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Become a Subscription-Building Powerhouse: Creating Value for Your Community

Spotlight:

To improve customer acquisition and subscriber retention, media organizations need to provide community members with value exchanges centered around their needs.
Viafoura data highlights how customers can boost retention rates by 20-40% for users who interact with social tools over a six-month period.
64% of consumers are interested in exchanging their information for personalized services.
Over half of audiences become dissatisfied if they need to subscribe to more than one service to access content.
Social spaces, personalized news feeds, interactive Q&As/AMAs, live blogs, solutions journalism, featuring diverse voices in content, interactive online events and a single sign-on solution can all build value for media communities.
Viafoura delivers engagement and personalization tools that help media organizations win over their audience’s attention, data and loyalty.

As all successful media companies know, a digital visitor isn’t going to return to a website or app unless it’s worth their time, energy and potentially even money. Publishers must, therefore, go out of their way to create value for digital visitors in exchange for their loyalty as dedicated followers.

Naturally, this value exchange is most effective when products, content and experiences offered by media organizations are made with their audience’s interests and needs in mind.

According to trainers from the Media Development Investment Fund, “[your] audience will immediately [recognize] the value you provide, if all the decisions you make are centered around providing value to your community.”

So if you’re hoping to boost customer acquisition rates and subscriber retention, you’ll need to implement a wide range of actions and strategies that benefit your end users.

You can start injecting value for your digital community directly into your company’s content and experiences through the following tactics:

1. Social spaces

Media companies can add value to their online communities through a wide range of conversation-based widgets, including commenting sections and live chats. These social tools give digital visitors the ability to engage with content and form relationships with like-minded people.

In fact, customers who implement Viafoura’s social tools experience a 20-40% boost in retention six months after users interact with them.

2. Personalized News Feeds

Personalization is essential for any company that wants to win over visitor attention and stand out from its competitors.

“Improving the interface with personalization… strengthens the audience connection,” explains Rande Price, research director at Digital Content Next. “As the competition for audience grows tighter, it’s necessary to take actions that support developing and maintain a strong relationship with the audience.”

And since 64% of consumers are willing to hand over their information in return for customized services, personalized content feeds are highly appealing to digital visitors.

3. Interactive Q&As/AMAs

By hosting live Q&As and AMAs, media organizations allow digital community members to have their burning questions answered.

These chat-based activities can also be used to generate audience excitement around major milestone events and connect visitors with trusted subject matter experts.

4. Live Blogs

Live blogs have been exploding in popularity amid the pandemic, civil unrest, presidential election and other critical emergencies.

Acting as a single spot for ongoing, reliable updates, this live publishing format helps visitors view and interact with the latest information in a seamless way.

The Philadelphia Inquirer even calls its live update format “a conversion monster” as it encourages visitors to return to its site for trusted, easy-to-access content.

5. Solutions Journalism

Every news media organization strives to serve up dependable content. Unfortunately, that on its own isn’t always enough to overcome news fatigue or make a positive impact on audiences.

Solutions journalism — a method for creating news content that goes beyond a news issue and explores related solutions or next steps — is quickly becoming a widely valued approach to journalism.

You can use solutions journalism to avoid overwhelming audience members with doom and gloom and persuade them to return for unique, in-depth news coverage.

6. Featuring Diverse Perspectives in Content

Audiences value content that represents their opinions, demographics and concerns.

Consider amplifying voices from your organization’s community by powering content with different perspectives and questions from audience members. Promoting racial, cultural and gender diversity within content teams also helps media organizations create content that better reflects their communities.

7. Hosting Interactive Events Online

Any event can theoretically attract audience members through subject matter. But when events are executed online, media companies can integrate an additional interactive component that allows attendees to engage with other people.

“Given the pandemic and the restrictions, the incentive to join an event and the need for interactivity is more important than ever,” states Nikki Claire, who runs events and client services for Hearst UK.

