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Category: News
Viafoura Releases Next Generation Viafoura Engagement Cloud for Media Companies
Enhanced solution empowers media brands to drive subscriber rates and online engagement, demonstrating competitive value to advertisers
TORONTO (August 23, 2017): Viafoura, a leader in engagement, commenting and moderation tools, today announces the release of its upgraded Next Generation Engagement Cloud. Optimized to encourage audience participation, registration and subscription within online communities, the enhanced solution provides media brands with the tools and first-party user behavior data necessary to support their market value.
As the only Engagement Cloud for media companies, Viafoura understands the importance of establishing and cultivating an engaged and loyal online community. Clients using the next generation platform can expect to see a rise in their website’s engagement metrics due to the complete redesign of the real-time commenting user experience. This enhanced experience includes new engagement capabilities such as follow features, notification feed and news tray, web push notifications, automated moderation and more.
The addition of follow features allows users to “follow” authors, other users, pages, sections and topics to receive real-time updates in their notification feed. The new web push notifications give brands the added ability to deliver breaking news alerts when users are off-site. They also give brands the opportunity to alert users of new replies, likes and followers, due to the platform’s one-of-a-kind integration with commenting features.
“With these new integrated tools, media companies can use Viafoura to take their audience development strategy to the next level.”
—Jesse Moeinifar, Viafoura founder and CEO
“Instead of leaving engagement to social media and, thus, losing out on invaluable first-party user data and on-site interactions, our platform empowers media brands to build relationships with customers directly on their owned channels. This is achieved by giving brands direct access to on-site engagement tools and user behavior data,” said Viafoura’s founder and CEO, Jesse Moeinifar.
The newly-added user behavior data provided by Viafoura includes pageviews, attention time and return visits. This complements the platform’s existing data collection on a brand’s audience, community and specific campaigns. Viafoura API’s connect this first-party data with marketing and sales platforms (i.e. DFP, BI, Paywall, CRM, DMP) to drive actionable analytics and revenue. With this information, brands can deliver more relevant content, such as emails and re-purposed, user-generated content, to cultivate continued engagement among their target audience, thus increasing revenue.
To learn more about Viafoura’s Next Generation Viafoura Engagement Cloud, visit the company’s blog at www.viafourastage.wpengine.com/blog or contact sales@viafoura.com.
Interested in learning more?
Connect with us today to learn how Viafoura can help you build, manage and monetize your audience.
Pelmorex Selects Viafoura to Bring Commenting Back to The Weather Network
Pelmorex Media Inc. owns some of the most popular weather-forecasting websites, apps, and television networks, including The Weather Network and MétéoMédia. With millions of weekly users, their websites faced unwanted trolling that has traditionally been too time-consuming and costly to manage with moderators.
As a result, they eliminated the comment section altogether. But knowing the impact that commenting has on audiences, content creation, pageviews and attention time, the team at Pelmorex was committed to finding a solution that would allow them to bring commenting back.
“We are extremely proud at The Weather Network and MétéoMédia to now be able to offer a safer place for weather enthusiasts to connect and share their love of nature and the environment.”
—Head of Digital, Pelmorex
Keep Your Brand and Users Safe with Automated Moderation
One of tools they employed on The Weather Network and MétéoMédia is Viafoura Automated Moderation, which uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to automatically categorize and eliminate trolling, spam and online harassment. This technology is programmed with over 6 million variations of every word, so it is able to determine the subject matter and the sentiment behind words and phrases written by users.
If the system encounters a new word or sentence that it is unsure of, it flags the instance for a moderator to review. As a moderator approves or rejects new words, through the power of machine learning, the algorithm learns new rules and gets smarter over time.
Pelmorex and their users will benefit from other community moderation tools, such as flagging, user muting and the dislike button. User muting will allow users to personalize their experience by avoiding unwanted communications from certain members. The dislike button will allow users to express their dislike for a comment, without having to flag a comment (which requires a moderator’s time and resources).
Increase Pageviews and Attention Time with Engagement Tools
Their users will also have increased opportunities to engage with the content on The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, with follow features, real-time commenting and user profiles. These engagement tools are designed to give users the quickest and easiest way to interact with one another and with website content, thereby increasing their interest, pageviews and attention time.
