“It feeds our entire network—no pun intended.”

Sachin and Andrew hear how data informs audience understanding for HelloFresh copywriter Jacqueline Parisi and discuss overarching food and drink content trends. Plus, they go +1/-1 on the new Google News and recent changes to Twitter.

Data that held our attention:

1:24 – Jacqueline gives an overview of her background and HelloFresh’s audience. HelloFresh subscribers and readers want recipes that are simple but delicious.

Jacqueline: “The data shows us that the tried-and-true—the classic recipes with a twist—are the ones that perform the best. They want the steak and potatoes. They want meatloaf. They want chicken with veggies. They want pasta. So we listen to the data.”

4:45 – Sachin and Andrew zoom out to take a look at network-level data that provides context around Food and Drink content. Comparing Jacqueline’s nuanced understanding of HelloFresh’s audience to general trends underscores the importance of listening to your unique audience.

Andrew: “We took a look at about a one-month period in April and we looked at over 6 billion views across Parse.ly’s publisher network to about 900,000 articles that were published in that period. The interesting thing here is that Health and Fitness is actually the fourth most-viewed category, according to our analysis of articles, and Food and Drink is the eighth most-viewed.”

Sachin: “I thought it was really interesting how Jacqueline and the HelloFresh team knew a lot about their audience prior to diving into the content data. […] They had qualitative data around their audience: who they are, what they tend to do, what their daily habits are. And then it was about marrying that with what they’re seeing from the content itself to really get a good sense of what’s going to drive people to go to this content and what’s going to get them to engage with it.”

9:47 – Jacqueline digs deeper into how data informs strategy at HelloFresh. For instance, qualitative survey data informed the creation of a family meal plan, which in turn informs the development of family-friendly and back-to-basics content, as well as cooking guides.

13:10 – The most popular HelloFresh recipes of 2017, according to the data.

15:18 – Inspired by the most popular recipes, Sachin and Andrew share a network-level view on ingredients and cuisines that the HelloFresh audience prefers. (In other words, a lively discussion of chicken vs. beef vs. pork with a key update on tacos and geography.)

19:55 – How user behavior and content consumption changes for HelloFresh depending on the channel, such as in-app versus LinkedIn, and seasonally.

Jacqueline: “I would say the trends that you normally associate with the seasons are relevant for us. It’s just really the more fleeting, health food trends that our customers don’t really resonate with.”

23:58 – To state the obvious, we all need food. But beyond that, why does food resonate as a topic with so many people?

Jacqueline: “I think the reason why cooking and food resonate so much with people is because it means so much more than that. Food is so closely intertwined with identity and memories and experience and family and community and coming together around a table—all of those good things, all of those intangibles that I think are common to us just by virtue of the fact that we’re all human.”

+1 or -1? Quick takes:

27:44 – Looking at recent changes to platforms, starting with the new Google News.

30:29 – Twitter hiding tweets that “detract from the conversation” from search.

Show notes:

• Google News gets an AI-powered redesign, Sarah Perez, TechCrunch
• Twitter Will Start Hiding Tweets That “Detract From the Conversation”, Will Oremus, Slate