Social video is changing how people discover and engage with news, but for small newsrooms, turning views into sustainable revenue can be a challenge. In this webinar, Adriana Lacy will share practical ways independent newsrooms can use social video to build engaged audiences and create revenue through partnerships with local businesses, creators, influencers, and other newsrooms. You’ll also learn which video formats work well for local news, how to make videos attractive to potential partners, and where platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Meta fit into your strategy.
In this session, you’ll:
• Learn what the shift to social video means for independent newsrooms and younger audiences
• Explore why partnerships can be more valuable than relying on platform payouts
• Discover partnership models, including local business sponsorships, creator collaborations, and cross-newsroom projects
• Get practical tips for creating partner-ready videos with a small team
• Understand the basics of monetization on YouTube, TikTok, and Meta
• Learn how to approach disclosure, brand integrity, and internal buy-in
Adriana Lacy is the founder and CEO of Field Nine Group, a Boston-based media and technology portfolio company working at the intersection of audience strategy, creator partnerships, and journalism. Through Field Nine's Influencer Journalism, a first-of-its-kind creator-newsroom agency, she helps news organizations collaborate with creators to strengthen trust, reach, and audience engagement. At the heart of that work is the STEPP Framework (Standards, Transparency, Engagement, Platform-Native content, and Public Service), a practitioner framework Adriana created that shapes how newsrooms and creators build credible, sustainable partnerships. She is also the author of Field Notes, a publication on audience, technology, and the future of journalism, and serves on WAN-IFRA's Future Audiences Advisory Board. Her work is grounded in experience at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Axios. Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, she teaches AI in Journalism at Brandeis University and speaks regularly at WAN-IFRA, the Online News Association, Sciences Po, and the Saudi Media Forum. She is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Indiegraf is the operating system for independent local media.
