Digiday Media and Viafoura – a next level partnership with fresh content formats, engagement opportunities, and analytics upgrades

Digiday Media is a publisher known for its frank perspectives across its media brands which include Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife. Their unapologetic dedication to delivering work that prioritizes ‘honesty over spin’ and ‘quality over quantity’ has won them awards, accolades, and an audience of loyal subscribers who come to them for the truth.

As a global authority on tech and its impact on media, Digiday Media is keenly aware of the importance of providing an engaging and rewarding digital experience for loyal users. In order to enhance the experience for Glossy+ members, they’ve adopted a number of Viafoura’s solutions on Glossy.co, a space where users are craving deeper engagement experiences.

“We’re so pleased to be helping Digiday Media offer new and exclusive content formats and engagement experiences to Glossy+ members.” says Mark Zohar, President & COO at Viafoura, “As a longtime partner, we’ve seen firsthand how the smart folks at Digiday Media continue to improve the experience for its audiences, and we’re proud that Viafoura is now an active contributor to that strategy.”

The team at Glossy is using Viafoura’s digital experience platform to enhance the Glossy+ member experience by giving them exclusive access to new content formats and engagement opportunities. Using Viafoura’s Conversations, paying members will soon be able to take part in real-time discussions during Ask Me Anything events. These events, along with Conversations on traditional content formats, provide new opportunities for engagement, which can be carefully managed with the support of Viafoura’s Automated Moderation. On the back-end, Digiday Media will leverage the rich first-party data and insights uncovered through Viafoura’s Audience Insights to enhance its audience-first content development strategies.

“We chose Viafoura because it’s the best solution for our current needs and there are plenty of additional features for us to grow into as we evolve the user experience,” says Aaron Gottlieb, EVP, Product & Platform Strategy at Digiday Media. He continues, “Viafoura’s digital experience platform adds another layer of value and utility for paying members and will help us build and own the direct relationship with them on our platforms.”

After rolling out the new Glossy+ member experience, Digiday Media will be implementing Viafoura on additional properties, including Digiday and Modern Retail.

NPG partners with Viafoura, bringing new life to its digital properties and audience communities

News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG), a Midwestern American family owned and operated business, is a powerhouse in the broadcast television and newspaper industries. Having thrived in the ever evolving news and publishing landscapes since 1951, NPG is keenly aware that change is good for business – but not without its challenges. With Viafoura’s tools and expertise, NPG aims to turn those challenges into an increase in the amount of time visitors spend on their sites and an improvement in their overall engagement by giving registered users the ability to comment with ease and the option to follow topics and authors of interest.

In a digital world where audiences are largely anonymous, it’s tough to maintain spaces for constructive, informative, and open conversations without coming up against toxicity and bad actors. “As a media company, NPG has a vested interest in open and robust discourse,” says NPG’s Director of News and Marketing, Michael Fabac, noting that “At the same time, we recognize that some individuals take advantage of digital anonymity to spread misinformation and hate. Viafoura is helping us find a tenable middle ground by providing a platform that encourages engagement and civility.”

For NPG, integrating Viafoura’s Conversations, Automated Moderation and Full Service Moderation tools is helping them restructure their on-site commenting and introduce a fast-paced, safe, and engaging community experience on all their sites. After a smooth onboarding, Viafoura’s tools are live on nine of NPG’s sites and driving immediate positive results. Among the wins, NPG is seeing properties that had fallen dormant due to previous moderation strategies come back to life.

Watch as KVIA.com, one of NPG’s properties, introduces its new audience engagement solution powered by Viafoura:

NPG partners with Viafoura, bringing new life to its digital properties and audience communities

In tandem with updated community and moderation solutions, NPG is using Viafoura’s Audience Insights to gain a deeper understanding of audience interests and sentiments that could be used to further optimize audience-first engagement strategies. These insights allow NPG to serve targeted content to ideal existing and prospective registered users by using Viafoura’s Trending Conversations Carousel, even further improving engagement and time spent on their sites and pages.

As they continue to reap the rewards of Viafoura’s turn-key solutions, nothing but positive outlooks remain for continued audience growth, engagement wins, and limitless insights and learnings just waiting to be discovered in new found access to rich first-party data.

