Daily Mail publisher DMG Media has launched two dedicated social publisher arms, “doubling down” on reaching young people and what they can offer advertisers.
The team at DMG New Media are now producing all content for the Daily Mail, Daily Mail UK and Mail Sport accounts on Tiktok and Instagram, including news content and original, talent-led videos.
They are also launching several smaller specialist channels, including personal finance brand This Is Money, entertainment brand The Spotlight and The Respawn for gaming. Others are set to follow to cover health, wellness, technology, food and climate.
At the same time, the publisher has launched DMG Creator Media which is described as the lifestyle magazine equivalent to the news and entertainment brands.
It runs fashion and beauty brand Eliza, which launched in 2022 but has since closed its website to focus on social media, and You magazine, the Mail on Sunday supplement that has recently relaunched its social presence to serve women aged 45 and up. There are also plans to launch a men’s lifestyle brand, with the beta name of Eliza’s Brother.
Options for advertisers across the two publishers include sponsorship of existing regular formats like Eliza’s “guess which outfit is more expensive” game, making bespoke original series, long-term channel partnerships on the niche verticals, and helping to run client channels.
Nick Moar, head of DMG New Media responsible for all of its content and operations, told Press Gazette that the Daily Mail’s social channels have a combined 150 million followers in total, growing by two million every month.
“We’re a real big player, and it’s growing fast.” About 65-70% of the audience across Tiktok and Instagram on Daily Mail, Daily Mail UK and Mail Sport are Gen Z (currently aged up to 28).
‘Heavy investment in social media team’
Moar said there is still plenty of room to grow. “We recognise that young people particularly consume news and entertainment on social. So what the New Media launch is about is creating new bespoke, original content for the audience that obviously brands can integrate into.
“We’ve invested really heavily in this, building a big new team to create great original content. So it’s just doubling down on social… to give building a social publisher the emphasis and the quality and just to seize the opportunity.”
It is not just about getting people to click through to the Daily Mail anymore as they can be commercially valuable on the social platforms too. Moar said: “Our aim is to produce the best content, whether that’s on the website, newspaper or on social…
“Building a great social audience is a big, big aim, and I’m sure we’d be very proud for lots of people to also want to consume more of the Mail’s content across the other products, but the aim is to build a great slate of content for the social audience.” Many of the videos designed for social end up on the Mail website as well.
For example, three “creators” worked on Premier League transfer deadline day social media content last month and brought in 40 million views across the day, according to Moar. “That’s something we’ve never done before. We had a big team dedicated to producing social-only content with these creators.”
Mail to protect ‘journalistic credibility’ amid brand partnerships
The Mail weaves commercial messages into editorial content on its Tiktok accounts in a way which blurs the traditional ‘church and state’ divide between commercial and editorial/
Moar cited a recent paid partnership video produced for McDonald’s on the Daily Mail UK Tiktok channel in which a journalist investigated whether McDonald’s burgers are made of beef as successful brand collaboration.
He emphasised that having “journalistic credibility” even on brand partnerships is crucial. “Of course, the primary purpose of what we’re building this social publisher, is to produce quality, informative, valuable news and entertainment for young people.
“That’s the mission, and taking the great quality and heritage of Daily Mail to this new audience.”
Hannah Blake, managing director, commercial across the two social publishers, added: “The reason why content creators work so well and so many people go to them for their purchasing decisions is because of trust, real trust.
“They feel like they know these people… so it’s actually more important than ever before to not take on a brand campaign that’s going to jeopardise that in any way, because then you just totally lose the whole point of it.”
The same applies to Eliza’s most popular series, she said, in which members of the public guess which out of two similar-looking outfits is more expensive. Videos in this series have almost 300 million views.
“A lot of brands are interested in it, but we’ll only do it if we feel like it’s going to work, Blake said. “If a product is really not going to stand up to luxury looking, we won’t do it. We’ll give them another option, which is actually, why don’t we do a shopping haul with your staff, or sit down with the founder or something…
“Because the reason also that format works well is because the audience trusts that the random person in the street is touching that and is actually saying, yes, that does feel amazing. But if that person’s going, Oh no, this doesn’t feel good. But actually it is the winner the whole thing falls apart. You have to just be protective of those things.”
@eliza.co.uk One of these outfits costs £2630 and the other one costs £230 👀 Can you tell which is designer and which is from the high street? #minimic #streetinterview #guessinggame #designer #highstreet #ootd #outfitinspo #fashiontiktok ♬ Ok I Like It – Milky Chance
Question for new hires: ‘What are they doing on social media?’
Moar said there are 55 people within his team currently posting about 100 videos a day across the DMG Media social channels, of which about seven to eight are original, talent-led pieces of content. The rest are more straightforward, quicker turnaround news and entertainment videos.
