As audiences change how they consume content, news media companies are tasked with adapting how they deliver it.

The inaugural Webinar of INMA’s new Young Audiences Initiative took a deep dive into how legacy newsrooms can use vertical video to attract younger audiences and what it takes to succeed with this relatively new yet increasingly vital format.

Kerstin Hasse, lead of the Young Audiences Initiative, was joined by Liv Moloney, head of video at The Economist, for this hour-long conversation. To put the conversation in perspective, Hesse began by examining the importance of reaching young audiences and the rationale for launching the new initiative.

“One big question that is being asked again and again is the question of ‘how do we reach young or new audiences?’ And I don’t mean how do we bring them accidentally to our product,” she said. “I’m talking about how we can build sustainable relationships.”

With younger audiences choosing platforms over Web sites and following creators instead of brands, news media companies must answer three important questions to create a successful youth-oriented strategy.

“The first question is, where is your audience? And connected with it — where is your revenue?”

If audiences are on third-party platforms, Hasse said, publishers must look at what that means for their monetisation strategies.

A second question is how to participate in the creator economy: Publishers must decide whether to hire people with distinct voices and followings, partner with external creators, or train from within.

And finally, companies must evaluate themselves and determine what needs to change internally to make such a strategy work: “Are you ready to have a culture change that is connected with this? Or before you even start [a new] strategy, do you really have the people who are trained to do this kind of content?”

To fully prepare for a new approach, news media companies must look at these factors and determine what’s right for them.

Behind the scenes with The Economist

The Economist’s move into vertical video began as a direct response to the shift in how younger audiences consume news.

“Vertical video is here to stay,” Moloney explained, adding social platforms are increasingly video-only and have overtaken traditional news sources for many users. “So if you want to reach younger audiences, you simply have to create vertical video in order to be there.”

Rather than viewing this shift as a threat, The Economist saw an opportunity to “future‑proof our 180‑year-old brand and reach a new set of audiences” by meeting them where they already lived: on social media platforms.

After months of testing formats and editorial approaches, The Economist officially launched on TikTok in July 2022. The team began with a single video editor and experimented for “two or three months” to determine what style best aligned with the brand’s voice.

The time invested in developing the strategy paid off. The account has since grown to 1.2 million followers, and vertical video is now a core part of the organisation’s social strategy.

It’s no longer just TikTok, either, Moloney noted: “We now publish vertical videos on Instagram, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, and X as well. So it’s a really important tool for us across all platforms.”

By the end of 2025, The Economist had amassed more than 360 million video views across major platforms, with Instagram alone accounting for 180 million.

Content that stands out

The content that resonated most reflected The Economist’s longstanding editorial strengths: clarity, authority, and a willingness to take a stand.

Its top‑performing videos ranged from explainers on Trump’s tariffs — described as “one of the most harmful and unnecessary mistakes of the modern era” in one clip — to investigations into the destruction in Gaza and deep dives into China’s economic challenges. Other hits relied on sophisticated motion graphics, such as a widely viewed piece on fibre‑optic drones in Ukraine.

Success on social platforms prompted the team to bring vertical video into its own ecosystem. In April 2024, it launched a vertical video carousel within The Economist app.

Engagement surged, leading to a dedicated video tab in March 2025. This expansion aligned with its subscriber‑led strategy: enrich the app, increase retention, and offer “high-quality, short, and digestible” journalism that respected readers’ time. Minutes spent watching short‑form video more than doubled.

Building on that success, it launched The Economist Insider in October 2025 — a suite of five long‑form shows, each with its own specific identity: Inside Defence, Inside Geopolitics, Inside Tech, and Inside Economics. The fifth programme, The Insider, is a weekly show with The Economist Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes and Deputy Editor Edward Carr, featuring bonus interviews with big-name guests, Moloney said.

“Since we launched, we’ve had three world leaders: Netanyahu, Mark Carney, and Keir Starmer,” she said. “This is … almost the exact opposite, by intention, to the short-form video. It’s premium long-form content fully behind our paywall that exists only within our app, whereas you can find the short-form videos on social media as well.”

Subscribers can toggle between Shorts and the Insider. This has created what Moloney described as a “brilliant flanking strategy” that offers both rapid insight and deeper analysis within the same video tab.

Hands-on advice

In a robust Q+A follow-up session, Hasse asked Moloney for practical advice for newsrooms just beginning their vertical‑video journey. Moloney emphasised that the most important starting point is to “be true to your brand,” noting The Economist never tried to chase breaking news volume or produce “20 a day” simply because algorithms favoured it. Instead, she advised teams to pause before launching and determine what their audience expects — and what a small team can realistically deliver.

“Really pause and work out what it is you think your audience expects from you and how you can actually, with your one editor, deliver that,” Moloney advised. “Because the answer might be we just do less, but we do it really well.”

When asked what she would not do again, Moloney said the key is to “just experiment.” Some videos inevitably underperform, but she stressed that these should be treated as learning opportunities. She encouraged teams to analyse what didn’t work — whether the opening was slow or the information unclear — and adjust accordingly.

“If you have a video that doesn’t work, don’t see it as a disaster,” she said. “Just use it to learn what not to do next time. I think that’s really important.”

Audience questions then shifted to production details. Asked about video length, Moloney explained most Economist videos now run about three minutes, largely because platform restrictions have eased. Previously, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts imposed strict limits, but with those gone, the team can publish the same version across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, and X. This consistency is “a massive lifesaver” because it eliminates the need for multiple edits.

On analytics, she noted the team relies primarily on each platform’s native tools — TikTok, YouTube, Instagram — supplemented by data from their publishing system. Another question addressed whether Insider videos are available in horizontal format, and Moloney confirmed that the long‑form Insider shows are produced in landscape to mirror the “vodcast” trend. At the same time, short promotional clips are cut vertically for social platforms.

Several questions explored how vertical video intersects with subscriptions. Moloney acknowledged not every viewer will subscribe immediately, but argued visibility among younger audiences is essential for long‑term brand familiarity.

She cited examples of videos spreading widely — such as a piece debunking myths about London being unsafe — and noted that journalists have expressed surprise (and excitement) when they learned their own children had watched them on TikTok.

“We know that even if [people aren’t] directly subscribing, this is really important for our brand and that our journalism is reaching people and they know we exist.”

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