This guest post is contributed by our partner Upscore, who work closely with digital publishers to help them understand audience behaviour and strengthen data informed editorial strategies.
It’s the Year 203x
Printed newspapers are at best a niche product. Many have disappeared entirely. Journalism, however, still thrives – in digital form.
What drives the success of digital journalism? The answer is clear: consistent reader focus. Successful newsrooms understand their audience, cater to their interests, and build communities, whether local, regional, or interest-based. Journalism has established itself as a community-building medium, delivering not only digital content but also often supplementing it with analogue experiences such as events or live podcast tours.
Readers Loops: Structuring Reader Orientation
A key concept for putting reader focus into practice is Readers Loops. This approach systematically integrates reader feedback into the editorial process by combining quantitative and qualitative data.
Quantitative data clearly reveals which content is being consumed.
Qualitative data explains why certain content resonates, helping editors understand their readers' needs more deeply.
These feedback loops continuously refine topic selection, content creation, and strategic priorities.
From Follow-up to Top Topics
Readers Loops consist of a variety of tools tailored to different needs. Two particularly important approaches include:
Follow-up: Content that receives a positive audience reaction is revisited and further developed from new angles. Topics can be explored in greater depth or expanded upon, guided by user data.
Top Topics: Over weeks or even months, teams focus on topics that address an immediate need or concern of their audience. When interest wanes, the topic is replaced by a new one.
These two methods are key parts of the Readers Loops toolkit, but they are just one piece of a larger system. The approach also incorporates the concept of User Needs, which helps maintain a sharp editorial focus on the real demands of the audience—whether it's keeping readers informed, helping them navigate complexity, or making sense of intricate issues. Feedback loops can be adapted and expanded based on newsrooms specific goals and workflows.
Reader Feedback as the Basis for Successful Planning
Readers Loops provide editorial teams with the opportunity to incorporate the most important voice—that of their readers—directly into decision-making processes. Tools like Kordiam provide essential support, enabling teams to seamlessly integrate data into their planning and clearly identify which content performs best across different platforms.
Journalism thrives on consistent reader focus. Concepts like Readers Loops, combined with smart tools like Kordiam, allow newsrooms to not only leverage reader feedback but to use it as a foundation for long-term success and sustained journalistic relevance.
About Upscore: The Upscore platform is a SaaS solution for publishing intelligence that helps digital content providers better understand the attractiveness of their published content and the engagement it generates, enabling them to optimize their offerings effectively. The platform collects real-time data on content usage and provides users with comprehensive tools such as analytics, content recommendations, dynamic paywalls, and other features. Two of Upscore’s key strengths are its all-in-real-time approach and its open architecture, which allows the data to be utilised in other systems, BI tools, or AI applications in real time.
