This rapid journey all started with investment into a whole new, TikTok-first team in 2023.
Metro started out as an urban print newsbrand in 1999. It now attracts the largest, youngest readership of all major news titles. At its core, Metro features accessible, impartial journalism and storytelling, drawing on regular, iconic, reader-favourites from the paper and online like Rush Hour Crush and What I Rent. Layering in social video provided the perfect opportunity to develop and leverage our inbuilt reader connections – the ideal match of audience, medium, and title offering.
Why Metro embraced the new ‘pivot to video’
We all know that audiences are fragmenting: the natural solution is to meet them wherever they are. Since its inception, the Metro social video team’s approach has been to niche down into communities of different interests, finding the highly engaged, and speaking to them. For us, the ideal start point was TikTok.
We began with a few core goals. Social had to be true to Metro’s DNA, and respectful of its core audience. It required agility; to ‘fail fast’ and learn faster. It needed to avoid brand commercialisation too quickly – a tough call, but the right one. These channels are ruthless about branded content which is too bullish. We needed to become fluent in social video first.
Delineating the verticals
The decision to separate out our specialist verticals was clear when considering the underlying factors. Chiefly, we prioritised eventually becoming commercially viable for brand partnerships, while simultaneously satisfying the ultimate judge – the algorithm. The different channels are set up as separate pages rather than one combined feed, each with their own unique content creators who act as ‘specialists’ within that genre. If you want to talk to gamers, you need someone who speaks the language, not a casual Mario Kart enthusiast!
Specialist verticals allow for authority and consistency, two factors that are key to social success. Juggling the amount of videos we produce ‘for reach’ versus the amount of videos for ‘brand value’, while maintaining our duty as a news publisher is probably the aspect that’s evolved most since the start.
Reach and engagement – chicken or egg?
We didn’t reach for branded repeatable formats straight away, first focusing on organic presenter-led content. The initial push yielded fantastic engagement (an average engagement rate of 6.2% on our main account all the way up to 10.5% on Game Central) and steady initial growth. The team had to get comfortable on the platform, learning its language before bringing in brands. TikTok users generally prefer less ‘polished’ content and are more savvy about who is telling the story.
Though one of our aims is bringing beloved print formats to life in a 360 package, we first had to earn trust on the platform. That’s taken time, plenty of presenter-led content (people like a recognisable face), and reliable reporting. Now Rush Hour Crush and Good Deed Feed can sit on our main TikTok channel, not feel out of place, and bring the essence of Metro to new global audiences.
The hard-learned truth of presenter-led content is that it can be harder to scale. Essential for engagement, it doesn’t necessarily achieve the reach of ‘easy wins’ – think ‘headline breaker’ style videos, user generated content (UGC) and low-lift voiceovers. Once you establish the platform, there is a reality that numbers talk; having a certain amount of followers and views opens up conversations you might not be at the table for otherwise. Part of our ultimate intentions was building out sustainable brand partnerships. This needed a solid, stable foundation.
We spent 10 months focusing on this kind of ‘reach’ content. We grew from 450 million monthly views and 1.1 million followers in November 2024 to 1.4 billion monthly views and 3.6 million followers in September 2025. Our highest performing video of inmates at a detention centre in Texas earned nearly 70 million views, a repost from Billie Eilish and the biggest dopamine hit of my career.
If you build it right, users follow. This approach helped the team work at pace, to dig deeper into the analytics and work out which stories did or didn’t work. We became creative with music to aid narratives, and more playful with the brand tone of voice. Most of our big learnings about the algorithm came during this time, purely because we had so much content to play with.
The art of original storytelling in a changing news landscape
During this time, original journalism didn’t fall by the wayside. Our social video news lead, Anna Staddon, spearheaded our first repeatable format, Metro Explains. Anna is a fantastic social storyteller; someone who understands which angles will spark interest and how to present them. Her scientific background means she’s interested in telling stories that might otherwise be missed. The series has covered scientific and technological developments and cut through on complex topics for younger viewers like climate and sustainability.
