One Story, Three Screens
Programming the same content differently can make all the difference.
Back when I was leading digital strategy at NBCUniversal in Philadelphia, our job was to connect with audiences wherever they were—on desktop, mobile, or tablet. It seems obvious now, but at the time it felt like a sea change. Too many newsrooms were still operating under the assumption that a headline was a headline and a story was a story, no matter the screen.
But as we dug into data and user behavior, it became clear: the same story could (and often should) show up differently depending on how someone was accessing it. The format, the framing, even the art—what worked well on a desktop homepage didn’t always translate to mobile or tablet.
We learned to be intentional. We learned to plan. We learned to listen to what our users were telling us—through clicks, drop-offs, dwell time, and shares.
And the best results came when we thought like programmers, not just publishers.
Chartbeat’s latest playbook on winning over multi-platform audiences reminded me how foundational this thinking still is. From homepage hierarchy to social referral optimization, their insights reaffirm something I learned early on: platform isn’t just a delivery mechanism, it’s a behavior shaper. And your audience deserves better than a one-size-fits-all approach.
📘 Check out the Chartbeat playbook here: Our Playbook for Winning Over Multi-Platform Audiences
And just to be clear: none of this is about team size. You can have a five-person staff or a 50-person staff—what matters is the mindset. Platform intention is about how you think, not how big your org chart is.
This is the kind of work I love talking about—where strategy meets execution, and audience growth stems from respect, not assumption.
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