Digital transformation of newspapers: Part 2 - What benefits do readers get?

Hai Duong Newspaper reporter livestreams the table tennis competition of SEA Games 31 held at the Provincial Sports Gymnasium

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In recent years, newspapers have been facing fierce competition from social networks and cross-border platforms. Faced with this challenge, digital transformation is a matter of survival for newspapers. According to the Press Department (Ministry of Information and Communications), to attract readers in today's competitive market, good content is not enough, press agencies need to integrate with advanced user experiences.

Technology has equipped the press with new capabilities, instead of serving the majority of the public with a uniform product, it now aims to customize and specialize according to specific needs, conquer new groups of readers, distribute content more effectively and generate greater revenue. Currently, some newsrooms have applied many tools and software to collect data about readers, helping them understand their readers better, thereby proposing better content strategies as well as business strategies.

Journalist Nguyen Hoang Nhat, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of VietnamPlus e-newspaper, in a speech at a conference on digital transformation of the press, said that among the 7 biggest changes in media in the past decade, the most novel and important change lies in the data element via the internet (identified internet). Through monitoring the Google Analytics tool, VietnamPlus editorial board has made timely adjustments to increase traffic and develop in-depth content lines that readers are interested in. However, Analytics is only a free tool, cannot provide in-depth reports or help with customization. VietnamPlus has also cooperated with Insider Technology Company (since 2020), Taboola (since 2022) in collecting user data to select outstanding news and send it directly to readers via Newsletter and Webpush, helping to spread information as well as significantly increase traffic, retain and develop loyal readers.

Not only VietnamPlus, but now when accessing some major electronic newspapers such as VnExpress, Vietnamnet, Tuoi Tre... you always get the question whether you want to follow the news and regularly receive such information from the newspaper. If you register, you will receive notifications whenever there is new news in the field that interests you published from these newspapers. Obviously, readers feel much more convenient when deciding whether or not to read new news according to the notifications they receive instead of having to access the page and search, or sometimes because they are busy, they do not know that such a problem or event has just happened and their favorite newspaper has reported it.

In the world, The Guardian (UK) has launched a long-term subscription model since 2014. Accordingly, the newspaper lets readers decide whether to spend money or not, they will make their own decision to pay (if any) in the name of cooperation and support for the newspaper, based on their experiences with The Guardian. Depending on the package, readers enjoy benefits such as the fastest daily news updates continuously from 6am, with an eye-catching interface designed to be friendly to smartphone users; while using the application, readers are not bothered by advertisements; updates on other special publications from The Guardian or more attractive features such as live (online), discover (discover) ...

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With the motto “wherever readers are, there is the press”, when readers are no longer passively waiting for the press to provide news, newsrooms are forced to rush to platforms where readers (and viewers) are concentrated. Currently, most newspapers have set up channels on social networks such as Facebook, Zalo. Many newspapers also build channels on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Spotify…

Journalist Ngo Van Hai, Editor-in-Chief of VTC News Online Newspaper, once shared at a conference that, faced with the challenge of competing for readers/viewers with social networks, VTC News has implemented the basic solution that many other press units in Vietnam have done in recent years, which is to put content on many different platforms, or in other words, cooperate with competitors. “We take advantage of the user advantage of social networking platforms to promote the spread of information. We must emphasize that distributing content on social networking platforms is not a simple physical operation to transfer all content on the newspaper to social networks. This content must be optimized, finding a “unique way of telling stories” based on the characteristics of each platform,” said Mr. Ngo Van Hai.

By doing so, the benefit that readers get is that while participating in social networks, they have access to official sources of information from press agencies instead of being disturbed by a lot of unverified information on social networks. Many readers of Hai Duong newspaper said that they access the newspaper through social networks and regularly follow the information that the newspaper posts on its fanpage. They feel secure because the information of the Party newspaper is official information.

Another benefit that readers receive thanks to the digital transformation of newspapers is that, nowadays, electronic newspapers convey information to readers almost simultaneously with events with a huge amount of information, even without limits on capacity or duration. New press products create two-way interaction with readers, such as online interviews, creating a closer feeling between readers and newspapers... Through social networks, readers can also participate in making newspapers by sending information about recent events, contributing comments on information provided by newspapers...

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