In the past month, wildfires have ripped through my province, British Columbia, at the exact same time as it’s becoming harder to keep up on what’s going on in my community and across the country. I know there’s quality journalism everywhere in Canada, but with increasing fake news on X (Twitter) and Meta shutting off news content in response to the incoming Online News Act (aka C-18), it’s getting harder to find it. 

I’ve also been in and around Canadian publishing circles for some years. I’ve seen the rising panic around shrinking circulations and ad revenue, and experienced what it’s like when your paper closes. Facebook seemed to offer some kind of solution to that, but now the rug has been pulled from under publishers’ feet. It’s heartbreaking; if the current situation continues, even more publications will shut down, cutting off whole Canadian communities from the news that can keep them informed, inspired and, in some cases, safe.

Like everyone I know in Canadian publishing, I’m urging my friends and neighbours to be proactive about finding news by signing up for sites’ newsletters, downloading their apps, paying to subscribe to favourite outlets, and donating money where that’s an option. Since I’m Flipboard’s lifestyle editor, I’m also recommending our platform, which can help individuals find the information they want (we have just over one million users in Canada) and publishers get their content in front of an interested audience.

There are a couple of different ways outlets can get the most from Flipboard. After onboarding as a publisher, you can add RSS feeds to a Flipboard Magazine, and your content is then instantly indexed by our algorithm and shared with people interested in related topics. As people engage with your content, traffic goes directly to your website and will be visible in your internal analytics. Some of the Canadian publishers that are using Flipboard Magazines to share content and connect with readers include the CBC, The Globe & Mail, Hakai Magazine and Macleans. 

“We love Flipboard! It’s been a consistent, reliable traffic driver for us since we onboarded in September 2021, and we’re excited to partner more as the media landscape in Canada continues to evolve,” says Darcy Matheson, Editor in Chief at Daily Hive. 

You’re not fully leveraging Flipboard if you’re not also creating Storyboards, which allow you to curate content around themes and include signups for your newsletters (and other strategic URLs) so you get more readers directly to your site. Take a look at these Storyboards from The Tyee, which focused on C-18; NUVO, which featured women in photography, and Montecristo, which covered Vancouver home design. 

If you’d like to get more from Flipboard, please reach out to us via publisher_support@flipboard.com. We’re excited to work with you and help you find new audiences.

— Aileen Lalor, lifestyle editor, is curating The Culturist and Flipboard’s Culture Desk in the Fediverse