distributed content

More and more TV stations and other news producers are turning to Facebook’s Live and Instant Articles features to deliver their content directly on Facebook’s platform and tap into its huge mobile audience. However, that means ceding a lot of control to Facebook, starting with letting original content live natively on its platform. And it remains to be seen how much ad money publishers will get from the arrangement.

Former Fox digital exec Ron Stitt argues that broadcasters should without question embrace distributed content opportunities, both with major players like Facebook and via collaborative networks of other first-party publishers. Developing the right organizational support and workflows to manage the strategy is the key first step, he says.

In the latest of an ongoing series on how different news organizations are deploying distributed content strategies, Mădălina Ciobanu looks at Fusion’s operation. Fusion deploys a 12-person team for content production on Instagram, Vine, Tumblr and Snapchat Discover, the latter to which eight members are devoted daily. The team, which collaborates on Slack, is also divided between Oakland, New York and Fusion’s Miami HQ.

Allowing original content to live entirely on other platforms has spread through online publishing with locomotive force. Some broadcasters are experimenting with it, but many worry it will erode traffic to their own websites and apps after spending years cultivating it.

Embracing distributed content: “Sometimes we’re going to reach consumers on our own platforms, and sometimes we’re quite happy for that to be on other people’s platforms.”

Allowing original content to live entirely on other platforms has spread through online publishing with locomotive force. Some broadcasters are experimenting with it, but many worry it will erode traffic to their own websites and apps after spending years cultivating it.