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Connecting Communities: Viafoura and Forum Communications Company Join Forces for an Enhanced Digital Experience!

We are proud to announce the go-live of the Viafoura partnership with Forum Communications Company, a fifth-generation family-owned media company with over 150 years of excellence and innovation in connecting and informing communities.

“At Forum Communications Company, our legacy lies in the power of communication to inform and unite people in the communities we serve,” says Amy Fredrickson, VP Marketing at Forum Communications. “Partnering with Viafoura aligns perfectly with our mission to enhance our readers’ experience and create thriving online communities.”

Forum Communications recognized the value of Viafoura’s solutions and how they would directly impact their readers and overall objectives. With an easy-to-use format for readers, Viafoura’s Conversations product suite introduces new features that will keep readers engaged, encouraging them to return for more enriching experiences. This paired with Viafoura’s AI moderation aims to create a vibrant community where readers and subscribers can connect, discuss, and foster meaningful conversations.

Parallel, Forum and Viafoura will partner in a hands-on change management approach with Editorial Newsrooms aimed at designing custom plans that tailor to the needs and voice of each individual newsroom. This includes a unique set of engagement playbooks with newsroom champions at each brand.

With Viafoura as a partner, Forum expects significant quantitative outcomes. Increased engagement levels will empower readers to actively participate in the discussions, while registrations increase as more individuals become part of Forum’s growing community. Ultimately, this partnership is expected to drive a rise in subscriptions, solidifying Forum Communications’ position as a leading media company.

Dalia Vainer, Director of Customer Experience, comments on the partnership: “We are thrilled to be the vendor of choice for Forum’s 23-site launch as they introduce the world of community engagement! We are also looking forward to deploying our engagement playbooks over the coming months as we supercharge their community as a catalyst and strategic avenue for registration conversion.”.

Mordu, Powered by Viafoura: A Recipe for a Thriving Culinary Community

We’re thrilled to announce a delicious new addition expansion under the Radio-Canada family: Mordu has launched a community, powered by Viafoura! With over 6,000 recipes, ingredient guides, pro tips, local food news, and exclusive culinary web series, Mordu is a gastronomic paradise for cooking enthusiasts across Canada bringing the rich tapestry of food to your fingertips.

We sat down with Katherine Domingue, Project Manager at Mordu, to share her thoughts on why we chose Viafoura and what we anticipate this partnership will bring to Mordu and our valued users.

Why Viafoura?

We chose Viafoura because of their global partnership with CBC/Radio-Canada, which aligns perfectly with our strategic business goals. This partnership allows us to provide a seamless user experience with a single sign-on, enabling our users to effortlessly switch between our products. It also streamlines feature development, ensuring we can swiftly respond to our users’ needs. We’re particularly excited to introduce the new comment section on our recipe pages, a feature highly requested by our community.

How did you find the onboarding process?

The onboarding process was smooth, and simple. Viafoura’s support service was quick and immensely helpful, although a bit more diagrams could have helped, Jeannie’s constant presence throughout was truly a blessing, ensuring a seamless transition.

How will digital experiences be changing at Mordu?

The introduction of comments on our recipes will create a dynamic space for users to seek answers to their culinary queries and foster engagement within our community. This will undoubtedly enhance the user experience for those exploring new recipes, making their culinary adventures even more enjoyable.

What quantitative outcomes do you anticipate Viafoura will help you achieve?

We have high expectations for what Viafoura will help us achieve:

Increase in Authentication and Account Creation: Viafoura’s seamless single sign-on system is expected to boost the number of registered users on Mordu.
Increased Engagement: The comment section will encourage active participation and discussions among our users, leading to increased engagement.
Higher Net Promoter Score: We anticipate that the enhanced user experience will result in a higher Net Promoter Score, reflecting the satisfaction of our community and value offerings.
Growing the Mordu Community: Viafoura will play a pivotal role in fostering a vibrant, thriving Mordu community, bringing food enthusiasts together like never before.

Mordu’s journey with Viafoura is just beginning, and we invite you to join us in this culinary adventure. Explore our treasure trove of recipes, engage with our community, and savor the flavors of Mordu. We look forward to cooking up unforgettable experiences together!

