Microsoft Start galleries made simple with SimpleFeed
SimpleFeed’s updated WordPress plugin optimizes syndication of WordPress posts for all the major platforms including Apple News, Google News, Microsoft Start, NewsBreak, Samsung News, and SmartNews.
With the latest 2.0 version we’d like to announce some of the features that make the SimpleFeed plugin essential if you use WordPress to send your posts to Microsoft.
We focused on building out features specifically for Microsoft which distributes news into Microsoft Start, MSN, Bing, the Edge browser, and Copilot with Bing Chat. One of the many innovations of our plugin is that it can convert a standard blog post, with the necessary subheads and images, into a gallery (aka slideshow) on Microsoft Start. There is no need to create a specific formatting on your site, SimpleFeed will transform the placement of all the assets for you, automatically.
Galleries have been very successful for publishers on Microsoft Start as an innovative way to tell a story. Like the classroom film strips from primary school, a series of sequential graphics with short explanations are a great way to break a story into bite-sized chunks for deeper engagement. Microsoft encourages the gallery format and has been rewarding publishers who produce galleries with better distribution and monetization so it’s important to have galleries as part of your story format mix on Microsoft.
An added innovation that ships with the SimpleFeed plugin is the ability to embed a gallery into an article giving your galleries broader exposure. Using this feature, you can expand upon themes of your posts or even treat the gallery as a graphical related link to draw readers into other stories you have to tell. The plugin UI provides an easy way to insert galleries into your articles on Microsoft Start.
We are seeing great success with publishers using SimpleFeed’s WordPress plugin and are actively developing new features supporting the automatic embedding of galleries in articles as well as the sharing of galleries across groups of publications to help with the cross promotion of content.
Contact SimpleFeed to learn more about how our WordPress plugin can help syndicate your content successfully.
Meet SimpleFeed at Fastener.io
A great blog post from our friends at Fastener.io on SimpleFeed for Publishers. https://www.fastener.io/blog/meet-simplefeed
Apple revised its free Apple News App and announced their $10 a month Apple News+ service today. Aside from a new logo and lots of new News+ content, it is a pretty light look and feel update. However, there is nothing light about the implications for media companies so we will draw some real-time business conclusions.
Strong value for consumers. Apple News+ includes two hard news newspapers (WSJ and LA Times), six premium web content subscriptions (The Skim, The Highlight by Vox, Vulture, Grub Hub, The Cut, TechCrunch) and 300 magazines for $10 a month. That subscription can be shared with six family members on all of their devices. Apple claims that is $8,000 a year in value. Of course, no-one buys it all, but no one listens to every song on Spotify/Apple Music either and they revolutionized music consumption.
Data-based advertising is not going to happen. Tim Cook used Apple News’ privacy by design as a major sales point, “We don’t know what you read and we don’t allow advertisers to track you.”
Increased pressure on subscription prices. You had really better love the NYT and/or Wapo if you are going to pay a premium for each over Apple News+. WSJ might feel some churn – why pay $40 a month when you can get it for $2 a month on Apple News? The pricing feels like 99 cent songs on iTunes back when CDs were $16.
New advertising opportunities (?). The biggest change that I noticed when reviewing News+ is much, much more advertising. You used to have to hunt for ads on Apple News. I counted five in singe WSJ story.
This could be good for society. Citizens getting their news from the social networks has issues. A clean, well-lighted (yet private), place like Apple News – much better.
The biggest news App is about to get much bigger. Apple News is the default news App on the world’s biggest platform. It is easy to find, easy to use, and easy to buy. Easy wins. Add in a strong value proposition for the content people need/want, and look out.
Publishers better get on board. If you are a publisher, there are some huge plusses and minus. But at the end of the day, only Taylor Swift can boycott Spotify (and she ultimately joined). Everyone else needs the exposure and revenue.
Apple News in macOS Mojave
We did a quick video showing the changes to Apple News in iOS12 focusing on the addition of Apple News to macOS Mojave. Apple News remains one best content marketing channels and traffic drivers for brands and media companies. SimpleFeed offers the leading turnkey publishing and analytics solution. Please let us know if you would like to get involved.
