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Flats demolition sees regional daily break online records

A regional daily’s coverage of its patch’s skyline changing forever saw it break a number of records online.

Blackpool-based newspaper The Gazette received the digital boost for its coverage of the demolition of three tower blocks in the Layton area of the seaside resort.

Johnston Press’ North West digital media team spearheaded the Facebook Live coverage of the demolition, which achieved over 1.2m reach, with 445,000 video views, 17,000 likes, 10,000 comments and 7,000 shares in just over 36 hours – the highest ever achieved for the newspaper group.

The content delivered prior to Sunday’s demolition generated 30,000 page views on The Gazette’s website, with the weekend coverage generating over 60,000 page views, and Facebook interactions for the week jumped from an average of 14,000 to more than 50,000.

The other posts about the topic combined to reach a further 1m, along with hundreds of likes, shares and comments on social media. The Gazette’s Facebook page also grew by 2,000 likes during Saturday and Sunday.

Digital editor Colin Ainscough and reporter Danielle Hayden filmed the day in sections, from the build-up to the clean-up, and included live interviews with watching residents.

Blackpool flats

The demolition also provided a splash for The Gazette on Monday, pictured above.

JP North West social media editor Iain Lynn said: “It was a huge team effort which was weeks in planning. The live broadcast exceeded all our expectations and shows the power of Facebook Live”

“This story was the talk of the town – but by exploiting all our social media tools in conjunction with our more traditional products, we turned it into an international occasion with viewers watching from across Europe and Australia, and even someone watching from their yacht in the Bahamas.

“We achieved an incredible level of interaction with our readers, and viewers, with many returning to the site to thank us for providing such a comprehensive service.

“From a multi-technique approach we can learn what works best and what our readers want, enabling us to deliver much more of this targeted content”

6 comments

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  • August 3, 2016 at 4:49 pm
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    super stuff!
    was the ad team able to monetise this spike in site traffic?
    must be a piece of cake with those kind of visitor numbers i would have thought
    marvellous!

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  • August 3, 2016 at 4:57 pm
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    ” ….an incredible level of interaction with our readers, and viewers, with many returning to the site to thank us for providing such a comprehensive service”

    Apart from page views, likes and viewers did
    any of this incredible popularity amount to anything in real revenue terms?

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  • August 3, 2016 at 4:59 pm
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    Fantastic. I don’t understand what any of that means but I’m presuming the revenue generated from this incredible feat will cause a rally in Johnston Press shares. Today they slid to an all-time low of 13.3p (divided by 50) but rallied to 13.75. The good times are coming.

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  • August 4, 2016 at 6:16 am
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    My how the credibility and value of the regional press has fallen if this is considered a measure of success,

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  • August 4, 2016 at 6:00 pm
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    The day Blackpool’s skyline changes for ever will come when someone sticks a bomb under the Tower. Hope I’m not around to see it.

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  • August 5, 2016 at 1:52 pm
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    Sounds like some sort of euphemism regarding JP’s half year results.

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