Hive Digital Media has launched Infinity, which is a new approach to digital content and video advertising. This product is in line with Hive’s efforts to enhance and diversify its product offerings. This is also designed to respond to changing digital market dynamics and business needs.
What’s the value of this product?
Infinity is a new immersive, dynamic & adaptive content channel within an ad unit. It is designed to find new audience groups and adapt the content in the unit according to targeted audiences.
This product offering places emphasis on time in-brand at the top of the funnel by encouraging interaction and dwell time in the unit. This is done by utilising new technology to find online behaviours that gives Hive more granular user insights which translates into a better understanding of what content resonates with brands’ audiences.
Infinity has been developed to provide sufficient functionality and adaptability to different types of content such as:
Branded content – Content theme which is used to highlight your product or brand to serve as an awareness tool.
Editorial content – This is curated content meant to create lifestyle-centric pieces that speak to your audience’s interests.
Partner content – This speaks to business partners leveraging existing partnerships or sister brands to showcase additional offers or promotions.
Infinity’s reporting and efficiencies will help to understand the perception and performance of a brand’s marketing efforts. It’s an ad unit which serves an organic goal, keeping brands at the top of consumers’ minds. By finding users and increasing awareness and share of mind, brands will see an uplift all the way through the marketing funnel.
Brand performance benefits
Brands will be able to track familiar performance metrics of the campaign, however, the audience and content performance insights are bespoke to Infinity,making it a unique way to understand a brand. Brands stay in control of their content and brand safety, whilst having access to all associated performance and insights metrics.
Infinity offers brands the opportunity to predict audiences’ choices based on their behaviour before presenting them with brand content in a purposeful way. By encouraging consumer interaction and attention, it is more efficient in how brands could and should use their content.
This will also ensure content efficiency, as brands can create content with real purpose, informed by real data while also repurposing existing brand content. This is already distributed on platforms like television and social media, but can all be redistributed in one single ad unit, Infinity.
For more on this new product, you can contact the Hive team at [email protected].
The digital space is anchored around two interdependent vital components which are digital platforms and audiences. For websites, it’s about drawing users to your site and maintaining them as regular users. This also extends to generating referral traffic to a particular site.
Maintaining site visitors and increasing audience numbers relies on facilitating excellent user experience.
What is Google Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that can help you understand how a user experiences pages on your site.
Google in 2020 announced the concept of Core Web Vitals, which forms part of the larger Page Experience update and the reports are available under Google Search Console (GSC). The rollout of page experience updates was completed at the end of August 2021.
Core Web Vitals consists of three main metrics which are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
First Input Delay (FID)
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP looks at how long it takes for different content blocks to load in the user’s viewport (or screen).
The crucial point here, is the load time for content above the fold, with below the fold not being taken into consideration.
Score measurement:
Good: Lower or equal to 2.5 seconds
Needs Improvement: Lower or equal to 4 seconds
Poor: More than 4 seconds
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) can be improved by looking at elements that could increase load times – this could include text, CCS files, images, backgrounds, and videos.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Content that shifts or jumps is frustrating to all users. We’ve all clicked on a button, only for that button to move at the last second, resulting in us clicking on something we didn’t intend to. CLS is used to measure how much of a page’s layout (content) shifts around as users interact with it.
Score measurement:
Good: Lower or equal to 0.1
Needs Improvement: Lower or equal to 0.25
Poor: Higher than 0.25
CLS score is calculated by multiplying the impact fraction by the distance fraction. Impact fraction measures how unstable (or moving on-page elements like text) impacts the viewport (or screen). The distance fraction measures the distance these on-page elements have moved.
The aim is to reduce any layout shift. Elements like images, navigation menus or ad units loading in that space which can cause content to shift up or down.
Minimising shifts helps contribute to a more positive page experience and reduce accidental clicks by users.
First Input Delay (FID)
As a user, one of the many frustrating things on a page is clicking or tapping a button or link, and not being sure whether it worked. Admittedly, this results in users tapping until it looks like something is happening.
This is FID – the time from when a user clicks on something, until the site / browser responds to it.