SimpleFeed adds Browser Notification Publishing and Analytics
Browser Notifications are starting to show real ROI so we added them as a supported channel. Given our deep experience in turning content into marketing programs, it was pretty easy to make some big improvements over typical Browser Notification implementations. First, we see lots of visitors hitting “Deny” as they play “whack-a-mole” with the various pop-ups (sign up for our email, we are available to chat, invasive ad, etc.) Once a prospect hits “Deny” they are lost forever. So SimpleFeed allows you to set scenarios on when to ask for an opt-in. For example, don’t ask a first-time visitor or don’t ask until they have viewed X pages. Next, we often see companies publishing everything they have to each and every prospect. With SimpleFeed you can use a preference center to allow the prospect to opt-in to the content of interest. Or you can select relevant content based on their browsing patterns. Using SimpleFeed manual publishing tools, you can create campaigns (or ads) relevant to the prospect’s interests. Of course, you will get SimpleFeed analytics showing content usage and effectiveness across your channels (mobile, social, web, etc.).
Browser Notifications remind me of the early days of RSS Feeds – a nice compromise for the customer/prospect and the marketer. The prospect can opt-in to relevant content without providing an email address or other personal information. Via the preference center the prospect gets relevant content and the marketer understands what content is of interest and converts into a lead/sale/visitor. It is a direct and owned channel not reliant on someone else’s mobile app or social network. We used to call it polite marketing and respectful marketing. We politely ask you give it a try. http://www.simplefeed.com/solutions/browser-notifications/
SimpleFeed Screencast – Reach Customers Using the New Apple News in iOS10
With over 60 million active monthly users Apple News is a great place to syndicate your content. Newly enhanced in iOS10, Apple’s default news App (just swipe right) is more visual and relevant for users. Publishers and brands can now use push notifications for breaking news while content providers can offer subscriptions.
Below is a video review of the new Apple News App in iOS10, created in haste the day after the iOS10 launch. While it is a bit rough, it reviews marketing opportunities for Brands and Publishers as well as content integration options using RSS Feeds and Apple News Format. If you are looking to win in mobile notifications, be sure to watch the video below and learn more at http://www.simplefeed.com/apple-news/.
Podcasts are not exactly a new idea. I wrote some of the original, and most widely linked to, blog posts explaining why they will be so important … in 2004.
A mere 12 years later those prediction proved right. High quality content and new directories have emerged. Bluetooth is always on in our cars and on our phones. As a result, podcasting is successful for brands and media companies. So today we are happy to announce major enhancements to the Podcast Module of our Social Syndication Hub.
SimpleFeed has quietly managed podcasts for our enterprise customers for over 10 years. It was a simple product that created an RSS Feed for direct subscription and submission to iTunes. But with the explosive growth of podcasting, customers needed more – API publishing and analytics to support new directories and marketing opportunities to make their podcasts stand out.
We hope you will take a look
.
SimpleFeed Screencast – Using SimpleFeed to Publish to Your Customer’s Slack Chanels
Today we launch another new SimpleFeed Feature, publishing to Slack Channels. With over 2 million active users primarily on mobile devices, Slack is a rapidly growing team collaboration solution.
With SimpleFeed your customers and prospects can select and add your content to their Slack Channels. They can also subscribe to your content and get a constant flow of content published to the Slack channels. Once in Slack it is easy to share, comment and forward to other team members. If you are looking to win in mobile notifications, be sure to watch the video below. You can learn more at http://www.simplefeed.com/slack/.
SimpleFeed Screencast – Using SimpleFeed to Publish to Your Customer’s Flipboard Magazines
Today we launch a new SimpleFeed Feature, publishing to Flipboard Magazines. With over 70 million active users primarily on mobile devices, Flipboard is a great place to reach your customers. If you are looking to win in mobile notifications, be sure to watch the video below.
SimpleFeed Screencast – Snapchat for Marketing
With over 100 million active users watching 6 billion videos daily, Snapchat is the content consumption app of choice for the younger generation. Watch our latest screencast to to learn how your company can connect with this audience.
Behind The Feeds 