8. A Single Sign-On Solution

There’s nothing more frustrating than losing the interest of an audience simply because they can’t sign in to tools and experiences easily.

Deloitte reports that 53% of audiences become dissatisfied if they need to subscribe to several services to access content.

With a single sign-on solution, you can give your business’ digital community complete access to all the tools and content they crave without having to create multiple accounts.

No matter what your company’s digital community looks like, their attention comes at a cost. Media organizations must meet and exceed the needs of their audiences in return for visitor’s attention, data and money.

By teaming up with Viafoura, organizations can feed into this value exchange with critical engagement and personalization tools. As a result, customers can successfully transform casual visitors into registered users and loyal subscribers.

The Independent Selects Viafoura To Foster Civil Discussion Across its Global Brands

The Independent is the latest publisher to replace its legacy commenting solution with Viafoura’s industry-leading suite of engagement tools to gain reader insights, build trust and create a more civil and interactive community

TORONTO, April 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — To support the continued emphasis on civil discourse and journalistic integrity, the leading UK publisher, The Independent, has selected the Viafoura audience engagement solution to build and nurture the reader communities of its premier global news sites, including The Independent, Evening Standard, Indy100 and Independent Español.

Viafoura’s digital experience platform enables publishers to go beyond commenting, and gain insight through actionable first-party data allowing companies to better understand their audiences. The Independent can deliver more personalized content experiences and marketing initiatives through Viafoura’s real-time conversations, live chat, content recommendations and personalized notifications.

The Independent selected Viafoura’s solution because of its ability to integrate the entire content creation and consumption cycle while also fostering civil discourse. The Independent has already seen an increase in civility, fewer articles getting flagged and reduced customer service complaints thanks to Viafoura’s AI-powered moderation service, advanced engagement and first-party data analytics. For example, Viafoura’s AI platform can detect if the term “snowflake” is being used in a benign way — in the context of a discussion of weather — or as an insult in a political discussion.

“We didn’t want to simply replace our old platform with a similar one; we were looking for game-changing technology that could improve reader engagement and provide us with a suite of features to help us build our communities and Viafoura gave us that,” said Jo Holdaway, Chief Data & Marketing Officer at The Independent. “By integrating the key moderation features with human interactions from launch, we are able to provide our journalists and community members a safe space where they can share their insight and opinions. The next phases of the roll-out will be based on the solid foundation of positive conversations.”

The Independent identified a need to own its visitor experience and other solutions were not able to integrate that experience across its platform like Viafoura. Publishers are quickly realizing that it is imperative to own their platforms and data so that they can provide a better and more personalized user experience.

“Viafoura lets publishers put reader engagement at the forefront of the relationship,” Viafoura CEO Jesse Moeinifar said. “For a news organization like The Independent, which has built its reputation on decades of quality and thorough journalism, having a platform that streamlines the cycle of discourse is crucial. Whether it is AI-powered moderation or delivering a truly customized experience through first-party data integration, publishers are able to utilize Viafoura to further the relationship between information source and the communities they serve.”

The Independent joins other major publishers such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Graham Media and Reach PLC who can engage their communities and deliver better content through actionable insights. To improve your community’s experience, please visit viafoura.com.

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 The Independent

The Independent has been at the frontline of journalism since its launch in 1986, with its mission to challenge and debate always ahead of its time. It is Britain’s biggest quality digital news brand and top 10 in the US. Publishing from 12 countries and in six languages The Independent is a truly global news organisation. Since The Independent became the UK’s first digital-only national newspaper in 2016, the brand continues to invest in and deliver high quality and trusted journalism while building out its data-driven products, services, audiences, and international presence.

What the End of Parler Means for Media Companies

Ready your content moderators because 2.3 million active users — many of whom are eager to encourage violence, racism, antisemitism, antifeminism and conspiracy theories — have lost their home base on Parler.

As a social platform that encourages free speech with practically no moderation or fact-checking, Parler has gained a massive user base of people with radical views.

