Social is down, newsletters are up: How audiences are finding LIONs in 2024

Publishers have seen changes to the makeup of their traffic accelerate as social media and search priorities shift, and legislation (or proposed legislation) prompts tech companies to pull back from news. The decline in referral traffic will likely lead to more direct engagement by publishers with their audiences. In this quick spotlight, we take a high-level look at data from the LION Sustainability Audits program to see how LION members appear to be adapting to reach their audiences.

Though LION doesn’t collect traffic data by source from member publishers (that is, how much traffic is coming from search, social, direct traffic, or owned products like newsletters), we do ask about the sources of traffic that are effective for members. Through that lens, we are starting to see LIONs diversifying their product and audience strategies.

The biggest apparent shift is in product strategy. The overall average number of products per news business hasn’t changed dramatically over the last three years (3.38 in 2022, 3.35 in 2023, and 3.87 in 2024). Instead, the types of products LIONs create are changing. We’ve seen pronounced increases among LIONs producing newsletters (up to 95% in 2024 from 81% in 2022) and events (up to 60% in 2024 from 34% in 2021). The growth in newsletters and events is unsurprising, since each allows for greater direct engagement and relationship-building with a core audience, helping move folks down the audience funnel to becoming loyal supporters.

We also ask LIONs about the most effective (self-reported) ways their audience finds them. The average number of distinct channels LIONs indicate as effective for them has increased from 4.7 in 2022 to 5.9 in 2024, suggesting that LIONs are pursuing more pathways to acquire audiences. We’ve seen particular growth in newsletters, in-person conversations, and events, though the latter two may be reflective of a broader shift back to in-person engagement post-COVID. 

The “old” channels are still an important part of the mix. 73% of organizations noted direct search as effective in 2024, up from 56% in 2022, and organic social media discovery has remained consistently high).

It’s this author’s expectation that these trends will accelerate as publishers move to “own their audiences,” rather than building their businesses on unstable third-party foundations. That said, are you seeing these changes in traffic? Are you having success with other third parties, like Newsbreak, Apple News, Nextdoor, or Reddit? How are you adapting? Let us know: [email protected].