National World, the regional newspaper and website publisher, has invested $1.25 million in social-first media company, The News Movement as it seeks greater engagement with younger readers.

The company said the partnership will help it develop a new operating model that will bring its titles, such as The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post, and nationalworld.com closer to readers through social platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Snap.

As part of the relationship, The News Movement will produce news content for National World websites in addition to The News Movement’s social platforms. The editorial process will be a blend of traditional and social-first techniques, including The News Movement team’s attendance at the long-standing daily news conference meetings.

National World chair David Montgomery, said: “The partnership with The News Movement will provide us with the expertise and experience to reach new and younger audiences, on platforms and in formats that they want to consume content.”

Audiences across National World’s 60-plus online brands are already seeing branded content and The News Movement followers will get a chance to view on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Snap and YouTube.

The News Movement was co-founded in 2020 by William Lewis (former CEO of Dow Jones, Publisher, The Wall Street Journal), Kamal Ahmed (former Editorial Director of BBC News and Scotland on Sunday journalist), Ramin Beheshti (former Group Chief Product and Technology Officer at Dow Jones), Eleanor Breen (former Chief of Staff at Dow Jones) and Dion Bailey (former VP, Head of Technology and Architecture at The Wall Street Journal).

The News Movement has offices in London and New York. As of June Tiktok was its biggest audience-driver with 25,000 followers. It had 4,700 Twitter followers, 2,700 subscribers on Youtube, 2,000 followers on Instagram and 360 on Facebook.

Since National World took ownership of its newspaper portfolio last year, it has expanded a footprint across the UK from its limited geographical base. Its new brands include an online national newspaper, nationalworld.com, with individual World mid-market brands in seven major cities including London, and last week it launched two further national websites: PeopleWorld.co.uk and a football site, 3addedminutes.com.

National World last week confirmed that it may make an offer for Reach, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Daily Record, Daily Express and Daily Star, as well as OK! magazine and a number of city-based and local papers.