Expressen creates a Young Audience Focus Month to attract new users

By Petter Jonason

Expressen

Stockholm, Sweden

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By Jakob Wagner

Expressen

Stockholm, Sweden

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When you see a 35% increase in engagement from young readers and a significant boost in social media traffic on articles, you know you’re onto something.

That’s exactly what happened at Expressen, a leading Swedish newspaper, when we focused our efforts – and a wealth of data – on making our news site more relevant to young people.

Engaging a digital-first generation

Reaching younger audiences is an ongoing challenge for news organisations worldwide. In late 2023, we decided to take our next step. Expressen’s efforts in social media have often been commendable – our TikTok account was even recognised as the most engaging Swedish media account on the platform.

But still, we knew that this age group wasn’t visiting Expressen’s site and app as much as we wanted.

We decided to go all in on a “Young Audience Focus Month.” The mission? Make our site and app the go-to news destination for those under 30 by incorporating a younger perspective into everything we do. 

Getting everyone on board

We knew that everyone at Expressen needed to be involved if we wanted real change, so we kicked things off with intensive learning sessions. We brought in experts from different industries to talk to us about what grabs the attention of younger audiences.

Extensive data analysis and a series of in-depth interviews with young readers gave us new insights. We held workshops with all departments, reviewing relevant data, brainstorming about what they could do differently, and setting ambitious goals.

A crucial part of our strategy was ensuring that content relevant to younger audiences was prominently featured on our homepage. We set clear guidelines to ensure this happened consistently. Meanwhile, our marketing team experimented with social media campaigns to drive app downloads and boost subscriptions among the under-30 crowd.

The marketing team experimented with social media campaigns to drive app downloads and boost subscriptions among the under-30 crowd.
The marketing team experimented with social media campaigns to drive app downloads and boost subscriptions among the under-30 crowd.

Real-time insights and significant growth

The results spoke for themselves. During our focus month, we more than doubled the number of articles tailored for young people, creating over 800 pieces specifically for this audience.

Engagement from young readers was 35% higher, and social media traffic on these pieces soared. We saw a significant increase in visitors aged 18-34, according to official tracking, and they were engaging with our content more than ever before.

The success of the initiative improved the news site not only for young people but for all demographics, as later studies have shown.

What we learned

Here are four key learnings from the month:

  1. It’s easy to fall back into old habits, but daily evaluation meetings and weekly inspiration sessions helped everyone stay on track. In the daily meetings, a group of young editors reviewed teasers, articles, and videos published on the homepage and pointed out changes needed to increase engagement.
  2. Young voices are essential in content creation. We ensured that younger perspectives influenced every part of our process and that our content, regardless of who created it, reflects their realities and interests. Young people were visibly represented in the stories, both through voices and images.
  3. Real-time data is crucial for quick optimisation. One of the standout features of this initiative was new real-time monitoring to guide our efforts. We set up unique dashboards and reports to monitor our young audience’s engagement, allowing us to make adjustments throughout the initiative.
  4. Cross-functional teams are powerful drivers of success. This wasn’t just an editorial effort; our marketing teams had the same goal. We arranged a hackathon to generate more ideas for product changes, held a series of in-depth interviews, and conducted usability tests with 50+ young readers.

Building for the future

The momentum we gained during the focus month in November didn’t just fizzle out. We extended the initiative into December and formed a dedicated, cross-functional project group in January 2024 that was tasked with developing long-term strategies to keep Expressen relevant for the next generation.

Several initiatives from this group have already been implemented with great results. 

Banner photo by Olle Sporrong/Expressen.

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