April 17, 2022
WordPress has been a hugely popular CMS amongst independent publishers and leading media organisations for many years thanks to its simplicity, abundance of features and customisable infrastructure. That's why we help a wide variety of leading publishers to distribute their content to Apple News from WordPress so they can start reaching over 145 million monthly active readers on the popular news app.
Who are we? We’re FlatPlan – the Apple News specialists. We integrate publishers of all sizes with Apple News from any CMS. We produce elegant, brand-true channel and article designs equipped with tools to boost reach, nurture reader retention and drive first-party data capture. We do this work behind the scenes, so editorial teams don’t need to make any changes to their busy workloads or expend any more resource than necessary. While your team works hard, we’ll quietly ensure your publication drives loyal, valuable traffic on Apple News with an onboarding process that’s easy, efficient and painless
If this sounds like the solution you're looking for, book a chat with our expert team to find out how we can tailor an Apple News integration to suit your needs.
Anyone can surface content to Apple News, but this typically requires a time-consuming ‘Apple News Format’ build or limiting output through RSS or basic outputs. Publishers including Mixmag, Kerrang!, The Face and HELLO! prefer a FlatPlan integration, because it eliminates weeks of costly development work and delivers stories to Apple news automatically when published in a way that maximises traffic. Multiple Apple News updates arrive yearly, which FlatPlan closely monitor and capitalise upon whenever it will help you.
If you use FlatPlan for your integration, we’ll create a beautiful, on-brand channel, and article designs that ring true to your publication’s journalistic voice and visual style. When you’re surfacing content to 145 million readers, you want to look your best. Here’s an Apple News article by a publisher we work closely with, The Sportsman:
Looks good, right? Here’s what The Sportsman had to say about their FlatPlan/Apple News integration:
As a modern publication with a focus on quality editorial, we had a real need to build strong, loyal audiences, to build our brand. Apple’s audience is sizeable and valuable, and FlatPlan helped us reach that audience with beautifully branded pages that allow our content to shine.
Ross Brown, Editorial Director, The Sportsman
We also offer a custom Apple News footer, unavailable elsewhere. It can be invaluable for driving traffic to a location of your choosing. Our client Creative Review uses theirs to encourage newsletter signups:
Here’s what Creative Review had to say about the simplicity of their integration:
As a magazine which writes about the creative industry, we have to be a bit finickity about things like the leading of type and how images sit on a page. I think all of us breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the draft templates…they got CR straight away. We think the final templates do full justice to the brilliant photography, film and design work we write about.
Salonee Gadgil, Digital Content Producer, Creative Review
Now we’ve discussed design, let’s talk tech. WordPress is one of the most widely-used CMSs on the market, thanks to its simplicity. Creative Review is a WordPress publication. Luckily, a FlatPlan/WordPress integration with Apple News couldn’t be simpler. Here’s how it works.
All a WordPress publisher has to do is send us their RSS feed or install our free plugin, their brand guidelines, their fonts and their logo. We’ll handle the rest, ensuring your title is Apple News ready. It really is as simple as that. Once your channel’s live, you’ll need only to hit publish in WordPress to surface a story to Apple News.
Once you begin publishing, you’ll be able to capitalise on FlatPlan’s suite of tools. This includes instant analytics notifications and ‘out-of-app’ traffic drivers to convert readers into newsletter subscribers or website visitors.
FlatPlan helps drive the revenues of publishers using WordPress and beyond, inside and out of Apple News. We’ll help you deliver display, native and backfill advertising to your new audience, and use your Apple News channel to drive revenues on your site.
Are you digital publication that uses WordPress and want to start distributing your content to Apple News with a seamless workflow? Speak to our Apple News experts to find out more.
No matter what stage you're at in your discovery of Apple News, we'll help you get the information you need to make the right decision for your media business.