Between the DMG New Media and DMG Creator Media divisions, there are about 20 people, or creators, who front these videos.
Moar said the social teams are being built in a different way to the rest of the Mail newsroom. He said they are mostly Gen Z (currently aged up to 28) and less likely to have gone to university.
“When an application comes in, the first thing we’re straight to looking at is what are they doing on social media?… People are building their own audiences on social and we’re bringing them in to work with us.”
Moar cited five designers on the team who are all aged between 21 and 23. “Lots of them have designed F1 graphics and football team graphics, and you just see their creative spark, and you just know that they’ve got unbelievable talent, and that’s how we bring them in.
“Same with video editors, one of our new video editors used to edit compilations for Dybala, the Argentinian footballer, and that’s how we found him.”
Moar said this team spends “hours agonising over various hooks and the opening sequence, making sure the lighting is right, the sound effects are right, because it really, really matters. And if you can create really, really captivating opening moments for video, it will just fly, it will be unbelievable.”
‘A different type of journalist for the social era’
Asked whether these people are classed as journalists in the same way as more traditional roles at the Mail, Moar said: “It’s a mix. Obviously everyone has got a great passion for news and entertainment.
“Some of our creators are on-screen talent, went to university and got a journalism degree. Others haven’t but they’re obviously knowledgeable in their space or vertical. So I would say they’re just a different type of journalist for the social era.”
Blake added that they have to go “looking for these people, because they’re not necessarily looking for these types of jobs, or they don’t know that we exist here”.
She also emphasised the importance of diversity, especially among the on-screen talent. “We’re almost casting people and making sure that everybody is represented. So, yeah, it’s a different way of hiring.”
Blake also noted that although scale and having a large number of followers is “really important, there’s also value in more community-led pieces of content or slightly niche audiences” especially as the nature of social media, its algorithms and how audiences engage with the platforms evolve.
This is the thinking behind the launch of the likes of This Is Money on social, which soft launched at the start of October and reached 40,000 followers across Tiktok and Instagram in its first week.
@thisismoney Come with us inside Billionaire’s row – the UK’s most expensive street 💸 #ThisIsMoney #News #Money #UK #Billionaires ♬ original sound – This Is Money
Moar said: “Launching that new network lets us build a deeply engaged audience. It will still be a large audience. I’m sure the money channel will grow to over a million followers within a year, but we can reach lots of really, really engaged audiences across different passion points.”
Perks of working with a media brand over individual creators
At DMG Creator Media most of their on-screen talent are in-house full-time.
Blake said this “makes us different for brands… lots of brands can run advertising campaigns with creators and influencers that individually have their own platform, but it’s kind of like the wild west out there in terms of, like, who do you select? How do you make sure they’re on brand? How do you make sure that they don’t go off and say something a bit controversial the week later? And how do you really get the most value from them? And can you create a relationship with them that’s longer than just one post?
“The beauty of what we can provide at Creator Media is you get the benefits of creative marketing, but it’s within the safety of a media brand, and actually, we can do so much more for you beyond just running influencer campaigns, and we can make sure your brand is featured throughout other content franchises, you can look at a long term relationship.”
Kneecap invite a case of ‘over-exuberance’
The publishers do collaborate with some external talent but reaching out to new faces can backfire.
Irish rap trio Kneecap called out the Daily Mail, which had previously described them as “anti-British”, earlier this month. Kneecap posted an email from a member of Mail staff saying the publisher had “just launched a bold new strategy” on their socials “and would love Kneecap to be part of it”.
The email said they “are opening up our platform to select talent around major releases.
“We’d love to feature the men, to craft bespoke content to engage audiences in a way that feels premium, personality-led, and positively promotional. We want to give them the platform to talk about what they’re passionate to talk about, whether that be their new album or even just to chat about bird watching if that’s the band’s jam!”
Moar told Press Gazette brands and talent often “won’t want to work with us and that’s completely fine.
“This was just a case of, like, it’s a big young team moving very fast, building a really, really exciting proposition and just a bit of over-exuberance.”
‘You’re selling the content, not selling around the content’
Blake noted that the content creators are more involved in the sales process than they would be with traditional editorial.
“Because of how social is consumed, you don’t have the luxury of just putting out a piece of editorial content and selling around it, like you’re selling the content. And so it’s very important for us that the commercial editorial is blended effectively, and when a brief comes in, it is those content creators responding to that brief.”
She added: “I think the beauty of social is you can flag it as sponsored, so nobody’s under any illusion that it’s not paid for, but it needs to be created in a way by the creators, so that it is authentic, and so the advertiser is getting what they want, which is for it to sit properly within that media.”
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