At least that was until Apple and Google booted Parler from their app stores in response to how it was used to organize the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill. Even Amazon Web Services (AWS), which hosted Parler, has abandoned the company, pushing the platform mostly offline.

“We’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on [Parler’s] website, all of which violates our terms,” reads a letter that AWS sent to Parler’s chief policy officer. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”

Though a bare-bones version of Parler has recently popped up on a Russian-hosted site, the platform will likely continue to be banned from app stores on mobile devices, which account for most of their users.

With Parler practically scrubbed from the internet, its extreme users will be searching for other media platforms they can use to amplify their radical perspectives. Digital media companies and online publishers will need to prepare for a possible frenzy of visitors with loud, destructive voices, who believe content moderation is a threat to free speech.

Leaving your digital properties vulnerable to these toxic commenters can scare away your loyal community members and damage positive conversations.

Instead, here’s what you can do to prevent ex-Parler users, or any other radical and offensive voices, from wreaking havoc on your digital social spaces:

Make Sure You Have Clear, Easy-to-Access Community Guidelines

Sometimes we have a concept of what is or isn’t allowed in comment content. But creating a clear, unassailable description in your community guidelines can help prevent initial violations and give your moderators a reference point that clearly defines unacceptable content.
Examples of content to explicitly define as unacceptable include:

Personal attacks
Vulgar or obscene content
Libelous or defamatory statements
Anything that can be described as threatening, abusive, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable

Be sure to post your guidelines in a visible area of your website so that your digital visitors can access them with ease.

On-Site Engagement Actions

Not all registered users offer the same amount of value to media organizations.

“Some users register to a website in order to use social tools, and others may register just to access content,” Liang explains. “Those who register to participate in a conversation — whether that be through comments, likes, replies or dislikes — contribute to a media company’s community with meaningful interactions.”

Have an Escalation Plan

In the case of an emergency — like the threat of an active shooter at your headquarters — your team must have a clear procedure in place. There are a few crucial questions you can ask your team to help them prepare for these types of threats:

Is there a clear chain of command in an emergency?
When do you alert the police versus the organization you’re protecting?

Distinguish between different types of non-urgent, semi-urgent, general and specific threats and outline how moderators should react to each of them.

Update Your Banned Word List/Moderation Algorithm

Did you know that users within a community can develop new phrases to spread offensive and dangerous messages?

This was the case for one publisher when Viafoura’s moderators noticed that trolls were posting a recurring phrase in community social spaces: “BOB crime.” Our moderators quickly realized that this phrase was being used in offensive contexts, and after investigating, found out that it stood for “Black-on-Black crime,” which challenges the Black Lives Matter movement.

The moderation algorithm was quickly adjusted to prevent relevant comments from being posted within that publisher’s community. However, this is just a single example of many where new phrases are created within a community to maneuver around basic moderation systems.

The bottom line is that language evolves.

To reinforce community standards successfully, it’s essential that moderation algorithms and ban word lists are updated quickly as new, offensive language is discovered.

Be Prepared to Block IP Addresses

In the digital world, the general belief is that the more eyeballs a piece of content can get, the better. The end goal for media executives is typically to gain and engage more site visitors to maximize subscriptions. However, visitor quantity isn’t always better than quality.

“Don’t be afraid to ban users,” says Leigh Adams, director of moderation solutions at Viafoura. “A lot of newspapers are afraid to ban users because they want the audience, but when you allow trolls and other toxic users to take over, you’re actually scaring away more valuable visitors.”

Fewer quality commenters offer more value to brands than many commenters that destroy the safety and trust between an organization and its loyal followers.

Ultimately, you are in control of your online community.

Just remind users in your community guidelines that you reserve the right to remove or edit comments and permanently block any user in violation of your terms and conditions. This umbrella statement gives you complete control over the content your community produces, guaranteeing discourse will remain positive and productive.

