IF YOU READ ONE THING
Your favorite sports brand is probably on TikTok

With live events suspended for the foreseeable future, many experiential brands and institutions are seeking new ways of connecting with audiences in the interim. Sports organizations and their athletes are no different. In a new piece from Adweek, writers David Cohen and Scott Nover share how sports brands have rerouted their social media strategies (alongside many home-confined teens, we might add) to one platform in particular: the short-form video platform, TikTok. While TikTok can be a tough place for brands to break through, some sports organizations had already begun investing in and partnering with the growing platform. Those who have are seeing the payoff. The NBA, an official partner of the platform, has amassed 10.2 million followers—making it not just the most followed sports league, but the most followed brand on TikTok. “For brands, the incentives on TikTok are clear,” write Cohen and Nover. “Videos can go viral, and you can reach a much younger and more diverse audience than many other social platforms.” Several sports brands are already finding that to be true: The NBA, NHL, and NFL are engaging audiences that are 60 percent, 59 percent and 55 percent female, respectively. Ultimately the success of athletes and sports brands may be a result of the fact that TikTok is a highly personality-driven platform. As Cohen and Nover remind us, “Without sports on television, sports leagues are just brands, and athletes are just social media influencers.”

POWERTIP
The majority of 18- to 34-year-olds use Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, according to a survey by Edison Research. Among niche platforms, Pinterest performs the best, while 1 in 4 respondents reportedly use TikTok.

Source: Edison Research
 

TREND WATCH
People turn towards familiar brands in an uncertain time

As people around the world hunker down, they’re turning toward brands they know for needs ranging from information to entertainment. Variety reports that in Europe, the Disney+ app was downloaded more than five million times, while The New York Times notes that Netflix’s downloads in Italy and Spain rose as well. When viewers want to stay informed, they’re turning toward mainstream outlets. According to a special edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer, major news organizations are the most turned-to source for coronavirus news—a surprise, as the 2020 version of the report notes that 57 percent of respondents said media is “contaminated with untrustworthy information.” A similar trend is occuring on social media: Facebook, whose trust level has fallen among the public in recent years, is seeing an uptick in engagement. According to an internal report obtained by the Times, “traffic from Facebook to other websites also increased by more than 50 percent last week from the week before, ‘almost entirely’ owing to intense interest in the virus.” In the short-term, this will greatly benefit these brands, but it remains unclear whether this turnaround in engagement will carry over once the world adjusts to a new normal.

NEWS YOU CAN USE
The anatomy of a pop-up newsletter Considering launching a pop-up newsletter about coronavirus? There are a few key elements you might want to consider. In his weekly newsletter, Revue’s Mark Schiefelbein analyzes 15 pop-up newsletters about the pandemic, including those from news outlets like BuzzFeed News, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. “It’s fascinating to see so many publishers doing the same thing at the same time, and a great opportunity to see what’s working,” Schiefelbein says. Here are some of our favorite tips that have lessons for newsletters of all kinds:

• Header design. Most coronavirus newsletters have played it safe on header design, with a combination of their logo and newsletter name. However, there are times when the design can be creative and distinct, like Buzzfeed News, which integrated an emoji in its design.
• Acquisition. A major step is figuring out a strategy that will turn your pop-up newsletter readers into your daily, loyal readers. Publishers often use the pop-up as an opportunity to pitch readers on other newsletters in their portfolio.
• Engagement. Some coronavirus pop-up newsletters engage their readers with sections at the end like, “How are you doing?” or “What are you doing?” Others share a personalized note.
• End on a lighter note. While coronavirus is a sensitive and serious topic, many publishers include a section to make their readers smile or at least offer a respite from the day’s heavier content. Often this comes at the end.

PERSPECTIVES
The ethics of information during a pandemic

Accessible, reliable information is absolutely vital in surviving a pandemic, and newsrooms across the nation have stepped up to help their communities in varying ways. Publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist as well as smaller, local organizations such as the Telegraph-Forum in Bucyrus, Ohio, or The Dallas Morning News, have all lifted their paywalls for coronavirus-related content. Other legacy newspapers, including The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times, and as well as several European publications, such as The Telegraph and The Independent, have all maintained fully intact paywalls, prompting some pushback. Information, of course, comes through a variety of mediums. Kelly McBride and Rick Edmonds of Poynter discuss the ethics and implications of these challenging choices. One question at the heart of the debate is, as McBride puts it, whether journalism is a public service. Or, put differently, “Is it more like critical health care or food?” 

• “Newsrooms with paywalls that don’t make some gesture to non-paying audiences may miss a short window of opportunity to build trust and demonstrate the significance of their work. Consumers quickly develop information habits. If your potential audience goes two to three weeks in this crisis without seeing your work, they will simply learn to live without it. If newsrooms decide in a month to drop their pay meters, the demand may not be there for the content.” — Kelly McBride, senior vice president at The Poynter Institute (Poynter)
• “Great business point re: content management systems and other tech. You can’t do more than your systems permit. Nor will this be the time for big fixes, investing in capacity or scrapping the old and outmoded.” — Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at The Poynter Institute (Poynter)
• “The answer is yes, and I would flip this question around and ask instead, ‘Is it ethical for newsrooms to leave up their paywalls in the face of a public health crisis where news and information can keep communities safe and healthy?’” — Mike Rispoli, director of News Voices (Twitter) 
• “I wonder about this too. Yet Comcast isn’t giving people free access to tv news or reduced its charges for internet. ATT hasn’t provided free WiFi and I can’t read online news without it. Why does it only fall to newspapers?” — Kristin Netterstrom Higgins, president of Arkansas Press Women (Twitter)

THIS WEEK IN OUR OFFICE
While many of us are fortunate to be working from our homes this week, one NBC Montana reporter had a close encounter with a herd of bison while reporting in Yellowstone National Park, sparking a viral meme in the process. (This newsletter’s editor is pleased to report she has watched this video upwards of 200 times.)

THIS MONTH AT THE ATLANTIC
The Atlantic has made its most essential coronavirus-related coverage free and available to all readers. You can find the collection here.

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