Anika Anand

Anika Anand loves engaging with her readers, not just giving them "fly-by content." She constantly asks, "What do we want people to do with what we're making?"

Anika and her colleagues at The Evergrey and Whereby.us are pioneering a new kind of interactive journalism, always aiming to engage with their readers, and to encourage them to engage with their community. Their motto: "Live Like You Live Here."

With this clear intention in place, a lot of her job revolves around measuring the impact of the relationships they create with users. This approach gives Anika plenty of opportunities to engage in one of her favorite activities: nerding out about content strategy.

Anika's Bio

Anika Anand is a cofounder of The Evergrey, a digital news publication that helps Seattleites feel more connected to their city with a daily newsletter, stories and perspectives, and interactive events.

She was previously the engagement editor for The Seattle Times Education Lab. Before that she worked for the education news organization Chalkbeat as a reporter, director of engagement and director of product.

She has been published by The Seattle Times, Chalkbeat, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC.com, Salon, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the New York Daily News and others.

She graduated with a bachelor's in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has a master's in business and economics reporting from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.

Video

Here's the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/hLyhoG4Bd6U

Show Notes/"Transcript"

[Not an actual transcript - just my quick notes on first listen-through]

0:00 - intro

0:55 - Anika intro - Chalkbeat educational nonprofit - then Seattle Times briefly - and now The Evergrey - daily newsletter, experiments with social - Whereby.us - The New Tropic sister publication in Miami - her role has shifted to Storytelling Director for Whereby.us - four publications (two new ones launching next month) - goal: reader engagement, not just content sharing

3:55 - my hypothesis that journalists are so immersed in content strategy that they don't even think about it

4:55 - "content strategist - what is that?" when I first approached her- but a common path for journalists - there's so much more to content these days - hates the word "content" sometimes - they're trying to help their users experience something new in their cities - sometimes written, sometimes a GIF, sometimes and event - all of that is part of her editorial strategy

6:45 - iteration and experimentation?

7:35 - OK, we put the story out - now what? so what? what was the impact - didn't know - worried it was just another piece of fly-by content for people to consume on yet another platform - Joy Mayer a journalist amazing at engagement always asks, "What can I do with this?" - share and start conversation? take it city council meeting? - "What do we want people to do with what we're making?" - "When you think about the intended impact in terms of actions, it gets to a lot more creative work."

9:45 - metrics for success? one of her favorite questions to nerd out about - each organization has to figure this out for itself - way she thinks about impact - quantitative: time spent, social engagement, comments, etc. - qualitative: the informed actions that people take with your content - very hard to measure - when she looks at numbers about performance less excited than when she gets a nice note from a reader - values those reader interactions - also becomes a selling point for the publication, telling stories about the qualitative impact -

12:40 - how do you tell that qualitative story to advertisers, sponsors, et al?