At the moment, we are living in a time of unpredictable change and misinformation. Whether or not any of Parler’s users make their way onto your website or app, it’s important to be prepared to handle and discourage any toxic behavior. Maintaining positive and productive social spaces will help to strengthen engagement around your brand while protecting its reputation.

Need help identifying and stopping trolls? Check out our guide written by our head of moderation services on troll hunting.

Panel Discussion Breakdown: The New Rules of Moderation

2020 was undoubtedly the intersection of major health, political and social justice-related events. These life-changing crises activated wave after wave of misinformation and trolls, which, as many media professionals found, can damage the quality of human conversation within digital communities.

Recently, executives from Editor and Publisher, USA Today, Graham Media Group and Viafoura gathered together to address these concerns in a recent panel discussion on the new rules of moderation.

“Moderation’s been a big topic this year,” says Mike Blinder, the publisher of Editor and Publisher Magazine. “People are spouting off at their dinner tables, they’re spouting off at their mobile phones and they’re obviously spouting off on [media] platforms — but we need to go beyond this.”

Not only do media companies need to eliminate trolls and build trust with community members, but they also need to expand their loyal audiences and maximize revenue.

Gear up with insights and best practices on content moderation from the panel discussion to keep your media organization’s social spaces brand-safe, productive and profitable.

Setting the Stage for Ideal, Productive Discussion

In a perfect world, digital social spaces would be filled with an endless stream of engaging comments coming from multiple voices.

But not every comment is valuable, and not every commenting thread will thrive. At least not without the proper support.

It’s up to moderators to ensure that only positive comments are being surfaced. Meanwhile, media staff have the power to amplify engagement from community members. With an effective moderation system and community engagement strategy in place, media companies can begin building communities by facilitating on-topic, positive conversations.

“Once you take care of moderation well, once you engage, once you create a space where people want to come and talk about whatever they want to talk about — that’s where you’re doing your community-building,” explains Viafoura Director of Moderation Leigh Adams.

Community-Building Best Practices

Many media industry professionals still view commenting sections as spaces for toxic behavior and misinformation to take root. However, commenting spaces can be extremely useful community-building tools when managed properly.

“Just because you have a comment thread doesn’t mean you just have to hand it over to your audience and let them do whatever they want on it,” states Dustin Block, audience development lead at Graham Media. “You get to make decisions of what you’re going to allow people to share, particularly around your stories.”

Review some essential best practices for using social tools from the panel discussion to begin refining your community-building strategy:

Don’t moderate your own platform’s comments so you can free up time for your staff to focus on creating valuable interactions with visitors.
Tighten community guidelines to help audience members focus on producing brand-safe and on-topic conversations.
Leverage subject matter experts, including content producers, to answer questions and encourage positive discussion from audience members.
Anonymize names of commenters to prevent women, minority groups and people with unique names from getting harassed.
Invite readers to participate in the content production process so they feel heard and valued.
Invest in building audiences on your owned and operated properties instead of social media, where you have little control over data, audience relationships and revenue.
Correct misinformation on your digital properties whenever possible to position your brand as a trustworthy resource.
Embed comment sections around content that is likely to lead to productive social exchanges.
Elevate model behavior in the community by highlighting positive comments, rewarding top commenters with badges, and asking specific questions you’d like community members to answer.
Encourage participation in conversations by adding additional, exclusive story details in comment sections.

The Value of Moderated Comments

Comment spaces backed by an efficient moderation system can unleash multiple benefits for media companies.

“For every time someone posts a comment, you might have 50 people reading it… that’s where the value is,” Adams highlights.

Civil discussions can entice visitors to stay on pages longer as they read the comments, which increases the likelihood that they’ll register to interact on your website or app. That includes watching or clicking on advertisements.

The bottom line is that media companies can build stronger relationships with their visitors through moderated commenting tools, resulting in more behavioral data and increased revenue.

