As we saw yesterday, top website Londonist isn't what it used to be. As I'll explain today, neither are its tweets.
I've been keeping an eye on the Londonist Twitter feed over the last month, and have a list (far too long to publish) of every tweet Londonist has tweeted since Big Ben rang in the New Year.
» 5 London facts you'll want to tell everyone
» Are these London's prettiest pubs? We reckon so
» 7 secrets of the natural History Museum
...
» London's most relaxing events
» Love bagels? Love burgers? We tried the new Bagel Burger.
» Ever noticed the dome on top of Kennington Station?
Londonist's tweets are generally short and sweet, and rarely come close to filling the 140 character limit. Numbered lists are mentioned a lot, and tweets are frequently worded as a question, encouraging a response. There's often a hint that Londonist knows something you don't, providing all the more reason to click through, and the phrasing sometimes over-promises. But most importantly the tweets are simple, making them accessible to everyone, and they're relentless.
By my reckoning Londonist tweeted a total of 958 times in January 2017. That's a lot of tweets, indeed it's equivalent to an average of 31 tweets a day. Moreover this daily Twitter target is hit with impressive regularity - on almost every day in January Londonist tweeted somewhere between 29 and 33 times. Viewed another way, Londonist is firing out an average of one tweet every 47 minutes, which might be seen as somewhat excessive. If you're one of their 1 million+ Twitter subscribers, there's very likely a Londonist tweet sitting somewhere in your recent timeline.
It used to be, way back, that Londonist posted something new and then tweeted about it. This now very rarely happens. Instead a certain amount of gaming is going on behind the scenes to ensure that tweets are delivered at the most appropriate time. I've spotted that Londonist concentrates its tweets during certain key periods when the maximum number of readers will be viewing, and then goes quiet at other less optimal times. A typical day starts off with one tweet every 20 minutes between 5.40am and 8.00am, to give Londoners something to read over breakfast or on their commute. Things then go silent until 11.20am, followed by another burst over lunchtime between 12 noon and 1pm. The afternoon cluster kicks off at 3pm with tweets every 20 minutes until 6pm, to catch those bored in the office or on their way home. The final sequence runs from 8pm to 11.20pm, again every 20 minutes, as smartphone surfers relax at the end of the day. There are occasional tweets dropped in at other times, and the rules do seem to change from month to month, but this seems to have been January's underlying plan.
The key statistic to be aware of is that Londonist tweets four times as often as it posts. There were, if you remember, 224 fresh articles in January 2017, but there were also as many as 958 tweets. This massive imbalance could mean that Londonist is tweeting its fresh posts more than once, or it could mean Londonist is tweeting old posts to fill the gap. In fact it means both.
Of the 958 tweets last month, approximately 300 related to posts that Londonist actually published in January. That's about 30% of the total... let's be generous and call it one-third. This means that two-thirds of the time Londonist is tweeting about old stuff it posted months ago, sometimes last year, sometimes the year before, and occasionally further back than that. This is why it's become important for the site to have a back catalogue of non-time-dependent posts, because it's then possible to tweet them again months later, potentially several times. But it also means that for every three times you click on a Londonist tweet, two of these will lead you to an old post. If you've ever thought "oh, I think I've read that before" or "oh seriously, not that post again", this recycling of old stuff is why.
» Cumming Street to Helmet Row: the rude A-Z (from August 2010)
» London under water (from July 2013)
» Bet you didn't know all these things about the DLR... (from August 2014)
» 8 of the best independent trainer shops in London (from October 2015)
» Because frankly, Crossrail 1 is old news (from December 2015)
As a further example, last month food and drink made up 19% of Londonist's Twitter output, a percentage exactly in line with the proportion of food- and drink-related posts currently being published. But again it's old stuff which predominates. To be more precise, for every four tweets about food and drink only one related to something first posted in January 2017, and the other three were from the archive.