What is a value exchange moment?

Publishing in the digital age, not unlike advertising, has become a conversation between audiences and content providers. A conversation that’s full of opportunities to form substantial and lasting relationships, that is – as long as both sides stand to benefit from a value exchange. Through entertainment, information and fostering a sense of community, it’s up to publishers to give audiences something worthwhile for what they have to offer as digital individuals: unique, rich, first party data.

If publishers are able to create interest, garner engagement, and earn subscriptions and all the first party data that comes with them, they gain a huge advantage. Continued access to first party data will inform improvements to their audience development strategy and usher in new growth; growth in their following and subscriber base and inevitably a marked boost to ad and subscription revenues.

However, digital savvy consumers are hyper focused on protecting their privacy by knowing exactly who’s collecting their data and what it’s being used for. Just recently, fast food chain Tim Hortons came under fire for collecting data without proper consent. Users will typically agree to provide personal data only if they believe it’s worth what they get in exchange. This decision is what we refer to as a value exchange moment, a point in time where the end user decides if what they receive is worth their trust and, of course, their personal information.

While the value a publisher may traditionally provide is content, more and more we are seeing that community has become a huge draw for prospective subscribers. For example, a user who regularly engages with a publisher’s content has a higher propensity to become an active member of the publisher’s community by registering or subscribing. The social perks may vary, but a more nuanced value point is the sense of reassurance a trusted community gives to newcomers. When faced with a group of folks who share interests and values, all of whom consent to share their data with the publisher, anonymous but engaged users are likely to feel at ease when it comes to sharing their information. As publishers, it’s essential to provide high quality content to draw in leads, but the value of a thriving community to prospective subscribers is just as valuable when seamlessly guiding users toward registered and subscribed states.

Once anonymous users have been drawn in by interest-rich content and/or community, they agree to a value exchange and join the ranks of subscribers. With access to their audience’s first party data (e.g. how much time they spend on site, which pages they view, how they engage with sponsored content, etc.), publishers gain a far better understanding of their audience as individuals and cohorts alike. With this data, publishers need only keep their audience growth strategies and first party data strategies up to date in order to keep optimizing their content and retain registered users while continuing to recruit new subscribers.

Once immersed in the community, formerly anonymous but active engaged users become user generated content (UGC) contributors – another value point for prospects on the outside looking in. These contributors comment often and create posts of their own within the community, typically generating over 41 times more pageviews and 100 times the amount of ad impressions compared to anonymous users. As the numbers demonstrate in the funnel above, engagement improves exponentially as users move further along the registration process. By retaining user interest and engagement, publishers not only get closer to the value exchange moment that earns them subscriptions, but they also reap the rewards of substantial growth in impressions as their audience members move further along the funnel’s stages.

Publishers who understand that the potential to maximize their registration, retention, and revenue lies directly in this value exchange moment are on track to setting themselves up for success. So long as users – anonymous, engaged, or fully subscribed – are benefiting from a continued value exchange for their information, publishers can continuously use that self-replenishing well of information to improve their offerings and win big in both audience loyalty and business growth.

Are You Getting The Best Value Out Of Your Engagement Tools?

If you’ve invested in an audience engagement solution, you’re probably well aware of how important the data you collect from the platform will be for the future performance of your business. Insights into how your existing users engage with content and the community built around it allows you to optimise your strategy. An optimised content strategy means you’ll produce more content that should drive additional users to convert into loyal subscribers.

Making those strategic decisions requires the right platform so that you can collect those insights. You need a solution that helps you collect first-party data and analyse on-site user behaviour. With that data in hand, you can effectively maximise the 3Rs:

Registrations
Retention
Revenue

So how do you ensure you’re getting the best value out of your engagement tools? Our latest infographic offers a helpful visual guide on what you need from your platform and how it can help achieve your overarching business goals.

The right audience engagement platform should provide strategic recommendations that you can use to help grow the nature of your business. The technology should help you answer the questions of how to grow registrations, retain existing users, and increase revenue as the end benefit for all of your hard work.

