INMA Media Innovation Week offers 6 product and tech lessons for news companies

By Jodie Hopperton

INMA

Los Angeles, California, United States

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Last week I was in Helsinki for INMA’s Media Innovation Week. So much was packed into such a short time that it’s hard to even start telling you the big takeaways, but I want to try. 

It’s so hard to summarise numerous presentation, case studies, and deep discussions but Robert Whitehead, our Digital Platforms Initiate head and all around event INMA superstar, pulled some exceptionally important lessons. I’ve taken his big themes and added some context from a product and tech perspective. Here goes …

Brand, brand, brand

This keeps coming up time and time again. It’s highly correlated to the next point but needs to stand alone because we need to invest in our brand experience and continue to do so. This means what our brand looks like, communicating our purpose, what our journalism delivers, why we can be trusted, and, essential to you, excellent product and tech.

Speakers at last week's INMA Media Innovation Week in Helsinki offered many product and tech lessons to the 337 attendees.
Speakers at last week's INMA Media Innovation Week in Helsinki offered many product and tech lessons to the 337 attendees.

Direct, direct, direct

I will wax lyrical about this as long as you will listen. The changes coming with AI give consumers many many more reasons to stay within tech’s walled gardens. The experiences there excel. It’s easy and fast for consumers to get what they want, and AI puts this on steroids. We must focus now to build direct audiences (not traffic). I believe this is so vitally important, I am putting together a virtual master class on this topic early next year. Keep an eye out for details soon.

Me, me, me

Me being the customer. Our users expect personalisation, and we really need to give it to them. This is not about maximising for conversions or clicks. This is about engagement. They will not do the work to find the content they are interested in. See point above. This is essential. And if you need inspiration, check out this article from Karl Oskar Teien on what they have learned in their personalisation journey at Aftenposten in Norway. 

People, people, people

Internally, we need to bring everyone onto the same page. We need goals that we can all articulate, understand, and work towards. If you need help getting your newsroom on board, talk to my brilliant colleague Amalie Nash, who lives and breathes this for the INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative

Them, them, them

You know your audience, but do you know who is missing? Two groups feature highly in that category: Gen Z and news outsiders. There will be others because you can’t be all things to all people. But you can adapt your content or create new products/brands. Below are some ways to understand who they are and to reach them.

Us, us, us

I come away from every INMA conference thrilled by how much we talk and share best practices. We need to take it one step further to meet the AI wave that is coming. That means alliances, working with third parties (for technology, ad sales, bundling, Big Tech laws). I’ll be spending some time looking at how we can do that with LLMs. Keep an eye out for an upcoming piece on the AI middle men that are trying to find the solution to permission, attribution, and monetisation of our content through LLMs.

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About Jodie Hopperton

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