Elevating Engagement: Viafoura Empowers World Soccer Talk’s Community Experience

World Soccer Talk, the ultimate destination for soccer enthusiasts seeking soccer TV schedules, news, and in-depth interviews, has just upped its game with the launch of Viafoura’s industry-leading digital experience platform. This marks a significant step towards enhancing engagement, streamlining user experience, and cultivating an active online community.

With soccer fever running high, Christopher Harris, Publisher of World Soccer Talk, aimed to tackle the challenge of creating a more interactive platform while ensuring seamless moderation. The answer? Viafoura’s Conversations and automated moderation tools.

“We are thrilled to announce the expansion of the Playmaker & Viafoura Partnership with World Soccer Talk, the first North American Playmaker brand to launch with Viafoura. We are looking forward to bringing a transition to a more user-friendly and robust platform to WST users, and enable Playmaker with the first-party data network advantage.” says Dalia Vainer, Director of Customer Experience at Viafoura.

Christopher Harris explains why Viafoura was their choice amidst the myriad of options. “We wanted a better, modern commenting system that offered features that our readers wanted (such as being able to edit a comment, voting comments up and down, profiles, etc). Plus, we wanted one that was more robust as far as moderating comments in order to prevent spam and trolling taking over threads.”

The transition from their previous WordPress commenting platform to Viafoura was a breeze. Harris describes the onboarding process as “very smooth and flawless,” handled with utmost professionalism.

The impact on WorldSoccerTalk.com’s digital experience is already in effect by weeding out trolling, while empowering commenters with enhanced community engagement features. As the comments section is the heartbeat of the website, this seamless transition to a better environment is beginning to pick up speed with soccer lovers globally.

From a quantitative perspective, Viafoura is expected to bring significant benefits including:

Additional value exchange experiences on site that will drive user engagement, time on site and increased registrations and first-party data
Integrated display advertising within the Conversations experience resulting in increased revenue generation
Efficiency of the moderation process to drastically improve, saving hours of time previously spent on frequent checks for spam and trolling.

Viafoura’s community elements have kicked off a new era for World Soccer Talk, boosting user engagement, refining the overall user experience, and propelling the platform into a thriving soccer hub where fans can passionately discuss, share, and interact. It’s a goal scored for online soccer communities everywhere!

Amplifying Voices: Australian Community Media’s Bold Move to Fuse Online UGC with Print

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news that’s sure to inspire your own engagement strategies. Australian Community Media (ACM), a Viafoura customer, has launched an innovative new approach to recirculation that’s sparking conversations and delivering early results.

ACM, Australia’s largest independent publishing company, reaches 4.3 million Aussies monthly across 100 brands, and has always had a finger on the pulse of their communities. With a commitment to strong connections, trusted content, and insightful marketing solutions, ACM is always looking to engage audiences in new, innovative ways.

Coming off a recent Customer Corner session exclusively for Viafoura customers, ACM took inspiration from the cross-functional comment recirculation approach led by Philippa Law in the the Telegraph Conversations Newsletter. Eager to approach a similar ethos, ACM has started to integrate User Generated Content (UGC) from their web platforms into their print publications. The aim? To bridge the gap between traditional print and the vibrant digital sphere, adding value to digital subscription proposals and ultimately creating a new experience for conversion.

“We want to show them the quality of the discussion online, that is moderated and ensures they can engage with other subscribers and have their voices heard.” says Emily Sweet, Acting Managing Editor.

ACM’s senior newsroom leaders are taking an active approach in the community by engaging in topical stories and igniting dialogues by pinning comments and shining a spotlight on editor’s picks. The encouragement to engage is welcome by the trust in civility across the site with Viafoura’s full services content moderation suite aimed to build trust in both the community and editors to engage safely.

To ensure success, ACM has outlined the following strategic goals:

Engage more readers to actively participate in discussions that hit home. By showcasing comments in print centered around topical discussions, print readers get a glimpse into the vibrant conversations online, enticing them to dive into the digital realm.
Increase subscriptions by adding additional value points at every point in the reader funnel.
Drive news stories and the voice of the community forward. Readers get a front-row seat to the thoughts of fellow subscribers, embracing a holistic view of pressing issues.

