New Delhi: Early this year the flagship news portal of Network18, IBNLive.com, underwent a rebranding exercise to transform itself into a pure-play Digital news media site NEWS18.com. In its new avatar, News18.com has effected significant changes to its UI/UX (fully responsive and mobile friendly), product features, content and social media strategy.
Commenting on the development, Manish Maheshwari, CEO, Network18 Digital said, “We aim to give our audience the best experience when it comes to digital news reporting. Since refreshing our identity, we have changed our approach to make the format more engaging; in addition to breaking news we are investing on high-quality original video content produced by our dedicated multimedia team using state-of-the-art technologies. Our increased reach and month on month growth over the last seven months makes us believe that we are moving in the right direction.”
In line with the growing trend of increase in consumption of content through Digital platforms, News18.com has adopted a robust news gathering strategy through its string of reporters and today boasts of producing original and exclusive content in text, digital video and infographic formats.
News18.com has adopted an equally aggressive Social Media strategy, innovating in format and content – native videos, live broadcast of news bulletins, on ground FB Live reporting and India’s first 15-minute, Social First Tech & Auto show on weekends. Since rebranding, News18.com’s Facebook account acquired 1 mn additional users in six months while Twitter took 8 months to garner the same number of followers.
NEWS18.com, which has portals in different languages including Hindi and English, has garnered a staggering 130 mn page views and 18mn unique visitors for the month of October 2016 alone. With an engagement of over 10 million users per month on Social platform, News18.com has been constantly at the top amongst media publishers.
Along with exclusive reportage by the News18.com team of news reporters, a buzzing features sections with three new verticals – Auto, Tech and iVideos with original digital video and multimedia content – has made News18.com the one-stop Digital news destination for all.
Engaging multimedia content, such as infographic explainers, Social Media cards, data visualization, audio embeds and immersive long-form content are employed to enhance storytelling and engage audience in multiple ways. Short, crisp and Digital-format HD videos, which runs from 45 seconds to 1:30 minutes, has also grabbed the attention of the Digital natives.