Score measurement:
Good: Lower or equal to 100 milliseconds
Needs Improvement: Lower or equal to 300 milliseconds
Poor: More than 300 milliseconds
User interaction is what all site owners strive for. Site owners should make interacting with our site easy and enjoyable.
Other Page Experience metrics to pay attention to
When it comes to page experience, there are other factors and metrics that affect search signals.
Security: The first big one that has been around for a while is security and serving secure pages. Your pages do need to be served over HTTPS to be considered for a good page experience status.
Mobile Friendliness: This refers to any issues your pages might have when being viewed on mobile devices. This can range from text being too small to read, to clickable elements being too close to each other.
Time to Interactive (TTI): This is the time it takes for content on your page to become fully interactive. A fast (or green) score is between 0 and 3.8 seconds. Moderate (or orange) is between 3.9 seconds and 7.3 seconds. Slow (or red) is anything over 7.3 seconds.
Total Blocking Time (TBT): This is the total time between First Contentful Paint (FCP) and the Time to Interactive (TTI). A fast (or green) score is between 0 and 200 milliseconds. Moderate (or orange) is between 200 and 600 milliseconds. Slow (or red) is anything over 600 milliseconds.
Speed Index: This is the time it takes for content to be visible / displayed on your page. A fast (or green) score is between 0 and 3.4 seconds. Moderate (or orange) is between 3.4 seconds and 5.8 seconds. Slow (or red) is anything over 5.8 seconds.
Hive Digital Media incorporates Core Web Vitals in its approach to technical SEO audits.
“Core Web Vitals have become a part of not only how our team tries to understand a user’s on-site experience, but also helps us to prioritise pages and elements that require work. Any technical SEO audit starts with data and tools, and with the addition of Core Web Vitals and the data which is provided, rooting out potential issues and working towards a solution is that tiny bit easier,” says Annabel le Roux, Publisher Programmatic Advertising and Search Engine Optimization Specialist at Hive Digital Media.
Here are some free Google tools to assist you in highlighting and achieving Core Web Vitals
Google Search Console
If you haven’t set up Search Console for your site yet, I would highly recommend that you do so. You can get started with Google Search Console here.
Page Speed Insight
This tool allows you to run tests on your site. Google will analyse your page, score it, and give suggestions for improvements.
The digital space has continued to evolve with different innovative developments impacting web functionality, traffic and user experience. Web developers and site owners should pay particular attention to the highlighted Core Web Vitals in order to stay ahead of others through improved user experience.
The business market is a fiercely competitive space with different brands competing to capture audience and consumer attention. The task is to convert this attention into sales and profit margins. Sometimes it’s just for purposes of creating awareness and changing the narrative.
It is common knowledge that consumers respond to a brand or product based on need, experience, product functionality, cost, word of mouth and very importantly reputation.
It is therefore not surprising that brands are constantly on the lookout for brand safety in reputable online news publications like LNN. Hive Digital Media relies partly on (Local News Network (LNN) as a guaranteed brand safe publishing space for brands.
LNN reaches communities across the country through its 59 print and digital local newspapers spread across the country. LNN serves a diverse audience catering for different demographics who have come to trust LNN as a trustworthy and credible publishing platform. LNN is therefore a brand safe environment where brands meet audiences and consumers who trust what they read and see on it.
The importance of brand safety in modern marketing and advertising is highlighted by Hive Digital Media Premium Commercial Channel Manager Stephnie Atkinson.
“When it comes to brand safety in content or display advertising, the trust in the brand from the audience comes more from the fact that the brand is advertising in a trusted and ethical environment rather than the ‘contextual relevance’ in let’s say a news publication. Advertising next to hard news content in a trusted environment gives brands added credibility,” explained Steph.
The key factor in this regard is to leverage on established trust, transparency and loyalty. These factors cause certain demographics to patronise a particular advertising or marketing platform or to warm up to a brand based on who is associated with it.
Brand perception is therefore intricately linked to brand safety. This is because brand safety is ultimately what safeguards brand perception and sustainability. A recent research study conducted by news publisher Reach questioned people to disclose where they are likely to see bad things from a brand safety point of view. The research results showed that:
73% said they expect to see unreliable content on social media, 43% on user-generated content video sites and 19% on news sites.
