Introduction
The Kyoto Shimbun is one of the most venerable local publishers in Japan. First printed in 1879, the Kyoto Shimbun has amassed a loyal digital following on X. Their almost 200,000 followers on X make them one of the most followed local media outlets in the country.
Challenge
- Increase traffic from X leading to paid subscriptions
- Remove need for complex APIs to manage social posting
Approach
- Use Echobox’s AI-powered X integration to optimize shares to the platform
- Reduce time-consuming manual processes with smart automation
Challenge
For the Kyoto Shimbun, X is hugely important ,playing an enormous role in their content distribution strategy. Japan is rare in that users of X outnumber those of Facebook. There is also a marked demographic difference between Japanese users of the same platforms with X appealing to a younger audience.
According to the Kyoto Shimbun’s Reporter and Editor, Yoshiho Asai, “social media is indispensable for the Kyoto Shimbun in terms of article traffic. In fact, many who read the articles end up paying for them, so we feel the benefits.”
Previously, the Kyoto Shimbun relied on their own in-house solution to post their content to X. But following the change of ownership at X they ran into a problem. X’s new developer tiers were prohibitive for many third-party developers making it difficult to integrate with the platform, especially enterprise clients. It was a common occurrence for them to publish articles only to find out that their tweets had not been sent.
For a platform of such importance, this was an intolerable situation.
Approach
After looking around at different social media solutions, the Kyoto Shimbun chose to move to Echobox.
Three main factors informed this decision. First, Echobox’s integration for X. Rather than having to build and maintain an in-house solution, Kyoto Shimbun simply connects its content feeds to Echobox. From there, Echobox is able to post to every major social media platform automatically. For X this also means that there are no more limitations on the amount of shares that can be posted — a huge benefit for Japanese publishers or those who rely on X.
Echobox’s integration with X even extends to Echobox’s social monitoring solution, Echobox Benchmarks.
The second factor was Echobox’s AI-powered automation. Echobox not only intelligently automates social posting for Kyoto Shimbun, but also optimizes those posts, sharing the best content at the best time to increase traffic to their website. To do this, Echobox analyses millions of datapoints to build a thorough picture of the Kyoto Shimbun’s audiences and understand when they are on social media and what types of articles they are most likely to be interested in at any given time. In this way, Echobox increases traffic and engagement from social media.
And by combining this optimization with automation, these increases can even be achieved at times when staffing is low or non-existent. “Echobox is so helpful,” Asai told us. “Echobox covers for us even late at night or early in the morning, and Echobox does all this while still optimizing our posting strategy.”
The final aspect that led the Kyoto Shimbun to Echobox is Echobox’s dedicated and responsive Customer Success team. Unlike other vendors, the Echobox team works closely with the Kyoto Shimbun, passing on best practice, monitoring performance and suggesting improvements to help clients achieve their business goals.
Results
The Kyoto Shimbun’s use of Echobox has resulted in time savings as well as increased performance.
In just the first month of switching to Echobox, the Kyoto Shimbun’s Echobox traffic increased by 35%.
At the same time, our analysis at Echobox estimates that the Kyoto Shimbun saves 26 hours each day through Echobox’s AI-automation; time that can be reinvested in experimenting with new social platforms, formats or strategic planning.
“Echobox is amazing,” Asai said of the results. “The fact that we no longer need to worry about X anymore is fantastic.”
Conclusion
In the future, Asai told us, the team at the Kyoto Shimbun hope to integrate even more of their social posting with Echobox. “We’re going to explore automating our Instagram posts with Echobox, and we also want to explore short video platforms.”
Would they recommend Echobox to other publishers? “I would definitely recommend Echobox. Local newspapers are struggling with follower growth, and Echobox truly helps address this challenge.”