If you're the person who writes Londonist's tweets, this repetition of old material makes sense, optimising already-written collateral and generating income. But if you're the person on the receiving end then this diluted stream of tweets appears annoyingly stale and increasingly irrelevant. It's enough to make any long term Twitter follower consider unsubscribing.
Meanwhile, yes, Londonist is also tweeting its fresh posts more than once. About 70 of January's new posts were tweeted twice, that's 30% of the total, while 13 got the nod three times. Only two were tweeted as many as four times, that's these two, for reasons I don't fully understand.
» In pictures: 24 photos of beautiful London tube stations
» Why does Croydon have a different postcode system to the rest of the country?
What's peculiar about the first of these tweets is that the linked post actually contains 69 photos not 24, suggesting that the person who wrote the tweet can't count. What's more one of the 69 photos was of Drayton Park, which isn't a tube station, and incredulously this was the photo used to illustrate the tweet. It's since been removed from the post, but served its purpose because the prettier the photo the more people will share the tweet, and clicking through is what Londonist's presence on Twitter is all about.
A number of Londonist's pre-2017 posts were also afforded the honour of being tweeted at least four times last month, as follows...
» Pack a few mince pies and you're ready to go
» 11 London wetherspoons worth drinking in
» Alternative tours in London you will love: (sponsor)
» Don't just stay in London, have an experience: (sponsor)
» 13 unique things to do in London you will love: (sponsor)
The first of these tweets relates to Londonist's guide to The Best Bus Routes For Seeing Christmas Lights, a semi-fictional piece which I pulled apart in November for its shower of inaccuracies. Unbelievably this rubbish got tweeted eighteen times over the Christmas period, including four times in January when no right-minded person would have been interested in Christmas lights. The post has since been mysteriously deleted, but for a few weeks it was clickbait gold, as the tweet's alluring photo delivered thousands of Twitter users through to the Londonist website.
Notice how three of the other most-tweeted tweets were for sponsored posts. Londonist is scrupulously fair in flagging up its paid-for tweets, but they do perhaps get more than their fair share of exposure. Last month 5% of Londonist's tweets were sponsored tweets - that's one in every 20 - as advertisers made sure they got sufficient bang for their buck.
At the other end of the tweeting scale, about half of Londonist's January 2017 posts were only tweeted once. What's more some of these single tweets were at 6am on a Saturday morning, or half past eleven on a weekday evening, when a minimal number of people would have been looking. You might expect 'tweeting once' to be the norm, but it's a peculiar inconsistency when so many other new posts get more exposure, and perverse when Londonist's stream of tweets is so full of older stuff. Still, at least these single-tweet posts did better than the handful of posts that were never tweeted at all, often because they were a bit challenging, and so would have been barely read. It isn't the Londonist website which drives traffic these days, it's social media, so the number of readers a post gets is directly proportional to its exposure on Facebook and Twitter.
Meanwhile a fascinating and unlikely disconnect has developed between Londonist on Twitter and the Londonist website. You might expect that every new post would be mentioned on Twitter shortly after it's been posted on the website, but this rarely happens. Of the 224 fresh posts that appeared on Londonist in January 2017, only 45 were tweeted on the day of publication, the vast majority of which related to daily or weekly events round-ups. The other 80% of new posts had to wait at least a day before they got tweeted about, and the average delay is more like two days. It may seem mad, but this is another advantage of non time-critical posts - it doesn't matter when you tweet about them. Indeed if you want to keep up with Londonist's most recent posts then Twitter is the last place you should be looking, because the Londonist website is where it's at. Good luck finding all the new stuff on the bloated front page, buried underneath a wall of 24 'highlights' of indeterminate origin, but that's where all the new stuff is.
Londonist has over a million followers on Twitter, so what it chooses to tweet makes a real financial difference. For example, if only 1% of followers are tempted by a tweet to click through to the website, that's ten thousand extra pageviews, and ten thousand extra pageviews means more guaranteed advertising revenue. That's why every tweet is carefully crafted to encourage engagement, even if the reality's just a link to some old piece dragged out of the archive. And Twitter's not even the most important driver, that's bound to be Facebook, except I'm not on Facebook so I'll spare you an analysis of Londonist's January 2017 output there.