According to Michelle Malatais, the managing editor of consumer news at USA Today, “if we make it a worthwhile experience, and we can — we have to put staffing toward it and we have to put attention toward it — then there’s value.”

For more information, you can access the complete recording of the discussion panel here.

Four Growth Strategies Media Companies Are Prioritizing Right Now

Third-party cookies are slowly disappearing from the internet. As a result, media companies are in a race against time to find and execute new strategies to collect user data.

Gathering first-party data, user information that’s collected directly on a website consensually, has become essential for businesses everywhere.

“First-party data is going to be very effective — it already is — in helping marketers target in different ways,” states New York Times’ CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien.

Media companies can use this data to peer into their visitors’ habits and preferences, which is valuable knowledge that can enhance their platforms and content.

This information is key to securing new revenue streams and long-term loyalty from digital community members.

In pursuit of company growth and first-party user data, here’s what media companies across all industries have been focusing on recently.

Enabling Conversation Within Online Communities

Social tools that allow website visitors to participate in discussions carry a series of benefits for businesses. Not only do they encourage human connections to form around a brand, but they also persuade consumers to develop loyal habits.

Together, these qualities can transform ordinary consumers into dedicated brand advocates, who rely on your media brand for entertainment or news.

PinkNews, a publisher focused on producing LGBT+ content, is one of many media companies planning to implement commenting on their platform. The digital publication will be reserving commenting for its members to elevate premium experiences.

Media companies like the Daily Hive and Reach plc have also recently implemented new social tools to enhance user experiences and attract subscribers.

But commenting widgets also have another benefit: they collect precious first-party user data.

By logging in to use a conversation widget, visitors offer up information on their identity and visibility into what they’re engaging with online. These insights can improve your website’s appeal to advertisers and help you better understand and retain community members.

Producing Virtual Events

While the pandemic has accelerated the push to digital, virtual events are proving to be profitable alternatives to in-person ones.

Business Insider, for instance, has already increased the number of events it’s run in 2020 compared to 2019. Plus, the media company has multiplied its events revenue by eight over the past year.

Business Insider credits its growth to the less demanding nature of virtual events — in terms of planning and execution — and the multiple ways in which they can be monetized.

The Financial Times is also prioritizing virtual events as a way to extract information on new audiences.

According to Orson Francescone, managing director of FT Live, “of the 52,000 people we had attending [one of our events], about 75% were completely new to us.”

New audiences like this can be assessed based on their interests and engagements during events and targeted with subscription offers using their behavior data.

Building Stronger Relationships With Consumers

Now that subscription revenue is a primary revenue stream for most media companies, forging resilient relationships with consumers has become central to growth strategies.

Just look at Spanish publisher Eldiario.es.

Eldiario.es continues to strengthen its relationship with readers by taking the time to listen to and serve community members. That’s why the company saw hundreds of consumers volunteer to pay more than they had to for a membership fee to offer support during the pandemic.

María Ramírez, the media company’s head of strategy, explains that “listening to your audience, answering the phone, owning your mistakes, responding to complaints pays in the long run for any newspaper with a reader revenue model.”

One way to listen to your audience is simply to dig into your data to find out what types of content are earning the most amount of engagement. That way, you can refine your company’s editorial plan to better suit your audience’s interests.

Personalizing Consumer Experiences

Many companies that already have effective processes in place to collect user data are now focused on extracting valuable insights on audience interests and habits. After all, insights on user behavior can help personalize consumer experiences to keep digital visitors coming back.

Personalization has particularly become a major focus for media companies covering political election cycles. For instance, NBC News is targeting consumers with content and alerts specific to their location for the U.S. election.

Whether you choose to personalize a visitor’s mobile alerts or their content feed, customization can improve how much consumers care about media brands.

“If you focus on the customer [enough], you find ways of developing something that means something to them,” explains Claire MacLellon, the COO of Future plc.

Ultimately, using first-party data to create meaningful experiences and connections is necessary to grow subscription numbers and retain existing community members.