Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

In the beginning of this year, Andrew Sullivan made the bold decision to part ways with The Daily Beast and turn his popular political blog The Daily Dish into a stand-alone business. As part of that move, Sullivan announced that the blog would forego ads and generate revenue through a metered paywall and an annual subscription fee for those who wished to pay.

Some questioned whether Sullivan would be able to make enough money from this model to support the business, which includes a team of writers and editors. On Monday, however, Sullivan revealed that he is already more than two-thirds of the way towards his goal for the year — after less than two months.

The Dish has brought in approximately $611,000 to date, the vast majority of which came before the paywall went up on Feb. 1 as many generous readers paid more than the $19.99 annual subscription fee to help Sullivan get the website on firm footing. In the three weeks that the paywall has been up, Sullivan says The Dish has brought in $93,000 in subscriptions thanks to the metered model. Sullivan's goal for the entire year was $900,000 in order to avoid pay cuts or other significant changes to the operation.

Voter trust in political information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media services is now on par with that in traditional news sources, according to a new survey shared with POLITICO.

Recent years have seen candidates increasingly devoting time and resources to developing their social media presences, with President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign widely admired by experts in both parties for its massive data and analytics operation....

“There needs to be an authentic commitment in social media” by candidates,” said David Rehr, a professor at the school. “They’ve got to take it very seriously.” Social media “is an information source that has to be reckoned with.”

The survey finds that nearly two-thirds of voters reported that political information on social media was either higher quality or on par with traditional media outlets. For users younger than 25, 71 percent put the same or greater level of trust in content....