Over the last few years, digital channels of information sharing has exploded. Engagement through digital medium is on the rise and show no sign of stalling. This has led to the rise of chatbots, social media platforms, and phone apps for people to gain access to news and stay informed.
Where Are Your Readers So You Can Be There Too?
As a media publication you want to be relevant in the space where the readers are. Gone are the days when a reader comes looking for news at a magazine and store outlets. Now the trend is you deliver news to a platform that the reader finds attachment with. Let’s start with a look at just where your readers might be.
First is the website. It’s time to move away from the print publications and just opt for an online space. In fact, some of the traditional print publications have stopped their papers and just 100% digital. The content is mostly free to post and with a small maintenance cost incurred for the domain and hosting. Cost of expensive printers and book/paper creation, and distribution is scratched off.
Once the website is available with latest stream on news content, make the move to the other digital channels. There is social media, like Twitter and Facebook, and mobile friendly methods of Kik, Snapchat and Yik Yak that attract the more tech savvy readers.
Social media channels open the ability to share content and deliver it to people on their portable devices. Breaking news is shared and seen as it takes place and updates on same are instant. Exclusive interviews and coverage gain traction before they flood into all news media presenters. This is the way to make ensure your new offerings and building attachment with readers while growing their dependability and confident in the content you make available.
People like their views to be heard and discussed on. Social Media Platforms allow readers to share the content of interest within their social network and to engage in conversation with directly with you. This encourages readers to stay connected with your business hence growing the business market share and consumer adoption of the services offered.
When you decide to move into a more personalized and conversational mode of communication look into apps and chatbots. The rise of the chatbots is all due to people wanting to be engaged with an entity with the ease to scale up or down the communication pace. A consumer or reader may not be looking to share with their social media networks, but values that information is available on demand and easy to filter or search, unlike navigating through a website.
Steps You Can Take to Move Into the Digital Era
Let’s start with your website. Personalize and brand it as much as you can. WordPress websites are among the easiest to do this with, as there are themes and plugins that will help you. It’s possible to create a quick space for fans of your website to interact and they can comment on your posts for engagement.
It’s worth having a plugin that tracks your site views. Make sure you know where your readers are coming from. If you find they’re all on a certain social media channel that you’re not on yet, you need to get there and figure out how they’re finding you. Don’t worry as much about the how as the getting yourself there to make better use of it.
When on social media, improve your engagement. Converse with those who leave comments, whether they agree with you or not. It’s possible to open the debate, but remain civil and professional at all times.
Listen to what your readers have to say. If they don’t like the content you’re sharing, they won’t share it with their friends. If they want you to cover a specific type of news, consider adding more of it.
You need to be where your customers are. A company takes up vast range on content writing to reach out to potential customer(s). Content marketing strategy is adopted by several product and service providers. Invest in putting up articles that bring value to existing and potential customers.
Start Building Apps and Host Chatbots for Your Readers
App and chatbots allow you to improve engagement and build loyal followers and dedicated readers .
Apps help people get to access news on mobile or tablet devices. It’s easy to push stories through apps and get to the reader without them making an effort to search for news. Readers can manage the app so they filter news by topics of their interest. You may decide to offer free apps or paid versions for your readers, thus offering a new channel for monetization for your publication.
Chatbots are the latest technology trend and channel to connect with readers and build engagement. Chatbots run on bot platforms such as Facebook, Skype, Alexa and others you do not need much effort to market as is for Mobile App or Website Content articles. Have a chatbot on the popular and relevant bot platforms and making readers aware of this should automatically drive the new gen techie readers.
Chatbots can be simple with limited features or complex with workflows modeled to learn and train the bot to improve with use.
Enter the Digital Era With Your News & Media Publication
Old print based publication methods are fading out. People do not go looking for latest in news and communication. They expect content to be available on demand and pushed to them. This shift in paradigm requires news and media source to present its content where people are by creating a space that is personalized, branded, and easy to consume.
Take the time to research and understand who your audience is and where they are. Build and enhance your audience engagement by exploring and being available of new platform ventures such as Chatbots. Track your stats and find out where people are visiting from. You’ll soon find a way to get involved in conversation with customers and build your brand.
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