Social media for digital subscriptions is the core growth driver for premium news organizations. The Telegraph, one of the world’s renowned newspapers of record, pivoted to a subscriber-first strategy, aiming for 1 million paid subscribers. Social media is a key lever, allowing them to interact with audiences, build trust, and ultimately drive sign-ups.
The challenge was to convert casual social audiences into paying subscribers, a slow burn that requires maximum engagement. They needed an AI solution to optimize every post and free up their team to focus on innovative, trust-building initiatives.
😩 The pain point: The slow burn of subscription conversion
The Telegraph maintains an impressive 16 million followers combined across all major platforms, but converting these readers into subscribers is a persistent challenge.
Elise Johnson, Head of Social Media at The Telegraph, explained their strategic view: “That’s where social media really steps in. If we’re always just asking audiences to click through to our website, that doesn’t actually ingratiate us to them… Giving a lot to our audience and showing them respect in this way does eventually lead to subscription.”
For The Telegraph, audience engagement is the critical factor that precedes a subscription. “On every single platform, one fact stands out: when audiences are more engaged, subscriptions go up,” she noted. They needed a tool to maximize engagement without requiring constant manual oversight.
🧠 The game-changer: AI-driven timing and A/B insights
To engage social audiences and drive digital subscriptions, The Telegraph adopted Echobox, relying on the AI to solve two key problems: optimizing post timing and freeing up team bandwidth.
Echobox’s unrivaled understanding of social platform algorithms calculates the optimal moment to post each article in real-time. This was initially challenging for the team to accept, but the results were convincing. “Echobox has really helped with our engagement. Timing optimization takes a huge load out of the job, as you don’t need to fiddle about and keep track of what to post every half hour,” Elise recalled.
The team also uses built-in organic A/B testing to refine their strategy. “We use A/B testing in Echobox when we want to demonstrate the power of a shorter headline, or when we’re trying to help a new reporter/journalist understand what works better for our audience,” Elise said. This provides the feedback loop necessary to master social media for digital subscriptions.
Furthermore, Echobox automatically maintains certain social accounts with less bandwidth, ensuring a consistent presence while giving the team “a lot more brain space to think innovatively, which is helping us build engagement.”
🥳 The big win: Subscriptions surge alongside engagement
The implementation of Echobox provided powerful proof that maximizing engagement directly contributes to the bottom line:
| Key Performance Metric | The Improvement |
| Facebook Post Clicks | Increase of+205% |
| Overall Facebook Clicks | Increased by 38% |
| Digital Subscription Growth | 45% growth |
The massive 205% click outperformance proves the efficacy of the AI timing and curation. These benefits contributed directly to The Telegraph hitting its subscription goals.
Elise confirmed the platform’s value: “We’re really happy with Echobox. It’s a time-saver and helps with engagement on the platforms. It’s very intuitive and user-friendly, and definitely helps keep us organized.”
🌟 Ready to master social media for digital subscriptions?
If you’re focused on hitting ambitious subscription targets, The Telegraph’s success shows that intelligent automation is instrumental. The combination of optimized timing, A/B testing, and time savings is the formula for massive engagement growth.
Download the full case study for all the insider info on how they achieved a 205% boost in Facebook clicks!