Early results have been promising – the spotlight on UGC in print stirred up even more engagement online, with readers spending more time soaking in the discussions. ACM is keeping a close eye on this trend, and we’re excited to see the impact unfold over the upcoming weeks.

“Cross-promoting our website commentary in print helps show already engaged readers that we are building a safe, online community that they can be part of.” – Emily Sweet.

As proud partners of ACM’s UGC journey, we’re looking forward to keeping you updated on more success stories and inspire you to take your engagement strategies to the next level!

Advancing Accessibility: Viafoura Leading the Way with Inclusive Design

Viafoura is deeply committed to ensuring our products are accessible to all users. Our dedication to creating universally usable experiences is core to our approach to product development. This commitment to ensuring quality experiences for all users, makes accessibility a priority from the very beginning of our design process.

Introducing Our Accessibility Expert: Farhan Jiwani!

Central to our accessibility efforts is Farhan Jiwani, a Senior Front End Engineer, and accessibility subject matter expert at Viafoura. With over a decade of experience in accessibility, Farhan’s passion began when one of his former clients, a Bank, made accessibility a priority years ago. This experience spurred his desire to make communication universally accessible.

“I started off my dev career because I wanted to write really cool code, now I stay because I want to build a world that is as accessible as possible & reaches as many people as possible,” says Farhan.

Our approach to accessibility begins at the first stage of the design process. Farhan works closely with our design team to integrate accessibility considerations into our products. By introducing these considerations early on, we keep accessibility at the forefront throughout the product development cycle.

When asked what gives him satisfaction at work, Farhan responded: “Making the world better, just by making Viafoura better”.

Prioritizing Accessibility as a Key Objective

For us, accessibility is not an add-on, it’s a strategic goal. By including accessibility in our core OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), we keep it central to our product development process, which helps to keep our tools compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA standards as well a regional legislative requirements such as the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act).

Recognizing Achievement: Viafoura Accessibility Audit

Recently, we partnered with the wonderful team at Fable Tech Labs to conduct our annual accessibility audit. The results were remarkable! The audit involved testing our platform with 20 diverse accessibility users, including those who rely on screen readers, screen magnification, and alternative navigation methods. 100% of these users scored Viafoura’s tools as Easy to Use and Satisfies Accessibility Guidelines.

Key areas of the audit, such as Conversation Flow, Profile Login Flow, and Engagement Starter, were rigorously tested and passed without any significant issues. Testers appreciated the clear heading structure, high contrast notification bell, and well-spaced fonts that increased readability for low vision users.

One tester noted, ““The heading structure was very straightforward and easy to navigate. Each of the headings took me directly to the sections I was looking for, and the elements under the comment section were easy to learn how to interact with.” a testament to our focus on accessible design.

Looking Forward with Viafoura Accessibility

Our aim is to keep pushing the boundaries of disability-inclusive design and elevate the standards for accessibility. Our next objective is to restructure coding conventions to meet the highest accessibility standards, enhancing the developer experience and allowing for quicker updates and improvements.

With Farhan’s expertise and the commitment of our entire team, we strive to keep setting new benchmarks in inclusive product design.

Healthing.ca launches Community with Viafoura to Enhance Digital Health Experience

We are excited to announce the launch of Viafoura’s digital experience platform on Healthing.ca, a vertical of Postmedia Network dedicated to delivering trusted health information and fostering a supportive community! This collaboration signifies a significant milestone towards Healthing’s mission to revolutionize the digital health experience for Canadians.

Healthing.ca faces unique challenges in moderating first-person accounts and real-life stories discussing health conditions and symptoms, requiring a safe and civil community environment. “Viafoura is a trusted partner of the Postmedia Network and a valuable connection to our communities.The product suite allows us to connect with our users and encourage meaningful conversation while offering a personalized experience in a safe space”, said Andrew Robichaud, Product Team Lead.