Your team should find daily value from their audience engagement platform. They should not only know how to use the platform, but they should also understand why there’s so much value to be gained from these solutions. You’ll know the platform is a success if your team:

Feels motivated to use the platform every day
Increases productivity across the entire spectrum of your business
Understands how each of the core features helps solve the underlying business needs
Has the desire to collaborate with other departments and gain the deepest understanding of user intent and behavioural insights

If answers to any of these questions are anything short of yes, it might be time to ask yourself a much harder question: do you have the right audience engagement solution? Remember that audience engagement is the first step towards monetisation and greater revenue for your business. Without a platform that can help you gain the necessary insights to make effective revenue-driven decisions, you will likely struggle to achieve those aspirational growth targets.

Why media companies need to act as community hubs in times of crisis

When a global emergency strikes, panic, dread and hopelessness can quickly settle in throughout the world, worsening the quality of life for entire populations. And lately, it seems as though people have had to face one never-ending crisis after another.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs forecasts that 274 million people will need humanitarian aid and protection in 2022 alone.

What many media companies don’t realize is that they have the power to help some of these people in times of crisis. In fact, media companies can offer significant support to populations simply by acting as online hubs for communities to gather during an emergency or tragedy.

Why the importance of community intensifies during a crisis

During stable times, online communities bring like-minded people together, encouraging meaningful connections to form between active members, which grows loyalty toward the host brand.

Meanwhile, the value of hosting a safe online community in a crisis goes far beyond growing brand loyalty — giving audiences access to a tight-knit community can reverse declining mental health and support them in their time of need.

“[If] community members let their feelings of fear, anxiety, confusion, and dread grow unchecked during a crisis, they will most likely begin to feel hopeless or helpless… [causing them to] be less motivated and less able to take actions that could help themselves,” writes the CDC in a crisis and emergency risk communication manual. “Helping the public feel empowered and in control of at least some parts of their lives may… reduce fear.”

So by providing people with a safe space to join an active community, your organization can allow people to feel more in control and confident during a chaotic period. Here’s why:

Offering stability in a world of constant change

From global warming disasters to the war in Ukraine, economic, social and ecological conditions worldwide are unstable.

Online communities encourage members to check in on their conversations regularly, giving people a sense of routine or stability.

“Routines can create a positive level of stress that keeps us focused and may avoid some of the depression that many people may experience as a result of… isolation, fear and uncertainty,” explains Ramon Solhkhah, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

Ultimately, chatting with fellow community members frequently can help to give life meaning, make people feel more productive and improve mental health in a time of uncertainty and fear. Any media company can deliver this type of experience to audiences simply by giving people access to safe community social spaces.

Shaping safe online spaces for sharing thoughts and opinions

Media organizations that give people safe digital spaces to meet and talk empower users to share their voices, thoughts and opinions around whatever crisis is at hand. This can help spark social change and heal traumatized or struggling community members.

According to a series of researchers around the world, “[online] communities (OCs) offer the ground for breeding activism as they provide opportunities for individuals who regardless of their location voluntarily form a social aggregation through an online platform for sharing interests, knowledge and experiences.”

Unfortunately, thanks to the rise of trolls and misinformation, social media platforms don’t guarantee safe conditions for these positive, shared social experiences. After all, over 25% of people will avoid joining a discussion if toxicity is present.

Connecting people to a source of reliable information

Between political extremists and Russian troll farms publishing propaganda across the web, it can be challenging for humans to determine fact from fiction in a crisis. At least it is without a reliable news source.

And with 56% of Americans concerned that journalists consciously publish misinformation or exaggerations, publishers must work to connect people to accurate content.

One major benefit of hosting an online community on a media company’s website or app is that its credible content becomes central to that community. More specifically, audience members will gradually form connections around accurate information — which can save lives by keeping people informed throughout a crisis.

Plus, community hubs allow people to discuss and debate the true actions of governments and come up with potential solutions to global emergencies or challenges.

It’s only natural to want to assist others in an emergency — and by bringing people together online, your media company can give people an outlet for support during challenging times. Not only will this enable you to deliver essential information to loyal audiences, but it will also show them that they aren’t alone, reinforcing their resilience in the face of any crisis.