- Commenting: Users can add comments, images and videos to the comment section in real time; users can easily share their favorite comments to social media
- User Profiles: Users can create an identity on their websites by adding their information, interests, custom name and avatar
- Follow Features & Notification Feed: Users can follow their favourite community members, authors and sections to never miss an update in their Notification Feed
- Browser-Based Push Notifications: Allows their websites to deliver timely weather alerts even when users are off-site
- Social Share Bar: Customizable share bar that allows users to share articles in seconds
- Community Moderation: Moderators can give timed user bans and set flagging thresholds; users can dislike and flag comments and mute other users
- Automated Moderation: Detects and eliminates spam, foul language, abuse, personal attacks, and other uncivil comments on websites and on social media
- Audience Insights: Captures the impact of engagement on metrics like pageviews, attention time and loyalty in real time
Pelmorex’ Head of Digital, Carrie Lysenko, is excited to offer new functionality and value to encourage more users to register and engage with their brands. She adds, “We are extremely proud at The Weather Network and MétéoMédia to now be able to offer a safer place for weather enthusiasts to connect and share their love of nature and the environment.”
Interested in learning more?
Connect with us today to learn how Viafoura can help you build, manage and monetize your audience.
RTDNA 2017: Fake News, Trolls and Diverse Commenting
RTDNA 2017: Fake News, Trolls and Diverse Commenting
RTDNA 2017 Conference in Toronto
For news broadcasters, the story doesn’t end when it’s published or aired. It’s just the beginning for their audiences, who are looking to discuss their diverse opinions around a shared reality.
That’s just one idea that will be explored at the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) 2017 National Conference. Taking place from May 26 to 27 at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, the conference offers a forum for open discussion on the issues that impact Canadian newsrooms. It’s also a great opportunity for career development and connecting with leaders in news media.
This year’s topics include:
- Connecting with highly-skeptical and mistrusting audiences
- Combating the fake news epidemic
- The responsibility of journalists to reflect diversity in the newsroom
- Encouraging audiences to constructively debate their diverse opinions
- Knowing your audience and monetizing it
- Using investigative journalism to grow audiences
- The future of news radio
Encouraging Diverse Opinions with Civil Commenting
If you’re interested in driving audience engagement and civil comments on your website, we encourage you to attend Commentary, Commenting and Diversifying Your Voices on Friday, May 26 at 1:45 PM.
The panel discussion features leaders from Canada’s top news media organizations—Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), The Weather Network (Pelmorex Media), Global News and Corus Radio. Our very own Head of Marketing, Allison Munro, will also be there moderating the discussion.
Together, they will be exploring the best way to encourage diverse commentary in an age of trolling and online attacks. Attendees will learn the value of commenting for their journalistic approach, audience relations, and their bottom line. In addition, they will hear how these industry leaders moderate and protect their online communities without draining their resources.
“Canada is rich not only in the abundance of our resources and the magnificence of our land, but also in the diversity and the character of our people.”
The Will of a Nation: Awakening the Canadian Spirit—George Radwanski & Julia Luttrell
Not attending RTDNA? Don’t miss out on the learnings—download our white paper, How Audience Engagement Drives Retention, Loyalty and Revenue.
Download Guide
Meet Viafoura at INMA World Congress
Meet Viafoura at INMA World Congress
INMA World Congress of News Media
We’re excited to be heading to INMA World Congress 2017 to meet with the world’s leading news media organizations. The conference takes place at TheTimesCenter in New York City from Sunday, May 21st to Wednesday, May 23rd.
This year includes a dazzling welcome reception in the Museum of Modern Art, case studies from international peers, and presentations on audience and revenue growth from which to benchmark your efforts.
Viafoura in the Big Apple
We’ll be there in booth #3 talking about the Viafoura Viafoura Engagement Cloud that helps 600 brands like Hearst, GateHouse Media and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to engage, discover, and grow their audiences.
If you’re attending, stop by our booth to grab some Viafoura goodies and learn how our platform is changing the way media organizations build and monetize their audiences.