Using the core conversations suite, Healthing is looking forward to driving strategic results, as achieved with other brands under the Postmedia umbrella. Core business metrics include:

Lift in Registrations
Increase in onsite engagement including UGC
Lift in time spent on site

“We believe the support and connection that comes with the Viafoura platform will drastically improve the user experience and our users’ outcomes in their healthcare journeys.” Says Andrew.

“We’re thrilled to continue our expansion with one of Canada’s largest publishers as they introduce community engagement in the health space! We’re particularly looking forward to adding additional first-party data that can be used by Healthing.ca for activation and engagement strategies brand-wide”, said Dalia Vainer, Director of Customer Experience at Viafoura.

Thank you for trusting Viafoura, and cheers to our continued success!

Viafoura Receives Two G2 Badges, Maintains High Performer Status in Online Community Management & Commenting Systems

We are pleased to announce that in the latest G2 Summer 2023 Report, Viafoura has once again been recognized as a High Performer across the Online Community Management & Commenting Systems grids. This impressive achievement marks the fifth consecutive quarter that Viafoura has received this esteemed recognition.

Continuously Delivering Exceptional Engagement Experiences:

Viafoura’s success can be attributed to our unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional engagement experiences to our customers. By providing innovative commenting solutions and effective moderation tools, we are proud to enable publishers to create thriving online communities and foster meaningful interactions among their audiences.

Impactful and Strategic Value:

The G2 badges earned by Viafoura reflect the positive feedback and reviews from our customers. These accolades serve as a testament to the platform’s ability to drive real, impactful, and strategic value for publishers.

Listening to Customer Feedback:

Viafoura’s consistent recognition as a High Performer on the G2 grids is a result of our dedication to listening to our customers. By paying attention to customer reviews and feedback, we strive to continually refine and enhance our platform to meet the evolving needs of publishers. This customer-centric approach allows us to stay at the forefront of the industry and deliver cutting-edge solutions.

To our customers – thank you for continuing to choose us, we are passionate about our role in you achieving your business outcomes.

To our team – thank you for your unwavering commitment and congratulations on the well-deserved achievements.

Here’s to continued success in shaping the future of digital experiences!

Endeavor Business Media – creating meaningful connections while activating their audiences

Endeavor Business Media is a business-to-business media company operating 80+ media brands and 40+ events, including conferences and exhibitions. Their mission is to create meaningful connections that help businesses attract new customers, connect with and sell to existing customers, generate leads, showcase their products, and discover new solutions and partners. Endeavor targets narrow verticals in specific industries, such as law enforcement, electrical engineering, or supply chain logistics. They build online communities for these industries, providing positive, helpful user-generated content focused on business decision-makers.

Endeavor wanted to ensure that their sites remained engaging yet civilized while allowing for disparate points of view. However, guaranteeing their high standards were consistently applied was challenging and time-consuming for their community moderators.

There are so many reasons for Viafoura and Endeavor to be excited about the future. With the use of Conversations, Viafoura’s AI-powered moderation, Trending Articles and Topics, Endeavor will be powering active, engaged communities by:

Highlighting insightful the best comments within a comment thread,
Using Viafoura’s integration capabilities to connect with Endeavor’s content management system – making it easy for their registered members to participate in online communities,
Moderating comments right within Endeavor’s front end is a feature that will make it faster to remove inappropriate content from comment threads. Moderators will undoubtedly value the Viafoura moderation console for all of its power and features,
And, of course, the real-time commenting features give site visitors a sense of an active, healthy community. “

Alex Dunne, Senior Director of Product Management at Endeavor Business Media, says, “We believe Viafoura’s rich commenting features will drive more site registrations, improve site engagement levels, increase page views, repeat visits, and ad revenue. Simultaneously we’ll be gathering behavioural data about visitors to all of Endeavor’s sites, enabling us to drive leads and personalization.”

“We look forward to working with the wide breadth of professional communities at Endeavor Business Media! Using Viafoura core community products, Endeavor will continue to remain the center of critical conversations with market experts and decision-makers through direct, meaningful connections. We are particularly excited to foster and unlock an additional layer of 1st party data, bringing new interest cohorts that can be funneled back to the business,” says Dalia Vainer, Director of Customer Experience at Viafoura.

