How Miami New Times and New Times Broward Palm-BeachAdapted to Social Media to Remain Relevant

•Miami New Times acquired in 1987 by New Times Media

•In 1997, New Times Broward-Palm Beach split off from Miami New Times

•In 2005 New Times Media acquired Village Voice Media to create a chain of 17 alternative newspapers

•In 2012 Village Voice Media was acquired by Voice Media Group and is now headquartered in Denver, CO

•There are currently 11 papers in the chain: Village Voice, LA Weekly, Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Houston Press, Dallas Observer, Riverfront Times, Miami New Times, Minneapolis City Pages, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, and OC Weekly

• Miami New Times and New Times Broward-Palm Beach

offices are located in the Wynwood Building

• Circulation: 66, 462 for MNT, 47,480 NTBPB

• New issues released every Thursday, free

• Miami New Times has four online blogs: Riptide (News),

Cultist (Culture), Short Order (Food), and Crossfade (Music)

• New Times Broward-Palm Beach has three: The Daily Pulp

(News), Clean Plate (Food), and County Grind (Music)

• Blogs were created in the early 2000s

• Online advertising brought in extra revenue

• Weekly page views are measured by Chartbeat and Google Analytics

• At weekly Monday copy meeting, web editors review numbers to editorial staff and staff members inform web editors of upcoming stories

Web editors

There is one Director of Web Content and Traffic for the chain (formerly Keith Plocek in process of being replaced)

“This position combines journalism with social media marketing and analytical date management to increase the audience for New Times on its desktop and mobile applications,” MNT web editor Jose Duran says

Responsibilities include: assign and editing photo slideshows, working with freelancers, and collaborating with blog editors. Also manage the paper’s several social media accounts and is expected to write compelling headlines.

Miami New Times web editor is Jose Duran (33 y/o, University of Florida journalism grad)

New Times Broward Palm Beach web editor is Ryan Pfeffer (23 y/o Florida State University Editing and Media grad)

• Likes: 50, 231 MNT, 10,0021 NTBPB

• Web editors post every 30 minutes, include photo, and writes interesting blurb (at first it was four or five stories a day, then one an hour)

• Chooses blogs that people will want to share with friends and are not too salacious or offensive to make people “unlike” the page

• Facebook is second-largest source of pageviews (after Google)

• Followers: 55.6K MNT, 12.2K NTBPB

• Web editors Tweet stories every 15 minutes, use bit.ly, and retweet journalists

• Blogs about corruption and activism do best on Twitter

• Marketing reps manage the Instagram account

• Followers: 2,947 MNT, 483 NTBPB

All papers in VVM have mobile apps (which are free to download), however,

Miami New Times’ app has highest use:

App is rated 17+, requires IOS 5.0 or later, and is compatible with iPhone,

iPad, and iPod touch

The importance of a good headline:

• Reporters use

social media to

research people

• Most-viewed blog

of 2013 was of

embeded Tweets

of a drunk driver

before crash (over

2M clicks)

• All staff writers and bloggers have Twitter accts, and share stories on their

personal Facebook

• Blogs have writer’s Twitter handle at end

Top five blogs of the year

(4.08M total):

1. John Martinez, Alligator

Wrestler Dies at Age 30

(113K)

2. Kayla Mendoza’s Family

Finally Speaks (90K)

3. Florida Man Has His Penis

Sliced Off in Temp-Job

Accident (79K)

4. Love Psychic Predicts

New Anus Tattoo Trend

(48K)

5. Taylor Chapman, Local

Racist Who Hates

Dunkin Donuts, Is

Engaged to a Criminal

(45K)