Book time with us to chat 1:1 about the Viafoura Viafoura Engagement Cloud.
Book a Time
Get Your Guide to Audience Development
Not attending INMA World Congress? Make sure to download our white paper, How Audience Engagement Drives Retention, Loyalty and Revenue to stay in the know about the latest audience development technologies.
You’ll learn:
- How media organizations are engaging their audiences in real-time
- How direct relationships convert to revenue
- How to use technology to drive social connectivity
Learn how to build and monetize your audience.
Download Guide
Missed MediaXchange? Key Insights for News Organizations
Missed MediaXchange? Key Insights for News Organizations
Key Insights from mediaXchange 2017
Rain or shine, we knew mediaXchange in New Orleans would be a great success. The event attracts the top news media executives and covers a variety of topics from key technologies to content strategy. Below we’ll cover our top insights from three of our favorite sessions.
Real Relationships are More Important than Ad Views
In the session, Audience Development: Monetizing with High Integrity Metrics, the Corporate Director of Audience Development for McClatchy, Daniel E. Schaub, highlighted the importance of building real relationships with readers and establishing yourself as a trusted news brand.
Schaub believes this is more important now than ever because news media organizations are being victimized by ad fraud.
While advertisers in the U.S. are spending an all-time high of $83 billion this year, only 3% of the 329 million websites that are competing for ad views are legitimate sites. Some of these websites have absolutely no content, while others contain fake or stolen news content. Either way, this takes away from your ad spend and doesn’t get your ads in front of the right people or in the right space.
Schaub stresses that publishers need to focus more on leveraging their trusted brands to build relationships with readers than on ad views or impressions.
He points out, “You have the opportunity to offer real people, real connections.”
💁 Take your audience back with the power of onsite engagement. Read more 👉https://t.co/SLDdhOsXMG #mxc17 https://t.co/54AE5FpKFs
— Allison Munro (@yomunro) May 1, 2017
How to Drive Subscriptions
In the session, Cutting-Edge Solutions to Driving Subscriptions, there were three points that resonated with us. First, that readers subscribe due to civic reasons, to gain subject-matter expertise, and to share information with others. They are triggered to subscribe when they encounter discussions of subject expertise, metered paywalls, a lifestyle change and marketing campaigns. That means that news organizations can greatly benefit from encouraging discussions that promote subject expertise on their websites, while putting up paywalls and triggering users with marketing ads and emails.
Second, 36% of people under the age of 35 are paying for news in some form. While older readers are more likely to buy an e-edition, a younger person will want “snappy, quick, personalized news.”
Third, the Executive Director of API, Tom Rosenstiel, highlights that newsrooms should take advantage of the untapped market of mobile coupons.
About 4 in 10 people under 35 are paying for news in some form says new @AmPress research. How do you reach younger audiences?#mxc17
— Liz Worthington (@lmitchell09) May 2, 2017
Strategies for Reader Engagement
In Proven Strategies for Reader Engagement, the Director of Consumer Marketing at Washington Post, Rich Handloff, believes personalization is the key to user engagement.
“At the Washington Post, we ask them to tell us what they’re interested in,” he said. “What they tell you, you will then be able to serve them up worthwhile content.”
They send out an email every Friday to their print subscribers to notify them what’s coming up over the weekend. They also send daily emails about the news that happened since their morning paper went to press.
We’d like to add that another key way to personalize information is with a notification feed that automatically posts information that is important to readers. They can follow authors, comments, and other users, and get real-time notifications in their feed.
Why people subscribe: 1. civic reasons, 2. subject expertise, 3. social flow #mxc17 @AmPress
— News Media Alliance (@newsalliance) May 2, 2017
Personalization and Audience Engagement With Viafoura
Our Head of Marketing and Business Development, Allison Munro, was also at mediaXchange discussing the Viafoura Viafoura Engagement Cloud that addresses many of these key learnings.
The platform gives news organizations a real-time commenting section that promotes civil discussion and subject expertise from readers. The engagement tools helps users connect to one another, to authors, and to your brand. Whereas the notification feed gives users a personalized view to increase their attention time and online engagement.
