What’s behind the touting of others’ stories via @AP?
AP is a cooperative of news organizations, and a core part of our mission is to provide our members the tools and content they need to succeed. Over the past few years, we’ve built up a significant social media following — especially on Twitter, where the flagship @AP account is approaching 5 million followers — and we’re constantly looking for ways to leverage our online presence to benefit members and customers more directly. This one was a no-brainer: We look for strong member and customer enterprise content, in all formats, and choose some to highlight from @AP. This can give the member a big boost in engagement and clicks, and @AP followers are served a strong piece of content that they might not otherwise know about. It’s win-win.
What are some of the first member stories to be shared via @AP?
The first story we shared under this initiative was a piece by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about an unregulated kickboxing bout that pitted a seasoned athlete against a mentally disabled man who was promised $50 and a medal. It was part of a series by the paper on the dangers of increasingly popular sports such as ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts. We later highlighted a multimedia investigative piece by the Seattle Times examining problems with inmate labor programs in Washington state.
These were both eye-opening pieces that added wonderful texture to the @AP Twitter feed and brought some quality journalism to a new audience. And the members were really pleased to bring additional exposure and engagement to work they’re proud of.
How often will members’ stories be featured on @AP?
Though we’re initially looking to do this a few times a week, we’re open to ramping it up considerably if we find that members are interested in the initiative and benefiting from the tweets.
It’s also worth noting that this is part of a broader effort to bring strong AP member journalism to a wider audience. On the AP mobile app, for example, we’ve featured content and even entire topical sections created by AP members, and we’re always looking for opportunities to do so again. AP members and customers looking to pitch something for us to highlight from Twitter or our mobile app should bring ideas to their AP representative.
We also continue to work on ways we can reconfigure our social and digital strategy to help our members meet their own online news goals. If members have their own ideas about how we can help them succeed online, we’re all ears.
