Publishers have just gained a potent tool in the battle for readers’ attention and loyalty. Today Contextly introduces Channels.

Many publishers write stories that consistently fall into a small number of topics. Contextly Channels now make it possible for readers to subscribe to these topics without any editorial work.

What are Channels and how do they work?

1) Contextly will identify 10-20 topics that are most salient in your publication. The objective is to have over 50% of your stories fall into one of these topics. These form the basis of Channels. The Channels do not rely on your tags and categories. (You can give editorial input into this process if you like, but for the sake of efficiency, editorial involvement in selecting the topics is optional.)

2) A Channel Button is then inserted in the stories that belong to a topic.

This button allows readers to subscribe to a topic.

3) After subscribing to a Channel, a reader will be sent new stories belonging to that topic.

We have hardcoded a Channel example on our test site so you can test the reader experience yourself.

We live in a world where publishers have lost direct distribution to their readers to intermediaries like Facebook, Google, Reddit, etc. Contextly is helping smart publishers regain direct distribution to readers, and those publishers appear to be winning big.

Contextly Channels are just one way publishers can use Contextly to gain direct distribution, loyalty, and engagement with their readers. If you are interested in learning more about direct distribution to readers, check out our FollowUp Button.

If you would like to know more about Contextly’s services, get in touch: info@contextly.com