Most of the news media companies follow anxiously the developments in their business landscape. The economic outlook in media industry has become extremely challenging. While traditional channels like print and radio have been in constant decline for more than two decades, digital channels have partly replaced the lost income. Now also digital services are under growing pressure complicating the already challenging situation.

New competition to the digital medias come from the new powerful platforms that are replacing the media websites as the source of information. According to the recent Pew research, 67 % of the people in US looked for news in social media in 2017 and the percentage is growing rapidly. Digital News Report 2017 revealed that the messaging applications like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger as well as content aggregators like Google and Apple News have over the last few years also developed into popular news sources. The users entering medias through these channels spend less time on the news page, rarely return to the same news service and often cannot even recall what news service they used. This way, these alternative platforms erode the traditionally strong consumer loyalty in media business.

The users entering medias through these channels often cannot even recall what news service they used

Most media companies have risen to the challenge by leveraging the power of social media and other novel tools to increase customer engagement. While news mobile applications have become a norm in news media business, some companies use for example WhatsApp to provide tailored news updates and allow feedback and participation. Providing services in these new emerging channels is also important because the consumers have grown accustomed to use these channels to read news and look for information.

While there is always a competitor behind just one click the quality of the content and interactions in all channels are the key to customer satisfaction and loyalty. At the same time, the new channels and features flood the news services with different types of user input making content management an increasingly difficult task. Therefore, a high-quality moderation solution of the online content is a necessary starting point for all customer engagement plans and programs. For media companies it is time to start looking for a suitable moderation tool to take care of this difficult job.

Jarmo Keto
Director, Finance and HR

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