The role of Chief Editor is becoming obsolete
Social lead, SEO expert, commercial smarts, marketing guru - running websites and brands are about so much more than being able to edit and understand content
In 2024, managing a digital-first publisher in any capacity, let alone football, means knowing about a helluva lot more than your initial job title suggests.
The landscape, and the way in which traffic is generated for websites, means that the chief editor must be acutely aware of how, and why, things work. And it’s not always pretty.
Walled Gardens
Quite often in a mature organisation there are degrees of knowledge protection at play. There is a paranoia that by being generous with your area of expertise and exposing this to the wider business, you will somehow make yourself less valuable.
And it works in the opposite direction. Digital Chief Editors should, really, have been exposed to all aspects of the business - not least commercial - a long time ago.
But with the challenges facing pure news production within the industry, classifying yourself in the digital space as merely an editor, or content producer, is simply too narrow.
So what do you need to know, and how can you build up a broader set of skills that can apply as the world turns away from straight ‘news’?
Social & Google: Where does the traffic come from?
Your site is generating page views and unique users. Well done. No mean feat these days. But where are they coming from, and how did they get there?
Some editors, for their sins, and indeed others connected with a media publishing businesses, only care when numbers are going down . No-one likes to dive into where they came from when the numbers were good.
But this is way more important to know why and when you are doing things right.
Recognise the trends that moved the dial upwards
Understand the differences in headlines across multiple referrers
Get under the hood of what these websites want, and step back from it if it doesn’t fit with your business goals
Have a tacit knowledge of each platform. How does Facebook work? How does Google work? How does Twitter work?
It’s no longer about selecting the stories and shoving them out there to a direct audience - at least, if you’re not the BBC or Sky Sports. It’s about packaging those stories in a way that sells them best on each specific platform.
Marketing: Where does brand awareness come from?
But that was the stuff you already knew about. You are generating page views and unique users. How are you going to reach more people?
Unfortunately, most editors are meant to at least know the basics of marketing, too.
Which platforms provide the most reach and which content type will be most effective?
What message are we looking to convey with our content?
How will we maintain this message on a long-term basis?
Which avenues of reaching audience can we take advantage of to expand our content offering (Substack, Discord, Whatsapp, Telegram?
Which other sites/influencers can we collaborate with?
It’s all part of the big dance to earn traffic, build a loyal audience, but hopefully have credibility in what is being produced. It’s not easy, but it’s important to know about.
Commercial: Where does the money come from?
You’re generating page views, social media likes and shares, and your brand as far as you, Mr Editor, is concerned, is valuable. But is it really? There’s much about Digital Publishing that exists behind that walled garden I mentioned before.
How does programmatic advertising work? What is the CPM for my content?
How do content recirculation companies work?
How is branded content sold?
How are social media channels monetised?
Are there merchandising opportunities?
Now this is a free newsletter, so I’m not going to provide the answers. But having at least an understanding of the answers is crucial come budgeting time.
Budgeting: How can I spend my money?
Many editors are in the game because of their love of words, and their distaste of numbers. Luckily my own career, with a background in Accountancy, has helped me way more than I thought it would.
Because in my experience, the further up the food chain you move in digital publishing, the less time you spend reading content and the more you spend looking at spreadsheets filled with numbers assigned to columns, with lines next to people.
Budgets for you, your team, for social outreach, for analysis, it’s all there and all has to be accounted for in the big number that values your website.
Again, understanding this dynamic and market rates for roles is not for everyone, but it’s as essential as any of the items above.
Conclusion
If you’ve been in digital content production, there’s a good chance you’ve been exposed to one, some, or all of these before
And if you have, the title Chief Editor drastically narrows your skillset. You’re doing so much more than that, and it’s time to shout about it yourself - no-one else will.
And if you haven’t, learn!