The first episode of Metro Explains, covering the creation of the woolly mouse as a first step in the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth, debuted with over 1 million overnight views. It now sits at 8 million. The company behind the project exploded into mainstream conversation as a result of the exposure, proving that having a team who live on platforms is an invaluable asset.
Metro is agile in keeping up with the space and depth of online conversation and platform-native user habits. Whether it seems alien or not, social video journalists having ‘scroll time’ is as essential as a reporter being on the wires.
The way we work reflects a shift across industries; not just within newsrooms, but in PR and comms. Nothing epitomises this more than when I received an invite to Downing Street from its head of digital. Perhaps naively, I thought I’d be ushered in through a side entrance, but I instead walked right up to No 10’s famous front door.
I talked to the digital team about how we operate, the content we produce and how they might be part of it. Within weeks, we were back in the rose garden chatting exclusively to the prime minister about the expansion of Gatwick, earning my first front page splash. A proper ‘pinch me’ moment, and all video-first.
The big push for repeatable formats
After our 10-month focus on ‘reach’ content, we were hungry to produce even more sophisticated storytelling. We’d grown our accounts, experimented with formats and topics and were more aware of our tone of voice. Our creators pack a punch with personality; Izzie Jones and Owen Davies who front Game Central have a dry wit that works for their hardcore gamer audience. Zac Haniff on Metro Entertainment is able to add a goofy, fun twist to anything showbiz whether that’s a red carpet, press junket or roundup of celebrity drama. Our channels are full of content that resonates, led by people who really know their stuff.
An account doesn’t always need tens of millions of followers to make an impact; platform architecture means a single piece of content can reach way beyond your followers. Algorithms can be strangely democratic; it’s why you can see content creators with modest followings achieve a smash hit.
We reached a point where the follower counts didn’t need boosting, but packaging content for our audience did. By lowering the amount of ‘reach’ content, we increased the original ‘brand value’ content significantly. We’re still ‘chronically online’ with a deep love for social storytelling. Now, we balance that scale and algorithmic wizardry with repeatable formats that allow audiences to anticipate our content.
Metro Explains has been joined by Metro Meets and Metro Explores on the main account, allowing us to tell engaging news stories in a dynamic and familiar way. Sport has hot debates on Real Quick Tho and deep dives on Between the Lines, and Game Central explores groundbreaking gaming moments in Lore Degree.
Crucially, we’ve leveraged existing user buy-in to launch classic Metro formats like What I Rent across social video. It calls back to print and online, and it’s true to Metro’s identity. Our commercial video lead, Chris Buswell, sits between our commercial and editorial teams to make bridging the two seamless. Re-framing these formats for a whole new medium and new viewers is exciting. Brands love it too. What I Rent’s relationship with Smart Energy felt natural, unobtrusive. Burger King’s Wagyu burger launch demanded a whole social video-led narrative journey, which proved deeply engaging.
I’m particularly proud of our partnership with Alzheimer’s Society, spanning a Metro Explains episode covering exactly what dementia is, and a Metro Meets with their head of knowledge and learning about reducing the risk of dementia. It was a meaningful partnership with real value for our audience.
What’s next?
Metro social video is poised to scale even greater heights. Our formula just works. We’ve mastered the art of going viral, keeping users engaged (our new series Side Note is already averaging a 46.65% retention rate) and delivering tangible value for viewers.
After a successful trip to Miami to cover the Anthony Joshua vs Jake Paul fight, where Metro Sport achieved 100 million views across platforms, I’m more confident than ever in our multi-faceted strategy. Sport, in particular, is heading into a World Cup year with engagement rates that keep climbing as we continuously test and learn. We never take anything for granted and constantly optimise as the algorithm does its thing.
We’ve built a model that works, and we’re only getting sharper. The platforms will keep changing – and so will we, as we strive to stay relentlessly relevant to our audiences.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
