REFLEKT: More Members Through Host Videos

Starting Point: Reach Without an Established Audience

REFLEKT is a Swiss investigative newsroom founded in 2019 and organized as a nonprofit. It produces three to four major investigations each year, published both in collaboration with partner media organizations and increasingly through its own channels. The investigations focus on individuals and organizations in Switzerland as well as international contexts. For example, “Die Uni-Protokolle” exposes abuses of power in academia, while “Türöffner der Korruption” reveals how open Swiss consultants are to concealing illicit funds. Another example is the community-driven investigation “Kein Freund und Helfer", which examines how the police handle the criminal prosecution of hate speech in German-speaking Switzerland.

The team relies on editorial independence from advertising and alternative forms of financing to make investigative journalism economically viable. The nonprofit model is based on foundation funding, memberships, and project-based revenue. In the medium term, REFLEKT aims to expand its distribution, strengthen its visibility as an independent media outlet, and increase the share of membership revenue. Since 2024, Media Forward Fund has been supporting this development with 300,000 euros.

Challenge and Approach: Independent Distribution Instead of Dependence

REFLEKT aims to build a sustainable funding model with a larger share of membership revenue. The central challenge: while the extensive investigations achieved reach through partner media, they barely strengthened REFLEKT’s own brand or established direct relationships with audiences. “We kind of got lost as our own brand,” says co-founder Christian Zeier.

The strategic decision was therefore to build the organization’s own distribution channels and become less dependent on partner media. To achieve this, REFLEKT makes its investigations accessible through social media posts and videos featuring high-profile hosts, while simultaneously building its own community of social media followers, newsletter subscribers, and members.

The underlying assumption: organizations that distribute content through their own channels can convert reach into direct relationships and ultimately into memberships, thereby strengthening both the brand and financial sustainability.

To test this assumption, REFLEKT defined three key KPIs: reach, community size (Instagram and newsletter), and membership growth. The initial targets were:

• Reach of approximately 100,000 people per video
• Community growth to around 19,000 people by the end of 2025
• 850 paying members by the end of 2025 

A key component is the crowdfunding campaign planned for late 2026, which aims to convert the growing community into paying members on a larger scale. This is intended to increase the share of membership revenue in the funding mix from around 25 percent to approximately 40 percent.

Implementation and Decisions: Host Videos as a Lever for Brand and Membership

The focus is on host-led videos through which REFLEKT adapts its investigative journalism for social media. The goal is to present complex investigations in a way that is accessible on the platform while simultaneously building a direct relationship with the audience. The videos deliberately prioritize clarity and engagement over brevity, reaching lengths of up to eight minutes. A recurring host guides viewers through the investigation as a relatable figure, complemented by experts and carefully placed humorous or satirical elements. The roles are clearly separated: the editorial team is responsible for the reporting, while the host handles the presentation. “You can maintain high editorial standards while also engaging with the language of a platform,” says Christian Zeier.

In 2025, REFLEKT published three such videos as part of larger investigative projects. The key operational decision was not to use the format primarily to maximize reach, but to focus specifically on memberships. The team deliberately chose not to prioritize newsletter sign-ups, says REFLEKT Executive Director  (CHECKEN) Johanna Weidtmann, who oversees organizational development and is responsible for fundraising and member relations. Instead, the videos were specifically designed to attract new members.

The videos are structured not only to guide viewers toward the investigation itself, but also – through calls to action embedded in the narrative – to encourage support for this work. This creates a direct transition from understanding the content to becoming a member.

Originally, the REFLEKT team debated whether to use a different host for each video. However, after two successful productions with Gülsha Adilji, they decided to continue working with her. “This worked very well from the beginning; we share similar ideas about the final product, and Gülsha can communicate the journalistic content credibly,” says Johanna Weidtmann. It also became clear that her presence contributed significantly to community building. At the same time, the team has not ruled out occasionally featuring other hosts in future productions.

In addition, the team tested several measures to increase reach and strengthen community building. These included shorter video clips, collaborations with content creators, AI-supported translations, and the use of TikTok. The initiatives were evaluated based on their impact and then either expanded or discontinued accordingly.

Collaborations with external creators were expanded because they demonstrably reached new audiences and generated additional traffic. By contrast, AI-supported translations were put on hold again: although they generated additional reach, they had almost no measurable effect on community growth or memberships. At the same time, a credibility issue emerged, as AI-generated moderation content – while linguistically convincing – was not perceived as authentic.

TikTok was also deprioritized. Although individual videos achieved more than 30,000 views, the effect could not be sustained without continuous, platform-specific production. Given limited resources, the team decided to focus on Instagram.

Another important component was the introduction of a mailwall. The goal was to systematically convert reach into direct contacts. Users must provide their email address to access investigative content, thereby linking freely accessible journalism with community building. While the videos themselves are not primarily designed to drive newsletter subscriptions, the mailwall serves as a complementary mechanism for converting reach into direct contacts. Both approaches serve different functions within the same system: the videos use calls to action to encourage immediate membership conversions, while the mailwall collects email addresses for long-term community building.

