FanFeedr News launched back early December to become a spoke to the FanFeedr hub. Site goals were set to be the news outlet reporting breaking news and to drive traffic back to the main site. The staff consisted of three writers posting game previews, recaps, league power rankings and top stories across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL & European soccer.
For the month of December, traffic was modest at best due to limited resources and bandwidth.
During the month of January, FanFeedr News decided to bring on 20 team columnists across the four major sports, college basketball and soccer. The columnists covered the games of their assigned teams by writing previews, recaps and features. Fresh content was constantly posted increasing the reach of FanFeedr. However, this was more of a case of a higher quantity than overall quality. The content from the site did not really stand out and got lost in the weeds.
Greg Schneider, FanFeedr community manager, proposed a different approach for FanFeedr News to shake things up. The focus of FanFeedr News should be more timely and more aware of the hottest sports stories a la Deadspin. A team of three writers (Joe Gill, Shlomo Sprung & Paul Farrell) would now generate content based on NFL Head Coaching moves, European Soccer Transfer News, power rankings across all sports & buzz worthy stories. The rest of the staff would continue with their quality team coverage as before.
The experiment has been a resounding success. As the New Approach Snap Shot illustrates below, the site experienced dramatic traffic growth. The staff is extremely excited about this outcome.
NEW APPROACH SNAP SHOT
Below is a traffic comparison before (Jan. 6-15) & after (Jan.16-25) new approach:
- Visits increased 110%
- Unique visitors increased 123%
- Page views increased 86%
MONTH BY MONTH SUMMARY
Below is a January (based on 25 days) vs. December (based on 31 days) traffic comparison:
- Visits increased 135%
- Unique visitors increased 119%
- Page Views increased 126%
With this new found success and re-positioning, FanFeedr News has been re-branded FanFeedr Hot Takes. FanFeedr Hot Takes strives to be the one stop shop for team news and buzz worthy content.
