-form content still has a meaningful place on the platform. Writers are still valuable, and the pivot to video may have been a knee-jerk reaction — though not completely in vain. Leveraging Instant Articles continues to be a way for publishers to monetize on the platform without sacrificing user experience.

Organic reach on Facebook is still possible with the right finessing, but luckily other platforms made it easier last year for content to get recognized. Instagram continued to break records for number of users, with the new Stories feature bringing in 200 million users in 2017 alone. LinkedIn adapted to native video and saw huge increases in content shares as the year progressed. Twitter continued to reign over the news cycle in 2017 as well, often being an early indicator — much like Reddit — of stories that would later go viral on Facebook.

As these other platforms begin to make distributed content more commonplace, it makes the case for organic reach more obtainable too — both on and off Facebook. As the audience widens, so does content's path to viral success.

Go Organic in 2018

Organic loyalty truly can't be created without first optimizing your content for organic reach. That's why these two concepts are the two most important things in content this year. We can help you implement the right strategies to make sure your site is set up for organic growth and real revenue in 2018. You don't even have to switch to the RebelMouse platform.

What Is RebelMouse?
Request a Proposal

Where 
Websites Are Built

The Fastest Sites in the World Run on RebelMouse

Let’s Chat

new!

RebelMouse Performance Monitoring

Real-Time Core Web Vitals

Get Started
DISCOVER MORE

Our Core Features

Our platform is a complete digital publishing toolbox that's built for modern-day content creators, and includes game-changing features such as our:

animate
Layout and Design toolLayout and Design tool on mobile
animate

Why RebelMouse?

Unprecedented Scale

RebelMouse sites reach more than 120M people a month, with an always-modern solution that combines cutting-edge technology with decades of media savvy. And due to our massive scale, 1 in 3 Americans have visited a website powered by RebelMouse.

120M+ Users
550M+ Pageviews
17+ Avg. Minutes per User
6+ Avg. Pages per User

Today's Top Websites Use RebelMouse

Thanks to the tremendous scale of our network, we are able to analyze a wealth of traffic data that informs our strategies and allows us to be a true strategic partner instead of just a vendor.

upworthyindy100Vault12No Film SchoolRawStoryResponsible StatecraftPrideMNI Market NewsPremierGuitarPenskeINN Educate Brand ConnectThe FulcrumGZEROOkayafricaBrit+CoPaper MagazinePowerToFlyNarcityCommonDreamsAllBusiness

What Clients Say

We’re here to help you weigh and understand every tech and strategic decision that affects your digital presence. Spend less time managing everything yourself, and more time focused on creating the quality content your users deserve.

Case Studies

A Team Built Like No Other

RebelMouse employs a unique, diverse, and decentralized team that consists of 70+ digital traffic experts across more than 25 different countries. We have no central office, and we cover every time zone to ensure that we’re able to deliver amazing results and enterprise-grade support around the clock.

Our team is well-versed in all things product, content, traffic, and revenue, and we strategically deploy ourselves to help with each element across all of our clients. We thrive on solving the complex.

Let's Chat