ACM – propelling new levels of community engagement with Viafoura

ACM, is comprised of more than 140 leading rural and regional news brands. ACM serves millions of people in every state and territory across Australia. Its mastheads include the Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald, The Examiner, The Border Mail, The Courier, Illawarra Mercury, The Land, and agricultural titles like The Land and Queensland Country Life.

ACM is a modern media network that’s passionate about implementing new technologies, making its newspapers and websites the best-in-class for regional journalism. Tom Woodcock, Digital Marketing Manager, notes that ACM strives to create an environment that will both engage and grow its communities and be a place that editorial teams can easily manage and be proud of. With the use of Viafoura’s full suite of services, including Live Blogs, Community Chat, Conversations, and Moderation, community engagement will be propelled to new levels.

Woodcock says that, “Prior to using Viafoura’s solutions, we were faced with older technology that wan’t driving the engagement levels we desired from the community, challenged our moderation standards, and gave us little insight with respect to data.” Now, ACM audiences will be able to interact with journalists and each other, while Viafoura’s real-time moderation engine will ensure that toxic comments are flagged and conversations remain civil. “We are excited for our future with Viafoura”

“Viafoura is thrilled to welcome ACM as our first Australian customer! We can’t wait to see how they put this solution to work to deliver an enhanced engagement experience for their users and drive deeper data and insights.” says Dalia Vainer, Director Customer Experience at Viafoura.

DC Thomson enhances its audience growth strategy with Viafoura’s digital experience platform

DC Thomson, a leading UK-based media company serving news and entertainment to audiences worldwide, is working with Viafoura to bring positive, engaging experiences to its websites’ visitors. With support from Viafoura’s digital experience platform and advanced moderation services, DC Thomson now offers subscribers and registered users rich, interactive social opportunities and personalized notifications.

This partnership has equipped the media company with products designed to encourage respectful discussions and debates between audience members around the content and authors they love. Each of these products — including Viafoura Conversations — are supported with automated and human moderation to keep discourse positive and free of hate.

In the future, the media company plans to launch Viafoura’s moderated Live Blogs and Community Chats as well.

“The folks at DC Thomson are obviously passionate about creating a first-class user experience on their site,” says Viafoura’s Director of Customer Experience, Dalia Vainer. “We’re so happy to be part of their journey toward delivering more engaging experiences and keeping conversations civil.”

Alan McCabe, Head of Product for news brands at DC Thomson, said the team selected Viafoura as a critical partner in audience engagement after realizing that Viafoura could help boost user engagement, time on site, retention and subscriptions.

“We want our customers to have the best possible experience when visiting our websites. Viafoura’s solution helps us do that by allowing our subscribers and registered users to engage with us and each other in a positive, harmonious fashion,” states McCabe. “Now that our audience members can share their views, join discussions and connect with our journalists, they’ll spend more time engaged on our websites.”

DC Thomson will also be able to gather and analyze audience data as users interact with Viafoura’s engagement experiences. This will help staff better understand its customer base and improve future business initiatives.

According to McCabe, adopting the Viafoura platform was a smooth and successful process, causing no disruptions to users.

“The support given to our team during the process was excellent and helped ensure that Viafoura’s experiences integrated properly with our existing user flows and registration process,” says McCabe.

Going forward, McCabe expects that these positive and engaging experiences will help the media company maximize audience interest, growing loyalty toward its brands.

Perfil swaps Facebook Comments with Viafoura’s digital experience platform to boost business results

Perfil, one of Latin America’s most prominent newspaper and magazine publishers, has teamed up with Viafoura to improve the commenting experience for readers and subscribers on its website. Viafoura’s digital experience platform now offers Perfil’s audience members the ability to engage with one another in a positive way, follow their favourite topics and get notifications based on their interests.

According to Perfil Digital Director Agustino Fontevecchia, the media company chose to replace its previous commenting tool, Facebook Comments, with Viafoura Conversations. Now, Viafoura will deliver superior, toxic-free discussion spaces and personalized experiences to the media company’s audience members.

