The Economist's Smart Strategies for Captivating a Younger Audience
The Economist has successfully adapted to reach a younger demographic through its savvy use of social media platforms, particularly Instagram and TikTok. With over 61 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and Meta (formerly Facebook), The Economist has proven that traditional media outlets can thrive in the digital age by tailoring their content to engage younger audiences.
Here's how they've done it.
Creating Digestible Content
“We take the best The Economist has to offer and turn it into digestible, engaging, quirky, interesting formats that can tease the audience with what’s behind the paywall. Users are unlikely to pay for a product unless they have a taste of it,” said Liv Moloney, the Economist’s Head of Social Media.
In order to do that, Moloney and company have become very reliant on Instagram. Instagram has brought The Economist more organic traffic and subscriptions than Facebook in recent years. Diversifying content with photo carousels, infographics, reels, pure data, and story fragments has significantly expanded the brand's reach on Instagram. “People moving to different apps is part of a broader industry trend as the media landscape changes. We simply try to give our audience content in different formats to boost reach,” Moloney said.
It is particularly noteworthy that two-thirds of The Economist's 6.2 million Instagram followers fall within the 18 to 34 age group. Furthermore, the majority of these followers are female. “This gives us an opportunity to reach women who tend to engage slightly less with traditional news and finance topics and reach them to show them all the other brilliant things we cover,” Moloney continued.
The Economist's three largest Instagram markets are the U.S., India, and the U.K.. India, in particular, contributes 12 percent of its Instagram following.
Embracing Short-Form Video
A transformative shift in social media has been the rise of short-form video. The Economist strategically joined TikTok in July 2022, coinciding with predictions that the short-form video industry in India was projected to reach $5.5 billion in revenue by 2023. “We chose TikTok because we felt it was the most different and would push us and challenge us to do a totally different new format of visual storytelling,” Moloney said.
Not only that, but the predominantly younger base already matched The Economist’s chief demographic, clearing the way for the publisher to engage with its primary audience. All content goes through TikTok first, but is then repurposed for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, and X. All videos are based on original articles, driving traffic back to the website for registrations and subscriptions.
Guidelines for Success
The Economist maintains four essential guidelines for its staff in creating short-form videos:
Videos should offer clear, concise, and understandable explanations to complex questions, complemented by clever graphics and narration.
The content should convey personality and style, with a healthy dose of irreverence, to make it engaging and relatable.
The content should align with the publication's core areas of coverage, including geopolitics, economics, finance, profiles of world leaders, science, tech, and data.
Videos must fit into one of eight content strands, ensuring alignment with its own previous work and with audience interests.
“Every single video we produce has to fit into one of these content strands, otherwise we won’t make it. It’s how we keep ourselves focused and pay attention to what our audience wants,” Moloney noted.
Impressive Results
Over the past year, The Economist has achieved more than 130 million video views across platforms. Notably, Instagram Reels generated 90 million views, while TikTok garnered over 32 million views, 1.6 million likes, and 272.7K followers.
“These results are exciting because a lot of people perhaps thought – as a classical magazine – we’d struggle with video, but we’ve seen real success there,” Moloney said. “These videos are a great example of what TikTok can be as opposed to what most people think it is. If you stick to your brand and do what you know really well, it will perform excellently,” she continued.
The Economist has also been adept at adjusting to different platforms' video length requirements. Despite initial videos on TikTok being 2 minutes long, “soon after, Instagram Reels set its time limit to 1 minute 30 seconds. So, instead of making two videos, we molded our TikTok videos to that duration, to help us repurpose them across platforms,” Moloney said.
The use of Adobe and a dedicated video editor ensures the quality and consistency of their video content. Longer-form content is reserved for their YouTube channel, where a dedicated Film team takes care of videos ranging from 10 to 15 minutes.
The Economist's success in attracting a younger audience through social media platforms is a testament to the adaptability and innovation of traditional media outlets. The publication’s journey showcases the potential for legacy media brands to flourish in the digital age with the right strategies and a willingness to evolve.