Great to connect on social @paperboyphil Thanks for the follow! If you have some time, we’d love to connect #irl @viafoura #mxc17
— Allison Munro (@yomunro) May 1, 2017
Now is the time to offer real connections to real people. Let’s chat about driving meaningful engagement for your news brand, connect with us today.
Let’s Connect
Viafoura helps empower Graham Media Group Online Communities
Graham Media Group implements the Viafoura Viafoura Engagement Cloud across its seven digital properties to uphold its commitment to celebrating local communities and giving voice to the stories that matter.
“Viafoura is a much needed and welcomed enhancement to Graham Media Group, improving the user experience and increasing audience engagement across our sites,” said Jon Beard, Director of Digital Product Development.
"Having a single platform to support all our audience development needs is a key strength to empowering our newsrooms and unique local communities.”
— Jon Beard, Director of Digital Product Development
Graham Media empowers enables on-site interactions with a frictionless user registration, an easy-to-use content share bar, and real-time commenting across its websites. Viafoura’s engagement tools further allow users to create a personalized experience and receive real-time notifications for breaking news, social activity, and new followers.
Benefits to Graham Media’s new capabilities include:
- Social Login: Removes barriers to site entry to build direct relationships with audiences
- Real-Time Commenting with Social Sharing, On-site Notifications, and Automated Moderation
Enables real-time conversations to drive engagement, increase time on site, and increase interactions across users, authors, and content - Follow Feature and User Opt-In: Facilitates user opt-in and drives a personalized user experience
- Browser-Based Push Notifications: Notifies audiences directly with breaking news and personalized alerts
Graham Media’s moderation efforts are drastically improved with Viafoura Automated Moderation. It provides 24/7 real-time moderation using natural language processing and machine learning to detect, flag, and eliminate spam and abusive comments before they are seen by online audiences. These algorithms ensure Graham Media’s community guidelines are upheld to the utmost precision across its seven digital properties. Jon Beard confirms, “We’re able to focus on participating in the conversation and rewarding positive discussions across our websites.”
Connect with us today to learn how Viafoura can help you build, manage and monetize your audience.
Connect with Viafoura at MediaXchange
New Orleans, a.k.a. the Big Easy, known for its tasty cuisine, fun nightlife, vibrant live-music, and the future of news—mediaXchange.
Will you be there?
Not attending mediaXchange? Don’t miss out learning how Viafoura empowers media organizations to engage, discover and grow their audiences, connect now.
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With so much to do and so many people to meet, we want to make sure you make the most of your time at New Orleans. Take in the sights, tastes and sounds of the French Quarter with our top 4 places, all conveniently located within walking distance from the Marriott Hotel:
Love It!
Get Jazz-Fest-ready by visiting our favorite boutique in the French Quarter, “Love it!” by designer Danna Lea. Her inviting shop is filled with handmade and vintage-inspired dresses, bags and accessories, which make even the most unimaginative of minds feel like they’ve stepped back in time into a party!
Cavan
As featured in USA Today and Vogue, Cavan is an elegantly-faded dining room located in the historic Cockerton mansion built in 1881. You’ll love the savoury snacks like the Fried Oyster Toast, and you’ll get a kick out of the shrine that resides on the top shelf of the bar to appease the “ghosts of Cavan”—filled with candles, sage, and every ghost’s favorite—gin.
Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo
Whether you’re looking for a Voodoo doll to hex your ex, or you just need a bit of help winning the lottery, you have to visit Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo to check out their souvenirs or get a spiritual reading. This uniquely New Orleans shop doubles as a museum for Louisiana Voodoo, and it’s a place you’ll have to see to believe—quite literally with their no camera policy.
[av_dropcap2]4[/av_dropcap2]Booth #205 at mediaXchange
Most importantly, come see us at booth #205 at mediaXchange to discover what’s on the horizon for Viafoura, and pick up some freebies. Everyone who visits will also be placed into a draw to win a $100 gift certificate to Cavan Restaurant! Click here for contest details.
If you haven’t already, book time with us by clicking here to chat 1:1 about the Viafoura Viafoura Engagement Cloud.
Connect Today