While Facebook Comments lacked moderation and support services, leading to toxic interactions, Viafoura’s digital experience platform is supported with intelligent automated moderation. As a result, Perfil will be able to establish meaningful discussion spaces ⁠— free of toxicity and spam ⁠— that users will want to return to and participate in.

“We’re delighted that Perfil is launching Viafoura as part of an ongoing effort to provide a more positive, seamless and personalized user experience,” states Dalia Vainer, Director of Customer Experience at Viafoura.

Even before adopting Viafoura’s platform, Fontevecchia was confident that a positive discussion experience would add value for publishers and their users by spurring civil communities and increasing conversion opportunities.

“At Perfil, our expertise in politics and economics in a world of fragmentation and polarization means our qualified readership is constantly looking for spaces to express itself and keep the debate going,” says Fontevecchia. “Viafoura offered our team enhanced control over the commenting experience for our readers and subscribers, allowing us to achieve a higher level of audience engagement.”

Perfil plans to lock this commenting experience for website visitors to ensure that only registered people are allowed to post, which will naturally raise the quality of conversations. By reserving these higher-quality conversations for registered users, the media organization is also set to unlock user loyalty and additional revenue.

Fontevecchia explains that as Viafoura helps boost user registrations, time users spend consuming content and engagement, subscriptions will also rise. This means that Perfil will now have new additional opportunities to monetize its audience’s comments.

“And in terms of onboarding and implementation, Viafoura’s team and documentation have been extremely straightforward and reliable,” Fontevecchia concludes. “We felt completely supported during every step of the process, from start to finish.”

Viafoura Partners With Xtra Magazine

Viafoura Partners With One of North America’s Leading LGBTQ2-Focused Digital Publisher

TORONTO, ON, October 15, 2020 — Viafoura, the leading audience engagement and community building company for digital media brands, announced today its partnership with Xtra Magazine, an LGBTQ2-focused digital publication based in Toronto, Canada. Through this partnership, Viafoura will power Xtra Magazine’s online community engagement — including real-time comments and conversations and personalized content recommendations and notifications — allowing Xtra’s digital audience to directly engage with the publisher’s content, editorial staff and the community at large.

To ensure safe, civil and inclusive online discourse and engagement, Xtra Magazine will deploy Viafoura’s best-in-class content moderation capabilities, powered by the company’s proprietary AI technology and professional moderation services team.

By leveraging Viafoura’s rich first-party data and real-time engagement analytics, Xtra Magazine will also gain deeper insights into the behaviours and preferences of its online readers, allowing Xtra to create more personalized content and tailored offers.

“Many publishers are prioritizing the acquisition of first-party data assets via subscribers now that Google has put a firm deadline on third-party cookies, and because it’s smart. Authenticated audiences allow publishers to improve their relationships with advertisers armed with a deeper understanding of their readers’ needs and desires. In addition to revenue sustainability, first-party data ownership leads to deeper reader relationships by incentivizing publishers to offer more value in exchange for subscriptions. We’re excited to watch Xtra Magazine flourish with its acquisition of first-party data,” said Viafoura CEO, Jesse Moeinifar.

Viafoura is committed to empowering publishers and digital audiences with the tools and technology to facilitate inclusive and thriving online engagement in a safe digital environment. “We’re excited to power community engagement for Xtra Magazine and fortify their centre of influence in the LGBTQ2 community with everything their readers love about digital and social media and nothing they dislike about social media, like the spread of hate and disinformation.”

About Viafoura

Viafoura partners with over 600 media brands to engage, convert and monetize their digital audiences. With best-in-class engagement and content moderation solutions — including real-time conversations, live blogs, community chat, personalization tools and AI-powered moderation — Viafoura helps companies create active, civil and loyal online communities. Advanced data analytics also offer customers access to unique and valuable insights into their audience’s behaviors and preferences. As a result, the Viafoura solution drives higher registrations and subscriptions as well as better-targeted content and advertising.

About Xtra Magazine

Xtra Magazine is published by Pink Triangle Press. Founded in 1971, Pink Triangle Press is one of the world’s oldest, independent LGBTQ2 media groups. Pink Triangle Press is a mission-guided organization with no shareholders. Profits earned by the business are reinvested to support its mission: daring together to set love free.