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Trinity Mirror steps up digital drive with Google + launch

Regional publisher Trinity Mirror has launched Google + pages for ten of its major regional titles in a bid to increase its social media footprint.

The Google + platform now has more than 300m active users and is being seen by the company as a new way to communicate with audiences.

Google + pages have now gone live for the Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, Newcastle Chronicle, Teesside Gazette, Huddersfield Examiner, Birmingham Mail, Coventry Telegraph and North Wales Daily Post.

In addition websites WalesOnline and Get Surrey, which provide the online presence for a number of different print titles, have also been given their own Google + pages.

The pages will be managed by dedicated social media editors in the newsroom who will have responsibility for updating them daily.

Articles have been published in print and online providing advice to readers on how to use the Google + platform.

Gayle Tomlinson, head of social media, Trinity Mirror Regionals said:  “We are committed to telling stories our audience want to hear. Our activity on Facebook and Twitter has been embraced by our readers and has opened up new ways for us to communicate with our audiences.

“By launching a presence on Google+ we will be able to reach more of our readers on a platform they want to hear from us on. Additionally we will benefit from being able to use some superb storytelling tools like Google Hangouts on Air and Auto Awesome.”

10 comments

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  • September 2, 2014 at 3:07 pm
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    Desperate times indeed

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  • September 2, 2014 at 7:07 pm
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    Will that include basics like getting football results on web within minutes of game ending, and results of council meetings up on same evening or afternoon . ?so many papers are too lazy or understaffed to bother. No wonder hits are relatively speaking far too low to attract serious ad income.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 10:39 am
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    Talk about selfie-absorption! Or maybe that’s the idea. After all they are “committed to telling stories our audience want to hear”

    But they’ll never keep up with the Kardashians.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 10:53 am
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    I agree with digifan, social media is great but sometimes you can get spread out over so many social networks you forget the basics.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 11:00 am
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    In the case of the Chronicle their web hits are going through the roof. Daily ‘Uniques’ are over 2 million a month which is sellable and starting to attract decent revenues. It’s just a shame that most of the content is piss-poor. The digital first policy means everything is online as soon as possible. Google+ isn’t necessarily a particularly good way of attracting traffic to a website but it’s an extremely effective way of increasing Google search results and rankings due to the weighting Google search gives to Google+ posts and presence.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 12:47 pm
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    Digifan – I think results of council meetings may be a tad optimistic, I anticipate more wacky pictures of sunsets and snow.

    The reason digital strategies are going to struggle is the ‘jobs for the boys’ nature of the industry, if you can find me a multimedia editor who’s actually had an IT background rather than been an under threat sub, I’ll dress up as Tron and Tweet a picture of it.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 1:39 pm
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    These websites don’t need to worry about SEO – just chuck a search into Google and they’ll come up top anyway. They’re producing enough content to stay up there.

    I think Trinity needs to start looking at the quality of its news, because it’s not for a digital audience. Stories of more than 400 words just won’t be read, and soon people will realise that listicles and slideshows are just clickbait.

    Maybe Trinity will finally realise that quality content is what sells – be it in print or online – and that proper journalism, and little things like checking details and spelling things properly, will work better than jokes, quizzes or lists.

    If I was an advertiser I’d want to know where people go on the websites after being sucked in by the social media links, because I bet most just bounce of somewhere to find something they’re really interested in.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 2:55 pm
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    We are slowly disappearing up ourselves.

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  • September 3, 2014 at 9:27 pm
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    Google Plus was only launched three years ago and Trinity has only just noticed…and it has really taken off in this country as well hasn’t it. Utterly ridiculous..Do they even know what Hangouts are……

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  • September 4, 2014 at 12:19 pm
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    probably about half of regional press website traffic is generated by social media, this is a logical step – and not a particularly slow one, in the context of generic UK business (generally very late adopters). If this is part of a coherent social media strategy within the context of a national company – times scales are about right.

    “These websites don’t need to worry about SEO – just chuck a search into Google and they’ll come up top anyway. They’re producing enough content to stay up there”

    Yes its true – google looks very favourably at regional news websites – but this is all about attracting audience (and engaging audience etc) that wouldn’t be typing into the search bar……

    I think Trinity needs to start looking at the quality of its news, because it’s not for a digital audience. Stories of more than 400 words just won’t be read, and soon people will realise that listicles and slideshows are just clickbait.

    …..Quality news doesn’t necessarily mean quantity. Yes the consumption is different via the differing mediums but the online audience do actually like quality lists. – As with everything – you can create quality and balance….(Am not familiar with Trinity myself) – as yes there are extreme examples of poor practise

    Maybe Trinity will finally realise that quality content is what sells – be it in print or online – and that proper journalism, and little things like checking details and spelling things properly, will work better than jokes, quizzes or lists.

    Nobody will ever pay for online news.

    If I was an advertiser I’d want to know where people go on the websites after being sucked in by the social media links, because I bet most just bounce of somewhere to find something they’re really interested in.

    …..Again Audience habits differ between press and online. One thing is for sure though, from a commercial perspective everything on the website is auditable – and advertisers know that and base their conversations around that. So we have a lot more compelling evidence about how successful advertising can be online. Throw in contextual and behavioural targeting and locational technology – and stuff that you may not be familiar with yet like beacons etc and it blows things out of the water !.
    After all…. how many people actually read (as opposed to circulation or distribution figures) the paper. And how many people actually read page 16 of the paper etc.
    Or Radio and Rajar – they have only recently adopted online diaries and represent some minutie of the population –
    So yes… browsers will bounce having read for 6.6 seconds on average – we know that, we also know a whole lot more. But essentially advertisers will in the most part go where they make money (or achieve a strategic aim like appeal to a niche) – via your commercial/sales teams and after all – they pay everyones wages .

    gotta go.

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