NewsBeat

October 2018 NewsBeat 7 N early half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the past 12 months, per new numbers from Pew. Per new numbers out from Pew, if you're between the ages of 18 and 29, there's a very decent shot that you deleted the Facebook app from your phone recently. New survey numbers, done in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, show that all Americans across the board have become more leery of the social-media platform, but that hairy eye gets hairier the younger you get. While nearly two- thirds of Americans between the age of 18 and 49 changed their privacy settings within the past 12 months, only 33 percent of Americans older than 65 did. But it's those mobile-app numbers that likely are causing some concern in Menlo Park: Overall, about one in four Americans say they deleted the app from their phone, and Americans across every age range seemed to be taking breaks from the world's most popular social-media service; though, again, younger Americans were more likely to have stopped checking the service for several weeks or more within the last 12 months. Facebook's move to open up its data was more popular than you might expect as well. Nearly one in ten users downloaded all of their personal data, and of those, 44 percent ended up changing their privacy settings. This may or may not have been due to what they found when they started digging into what data exactly Facebook was storing about them — including every video they ever considered uploading tothe service, even if they later deleted it. a writer or editor, you can follow them across multiple properties and you can always be connected to that story," the participant said. Notably, the subscribe link automatically subscribes that user to the relevant list when clicked, keeping the reader's level of effort low. Redefine metrics Engaging newsletters demand new metrics to define success. As a metric, open rates are ambiguous, possibly referring to unique opens, total opens, multiple opens, forwards and more. "The idea of an 'open' doesn't really work as a quantification of your newsletter being successful anymore," said a newsletter product manager from a global publisher. "It's pretty absurd how much we stress over an open when it's not concrete, it's abstract." New metrics of success should be tied to the purpose of the newsletter. Was there a corresponding increase in an associated group's membership? If it was a part of a series, what was the completion rate? How many participants responded to a callout for feedback, or signed up to another newsletter? These numbers might be smaller than an open rate, but they're concrete and reflect deeper and more valuable relationships with the audience. Reactivating lists When a newsletter outlives its audience's interest, it might be time to move them on to other things. On newsletters for which open rates had plummeted and were to be retired, one discussion participant shared their team's success sending a targeted message to any reader who had opened that newsletter even once within the past year. The message offered related newsletters, and in the first send had an open rate of approximately 50 percent, with somewhere between 20 and 40 percent clicking through to another newsletter. Return on investment Creating engaging, interactive newsletters can require more resources, particularly if moderating conversations. So what's the payoff? It depends on the newsletter, but discussion participants pointed to potential benefits in branding, deeper awareness of publishers' offerings, forwarding behavior that benefits list growth, and?—?for those with advanced reader revenue models?—?a data point to understanding a reader's likelihood to subscribe. Ned Berke is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and does audience development for the Center for Cooperative Media. He can be reached at nedberke@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter for more about growing and engaging audiences. If you are a journalist interested in collaborating with your peers to increase your professional impact and expertise?—?and theirs?—?the Tow-Knight Center's Community of Practice program may be of interest. Please let us know by completing this form. By JAKE SWEARINGEN 44 percent of young Americans deleted Facebook from their phone

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