Why Platform Trumps Content And Personality

Marketing Lesson of The Week

► Why Your Main Platform Trumps Content and Personality

Last Monday, Fox News dismissed Tucker Carlson and his Executive Producer. The only public explanation was their press release. It read as follows:

“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.” (Source)

Further, Carlson has remained uncharacteristically quiet about his departure.

To-date, Fox News is filling Carlson’s timeslot with basic news tailored to their audience’s tastes. This is a sharp contrast to Carlson’s colorful commentary. This content satisfies their viewers without the use of extreme language or questionable images

To put this change in perspective, Carlson’s 8pm (ET) show ranked second according to Nielsen’s 1Q2023 ratings of television audiences. The show’s audience averages 3.25 million viewers. This includes people who watched the show in real-time, via non-television devices and time-shifted it.

Tucker Carlson Tonight ranks second in television ratings and audience size.

As a marketer, did you think:
How can a media entity or other platform risk losing such a large audience?

By remaining quiet, Fox News had reduced the lifespan and salience of the story.

Result:
Limited impact on their audience.

► Actionable Platform Marketing Lesson: Fox News

Fox News decided to let Carlson go knowing that it wouldn’t hurt their brand or bottom line over the long run.

Why?
Carlson isn’t the first high-profile employee with whom Fox News has parted ways. Other high-profile examples include Roger Ailes, Fox News’s former president, and Bill O’Reilly, whose show Carlson took over.

Translation:
Platform trumps personality and/or content over time.

Carlson was good at feeding his audience the highly tailored content they wanted in an easy-to-understand presentation that translated well to social media.

While this appeared to make Carlson look untouchable, the reality is the long-term gains he made accrued to the network. So Fox News may suffer a short-term loss in rankings and audience, but over time this change will look like a small blip.

Bottom line:
Based on its past experience, the management of Fox News knows that its platform is stronger than the combination of its talent, content and presentation.

► Platform Marketing Case Study: MSNBC

Need further proof regarding the strength of platforms over personality and content?
Let’s examine another case study.

On the Nielsen chart, the Alex Wagner Tonight show on MSNBC clocks in at number 18. What makes this surprising is that the show has been on MSNBC for less than a year.

So why is it ranking in the top 25 shows?
Prior to hosting this show, Wagner was a fixture of unrated cable shows and highly rated social media darlings, not the television big leagues. By itself, this isn’t enough to push Wagner’s show to the top.

So why does her show make the Top 25 Ranked Television Shows?
Because she took over a slot previously covered by Rachel Maddox’s highly-rated show.

Maddox built the slot into a must-watch show for a wide variety of small, diverse audiences. Together, these audiences created an eye-popping total. While Maddox used her power to negotiate a new opportunity at the network, her audience remained loyal to her previous timeslot.

Why?
Because Maddox had made the MSNBC 9pm time slot into a content habit for her audience and the viewing habit remained after she left the show.

As “The Hook Canvas” created by Nir Eyal shows:
Once a habit is created, it a lot of work to change.

Actionable Marketing Tips

• Build your audience on an owned platform. While it may be easier initially to build an audience on another platform, to succeed, get your audience to follow you to a platform you own.
• Offer content in a variety of formats. Allow your audience to choose how they consume your content. This includes formats, times and devices.

Content Communicates

► How To Maximize Earned Traffic

Donor-financed ProPublica’s story about how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s ongoing relationship with Dallas businessman Harlan Crow has benefited him and his family continues to grow and attract attention across the US.

Since then, ProPublica’s staff continues to widen and deepen its coverage of the Supreme Court Justice. Almost every day they publish new content and/or updated past stories.

► How ProPublica Maximizes Traffic

Each new article has a header bar with a “Donate” button that remains visible during the entire user session. Further, there is a “Donate” button in the top image.

Further, ProPublica drives readers to related content on their website. This image shows their sidebar of related stories.

What is missing? Another “Donate” button.

ProPublica drives readers to related stories about Supreme Court Justice Thomas.

Actionable Content Marketing Tips

• Always make it easy for readers to find related content. Add links to related stories within the text of your content. Where appropriate, add a Table of Contents like ProPublica does.
• Include a call-to-action in your Table of Contents to encourage visitors to take another action. Guide them to increase their relationship with your brand. See the proposed “Please Donate” box above.

► How To Get The Best Results From Traffic Boosts

As a donation-based platform, ProPublica’s site was created to get the maximum results from each visitor regardless of their daily traffic results. Even better, these actions contribute to ProPublica’s search marketing efforts.

ProPublica has added the following opportunities to engage visitors and make them stay on their website:

• Provide a short summary so readers know whether they want to continue reading or to share the content. This reduces their bounce rate on search engines and their website.
• Make it easy to share content. ProPublica offers a variety of different social media sharing options with related content and visuals.
• Offer an audio option. This is a great way to increase visitor time on-site.

Actionable Content Marketing Tip

• Use common options for newsletter registration and other actions. ProPublica uses a text link to encourage newsletter registration. Instead, make it fast and easy with a consistent registration button. At a minimum, test it on different devices.Here’s our newsletter registration. Sign up if you aren’t already a subscriber!
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► How To Maximize Earned Media

My friend and colleague, Gini Dietrich, of Spin Sucks developed the PESO Model to explain how Paid, Earned, Social and Owned Media work together.

Of these 4 media types, earned media is the hardest get to drive quality results. Earned media requires getting other media entities to spotlight your content on their sites.

ProPublica’s blockbuster reporting about Supreme Court Justice Thomas is a great example of earned media. Since media entities and platforms are referencing the story yielding a ton of earned media. To date, these media entities and other platforms have followed ProPublica’s legal terms of use.

For example, here’s a YouTube video of how MSNBC host Chris Hayes presented the story.

ProPublica story on MSNBC and YouTube without ProPublica‘s branding

This video spotlighting the story of Clarence Thomas generated 330+k views on YouTube to-date. As a result, it ranks in Google for the search term “ProPublica Clarence Thomas”.

While this is good for ProPublica, they could get more visibility if their branding was extended to this visual on both MSNBC and YouTube.

Actionable Content Marketing Tips

• Swap their standing Republication Rules when this story took off to require other entities to include ProPublica’s branding and related story URL. This would have increased their earned media and site visitors.
• Add multiple “Donate” buttons to all related stories.

Marketing Reads

To get a full understanding of the Creator Economy, read Joe Pulizzi’s Content, Inc. Second Edition.

Our AMG Interview with Joe gives you new insights into how to become a Content Entrepreneur.

To celebrate some of our favorite Creative Entrepreneurs, check out their books:

Jay Acunzo	Jay Baer	Roberto Blake	Andy Crestodina	Chris Drucker	Ann Handley	Robert Rose

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