The team iteratively adjusted these measures based on clear performance criteria: approaches were expanded if they visibly contributed to reach, community growth, or memberships, and discontinued if their impact remained limited. As a result, not every format was developed simultaneously; instead, initiatives were specifically prioritized and refined.

Results: Increased Reach, Stronger Membership Growth

The measures produced varying effects across reach, community building, and conversion.

Reach per video stabilized at around 50,000 people on Instagram. This is significantly higher than the previous benchmark of around 20,000, although still below the original target of 100,000, which had been based on a non-repeatable pilot video from 2024. “We realized last year that this was a very ambitious target,” says Weidtmann. Adjusting the benchmark to 50,000 people therefore proved more realistic.

At the same time, brand perception changed noticeably. Website traffic increased, which the team primarily attributes to greater visibility through its own channels. REFLEKT is increasingly perceived as an independent media outlet rather than merely a research platform operating behind partner media, says Weidtmann.

The strongest effects are visible in memberships. By the end of 2025, REFLEKT had gained around 900 paying members, exceeding its target of 850. The conversion path is striking: in connection with video publications, some users become members directly, without first moving through the traditional funnel via newsletters or other intermediate steps. “At the moment, our conversion chain is still functioning somewhat atypically,” says Weidtmann. Each video – which always ends with a call to action leading directly to the REFLEKT website – generates an average of around 30 to 50 new memberships. However, these effects cannot be attributed exclusively to individual channels, as partner media and other touchpoints also contribute to conversion alongside REFLEKT’s own channels.

Paid distribution can also generate conversions, though only to a limited extent at scale: a Meta campaign generated around 70 new memberships at a cost of approximately 45 Swiss francs per subscription and revenue of roughly 100 francs per membership. The campaign was therefore economically successful, while also highlighting the limitations of this approach.

Community building developed more strongly than expected. The total community grew to around 21,000 people (including social media followers and newsletter subscribers), thereby exceeding the target. Instagram followers increased from around 10,000 to approximately 15,000, while newsletter subscribers grew from roughly 2,200 to around 5,300. Open rates remained stable between 45 and 65 percent, indicating a high-quality audience. Looking back, Christian Zeier describes the effects of the mailwall as surprising: the resulting newsletter registrations were initially difficult to explain, but immediately after the first publication the team recorded around 1,000 new sign-ups.

Overall, the relationship between reach, community building, and membership growth is not linear. While reach remained below initial expectations, community and membership grew at an above-average rate. What matters is not maximum reach, but the ability to convert reach into relationships and ultimately into memberships. It remains to be seen to what extent the growing community can be converted into paying members over the long term.

Key Findings

REFLEKT demonstrates how distribution, community building, and monetization can be systematically integrated within a social media context. Traditional funnel logic only partially applies here. The key lies in consistently aligning initiatives with their impact on relationships and memberships.

• Build your own distribution: Organizations that primarily distribute investigative content through partner media do not build their own brand or direct user relationships. “The main lesson was that we need to be visible,” says Christian Zeier. Owned channels are a key prerequisite – especially for independent newsrooms – for converting reach into sustainable relationships and memberships.
• Use host videos as a format: Investigative journalism works on social media when it is adapted to the platform. REFLEKT demonstrates this with host-led videos that translate complex reporting into a personal and visual narrative format. The host becomes a central point of orientation, trust, and recognition – and therefore a key factor in building loyalty.
• Optimize for engagement: High reach alone does not generate sustainable growth. More elaborate formats contribute more significantly to trust, recognition, and memberships. What matters is the ability to convert reach into measurable relationships – such as recurring website visits, newsletter subscriptions, or direct memberships.
• Integrate conversion early: Memberships do not emerge automatically from reach. Content must be intentionally designed for conversion, for example through clear calls to action and fewer intermediate steps. REFLEKT shows that content does not necessarily need to follow a classic multi-stage funnel but can instead be designed to encourage membership at an early stage.
• Prioritize focus over expansion: Additional platforms or language versions only generate growth if they are consistently developed. “It’s not enough to simply publish a single video in French to truly build a community,” says Johanna Weidtmann. Gains in reach without continuous content development contribute only marginally to community or membership growth.
• Clarify organization and roles: New formats also require organizational adjustments. In small teams, clear roles, strong personal responsibility, and suitable profiles are crucial. Separating reporting from presentation, along with the deliberate selection of hosts, increases efficiency, quality, and brand recognition.

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Author: Alexander von Streit, journalist and strategy consultant – on behalf of the VOCER Institut für Digitale Resilienz
Photo: Juliane Herrmann

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Dernière mise à jour: 10 mai 2026