But 'clickability' is Londonist's true new mantra. The site needs readers to survive, else its writers don't get paid, and the modern way to gain readers is to attract them click by click. This requires a succession of tweets with clickbait triggers, a bottomless pit of non-chronological London-related posts on which to draw, and an ad-friendly website optimised for single landings rather than navigation. We live in an 'attention economy' where those who shout the loudest prosper, and otherwise intelligent offerings go to the wall.
And that's why top website Londonist is evolving. It still has dozens of excellent posts each month, but it's not a sequentially scrolling blog any more, its overall content is dumbing down, and its tweets are increasingly out of date.
Top website Londonist is evolving. It still has dozens of excellent posts each month, but it's not a sequentially scrolling blog any more, and its content is subtly changing.
Let's take a look back at Londonist's posts from January 2017 to help explain what's going on. I've made a list of all the post titles over here, if you're interested in seeing for yourself, because the site no longer supports chronological archives.
Last month, Londonist posted a total of 224 fresh articles. That's an average of 7 posts a day, which is an impressive strike rate... but it's down from 10 a day this time last year. Comparing January 2016 and January 2017 directly, there's been a cut of roughly 25% in output. The biggest decline has been at the weekend, when readership is at its lowest. Previously there were 4 or 5 posts each day at the weekend, but now it's generally 2 or 3, and occasionally only 1.
Londonist used to be a comprehensive source of news, but no longer. Indeed one glance at the phenomenally out of date 'News' page on the Londonist website should convince you of this, with front page stories about Heathrow's Christmas advert, the Croydon tram crash and the 'New Bus Hopper Fare', introduced last September.
In January 2016 around 20% of Londonist's posts could be described as news-related, but in January 2017 that's dropped to only 5%. In particular the daily news round-up at 4.30pm has been scrapped, and merged (in much reduced form) into the daily 7pm events listing. A couple of last month's posts consisted of photos from protests, and five posts could be described as investigative journalism, but news is no longer something Londonist sources itself. Instead four posts have appeared in the last week lifted from CityAM, with permission, and labelled "This article was originally published on CityAM."
There's also been a decline in in-depth coverage of the arts. In January 2016 just over a quarter of Londonist's articles were rooted in film, theatre, art, music or comedy, but that's now reduced to 6%. I haven't included the daily and weekly events round-ups in these totals, and here a comprehensive listings service continues, but reviews of shows and exhibitions are now a rarity. Transport-related articles have also slipped back slightly, from 13% in January 2016 to 10% last month, but a lot of this can be explained by the overall reduction in news content.
So, where's the new focus in Londonist's output? History and geography are the big winners, and now form one third of the website's content. Every day there are fresh posts about quirky London stories from days gone by, and facts about places around the capital. Some of these are in-depth explorations, particularly where history's concerned, but in general they're listicles with short snappy factoids and associated photos. Increasingly certain formulaic structures are used, as can be seen from this lists of Londonist post titles from the last month.
Things You Might Not Have Done In Camden Town
Things You Might Not Have Done In Greenwich
Things You Might Not Have Done Near Brick Lane
Things You Might Not Know About Kew Gardens
Things You Might Not Know About The Borough Of Islington
Things You Might Not Know About Wembley Stadium
5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Science Museum
7 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Primrose Hill
9 Things You Didn't Know About Strand
7 Secrets Of Hampstead Heath
7 Secrets Of London Bridge Station
7 Secrets Of Shaftesbury Avenue
9 Secrets Of Piccadilly
7 Interesting Facts About Brick Lane
7 Interesting Facts About The British Museum
Odd numbered listicles are always best, as you can see. Of the 17 posts last month whose title started with a number, only three were even-numbered.