Why recirculation should be one of your KPIs and how to increase it, with takeaways from The Independent

Recirculation: a real-time metric that compares the number of visitors to a page to the number of users who move from that content to another page.

Why is recirculation a valuable KPI?

Recirculation is more valuable to your business than acquiring new visitors. Not only is acquisition becoming increasingly difficult and costly, viewing more pages on each visit means higher engagement, loyalty and propensity to subscribe, all of which directly correlate to revenue.

According to Chartbeat, there are 3 things that make up the anatomy of a recirculation strategy:

Show off the depth and quality of your content, so every reader knows that you have more than just the great article they clicked on
Given the amount of readers that come from external platforms like Google and Facebook, almost all of which are landing on an article rather than your homepage, a clear recirculation strategy can push those readers further down the loyalty journey
Most publishers rely on programmatic widgets to surface related stories, but related links — chosen by editors and placed at strategic points in the story — are an effective way to encourage deeper visits. Especially on mobile, where more widgets appear at the bottom of the page (where no readers will see them)

The Independent, mastering the recirculation game

Just a single article contains 5 recirculation techniques for you to steal:

1. Backlinks on keywords

Learn to link: add backlinks on keywords, leading to other articles or content topics:

⭐ Best practice: differentiate these linked words and phrases from other text by placing them in another color or underlining them. This practice should be consistent across your site so users recognize where to click.

But don’t forget to check your average scroll depth for optimal click potential:

Chartbeat research has found that the majority of clicks happen just above the digital fold, at page depths of 400 to 600 pixels (as indicated below), so it’s important to optimize your articles for those related links.

Discover Chartbeat’s other research on optimal article length

2. An interactive, Instagram story style slide-show shares 6 top articles

💡 Images with links generate 63% more clicks than those of text-only (data from Lenfest Institute) and, considering the amount of time your audience spends on social media, taking inspiration from there to increase engagement can only prove beneficial.

The key to good recirculation is through interactivity – engaging visitors in a positive way to make suggested articles feel personal and non-intrusive, being careful to cater to the reader’s interests as well as your own.

3. Personalized recommendations based on the content topic

This is more valuable than recommending content at the end of the article as Average Scroll Depth metrics will likely reveal that a large percentage of your audience don’t read until the end.

4. ‘Most popular’ content recommendations at the side of the page

💡 Generic wording (e.g. “Related Stories”) generates higher CTRs than more complex wording (e.g. “What Else People Can Read on This Topic”) according to data from the Center for Media Engagement. Note how all of these examples from The Independent involve phrases with a maximum of 2 words.

What’s more, inviting readers to discover your most popular articles allows them to feel part of a shared conversation, being ‘in the know’ by reading the articles that others are reading. This was Netflix’s thought process behind the “Top 10 in [insert your country]” feature.

5. At the end, a small “More about” text offering links to key topics featured in the article

A final chance to lead your user on to another article, however don’t bet on all readers reaching this point.

Don’t recirculate without thinking

Poor recirculation can have more of a negative than positive impact on engagement, so don’t go overboard and make sure to consider your recirculation tactics carefully.

For The Independent, these 5 strategies were all employed in a single article. Of course, recirculation is valuable, but so is a pleasant, engaging user experience. If there are too many distractions or frustrating features that prevent the reader from being able to consume the article ‘in peace’, then recirculation efforts will be wasted and you may even push your reader away. This is especially true for websites that depend on advertising (an additional distraction for readers), or for users visiting on mobile devices where the screen is smaller.

You should also aim to make the most out of your content resources for recirculation:

Surface popular content that are a dead end for readers – these represent your best opportunities to drive recirculation
Segment traffic and tailor your recirculation strategy based on source, user interests or device used
Leverage the Heads Up Display. This helps you know if the reason why readers are leaving the page is because of another story on your website
Use historical engagement data to find good potential recircultation links

This article was originally published by The Audiencers. The Audiencers is a B2B publication by Poool, The Membership and Subscription Suite, a simple, all-in-one platform for digital content producers to convert, manage and retain their members and subscribers. Find out more on poool.tech or book a free demo with their team.