The other genre with a big increase in postings since last year is food and drink. In January 2016 only 8% of Londonist's posts were food and drink related, but last month that more than doubled to 19%. Food gets the lion's share, particularly restaurant vignettes, generally assembled into genre-based multiple listings. My word there are a lot of these, and invariably posted with an unwarranted superlative in the title. Indeed Londonist's editor appears convinced that the site's lists are utterly definitive, and uses the label 'Best' with delusional frequency. Take a look at this lot, all posted during January 2017.
London's Best All-You-Can-Eat
London's Best Boutique Hotels
London's Best Brunch
London's Best Delis
London's Best Dumplings
London's Best Hotel Bars
London's Best Hotel Restaurants
London's Best Japanese Ramen
London's Best Places to Celebrate Pancake Day
London's Best Themed Restaurants
London's Best Unsung Restaurants
The Best Beer Festivals In London In February 2017
The Best London Restaurants For Healthy Eating
The Best New London Restaurants To Try In January 2017
The Best Places In London To Celebrate Burns Night
The Best Pubs In London For First Dates
The Best Train Station Coffee Shop In London?
Two years ago, in an appeal for new contributors, Londonist stated "We are looking for a novel approach to tackling a subject, so a listicle of, say, 'The 10 Best Pubs In London' will just get deleted." These days 'The 10 Best Pubs In London' is precisely what we get, which is a clear indication that a change in editorial control has led to a degree of dumbing down.
And overuse of 'Best' is only part of it. Other superlatives are used with similar abandon, as Londonist fires out photo-heavy lists gushing over restaurants and bars its reviewers rather like.
London's Craziest Bars
London's Craziest Cocktails
London's Most Fun Desserts
London's Most Fun Street Food
London's Most Glamorous Afternoon Tea
London's Most Romantic Food
London's Most Stylish Cafés
London's Most Thrilling Dining
London's Poshest Bar Snacks
London's Poshest Dining Rooms
London's Poshest Dishes
London's Trendiest Restaurants
Reassuringly there are also specific reviews of individual restaurants, providing honest and in-depth critique, and not all of it positive. But these only seem to appear about once a week, whereas the generic 'London's [superlative] [type of food]' posts churn out on average more than once a day.
One final growth area is 'the post consisting almost entirely of photos'. You know the sort of thing, lots of websites do it, appealing to those who prefer the visual over having words to read. In January 2016 barely 1% of Londonist's posts were of this type, usually only on Fridays, and sourced from Londonist's bottomless Flickr pool. But in January 2017 they formed 8% of Londonist's online content, with a wide variety of other photos appropriated (including, in one case, one of my own). Apparently it's fine to borrow a photo so long as you link to the source underneath, and that's allowed Londonist to knock up several lengthy pictorial posts with ease.
Amazing Photos Of London In The Fog
Derelict London
Putney Is As Pretty As A Picture
Beautiful London Tube Stations
Beautiful Photos Of London's Tube Stations
Celebrities On The Tube
Vintage Pictures Of Tube Stations
In Pictures: 30 Years of London City Airport
In Pictures: London In The 19th Century
In Pictures: Piccadilly Circus Through The Ages
Here's What London Looked Like in 1967
London In 1951
London In 1956
London In 1985
London In 1993
So what might be going on?
Essentially, Londonist has been evolving from a blog to a format that's more like a magazine, and now specialises in London-based posts with a shelf-life. On a blog only your most recent posts count, whereas in a magazine each article retains relevance, making non-chronological articles more cost-efficient to produce.
For example, news is all well and good today, but of no interest next week, hence news-related posts have ebbed away. Meanwhile history never changes, and geography only rarely, hence posts on people and places can be promoted not just now but in the future. Galleries of photos are remarkably good value too, as they retain their eternal visual appeal. And food and drink posts may need a little tweaking to keep them fresh, but restaurants rarely vanish overnight, so these too have considerable longevity.
You can see how important 'timeless posts' are to Londonist by looking at its Twitter feed. I've been keeping an eye on this too over the last month, and have a list (far too long to publish) of every tweet Londonist has tweeted since Big Ben rang in the New Year. Perhaps we should consider this tomorrow...