52% said they expect to see violent content on social media, 44% on user-generated content video sites and 9% on news sites.
59% said they expect to see shocking content on social media, 47% on user-generated content video sites and just 14% on news sites.
The stats above highlight the fact that audiences and brands alike are more concerned about the general content and reputation of a publishing platform than they are about what’s published or broadcast next to their brand.
Brand safety and how it impacts the above highlighted scenario
Brand safety is established on the fundamental advertising principle which demands that brand adverts or product content must not appear on platforms and spaces like websites, apps, videos and articles which are detrimental and harmful to the brand. Brands have a responsibility to take a robust and progressive moral and ethical stance which safeguards the brand but also the environments in which they operate.
When brands get associated with publishing platforms which promote what is morally and ethically misaligned to the brand ethos and values of the market in which they operate, the result is a fragmented customer loyalty and market base which becomes destructive to the brand affinity.
What are the most common brand safety threats?
Malgorithms – This simply refers to adverts where the context between a web page and display ad is misaligned. In layman’s language this is juxtaposition of brand ads with the wrong content on a broadcasting or publishing platform.
Fake news – Fake news has caught the attention of diverse audiences and remains one of the fastest ways to lose credibility and consequently harm any brand associated with it. A platform which misrepresents, misstates or conceals information becomes a danger to any brand whose revenue depends on the quality of ad placements.
Extremists’ sites – The world is not short of extremists’ groups who own publishing platforms and sometimes choose to strategically place their content on relevant platforms. A brand must never be associated with hateful, resentful, divisive and unlawful viewpoints.
Bot traffic – Bot traffic is about fraudulent clicks which mislead audiences and can cause tremendous damage to a brand. Bot traffic doesn’t just harm your brand in the short, medium and long term but also adversely affects your ROI and conversion metrics.
How can you ensure brand safety is achieved?
1.You need to find a reputable programmatic provider or agency. Hive Digital Media offers automated buying and selling of advertising which is streamlined and consolidates your digital advertising efforts in one technology platform.
2.Third party content verification is key in achieving brand safety. A publishing platform has a responsibility to check that content received does not in any way harm the interests of other brands. Hive has managed to put in place a dedicated team which writes content but also scrutinises any third-party content to ensure it’s suitable for various publishing platforms.
3.Striving for authentic audiences is an imperative brand safety measure. Hive Digital Media has access to a large network which allows this reputable digital agency to collect diverse audiences based on the publishers within the network (From Local News and Computing, to Parenting and Travel).
When an audience is created, Hive can instantly activate it and start using it. Hive can also build custom audiences based on Brands which refers to awareness, engagement, advocacy and Intent which refers to consideration, evaluation, purchase stage, etc. Using the DMP, Hive is able to collect & deliver relevant, targeted audiences across the Caxton Network of Premium News & Lifestyle focused websites. These audiences are customised to meet the specific needs of our clients with the unique campaign message in mind.
4.You must avoid blacklisted publishers. Hive Digital Media is a trusted service provider which safeguards brands because the agency adheres to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) & Press Council standards which demand that the business is truthful, accurate and fair, with no intentional or negligent distortion, exaggeration, misrepresentations or material omissions.
5.You must consider using insights to monitor campaigns in real-time. Hive has developed this capability by using its Data Management Platform (DMP). The DMP platform helps in understanding audiences & their interests. The DMP provides insight into users & information on what tickles their interests. This means the right ad is shown to the right user.
From the points listed above, it’s clear to see that brand safety is a key cornerstone in brand development and sustainably protecting the interests of any business enterprise.
For more on placing your brand in a brand safe environment, Hive team can be contacted at [email protected].
The media space is closely intertwined with the concept of the attention economy. This is based on the fundamental principle which is the fact that media platforms exist to serve the audience. The attention economy therefore refers to the engagement of humanity with diverse elements which includes information within a particular environment with complete mental focus.
The attention economy is therefore developed around a common understanding that the media has a task of ensuring that they capture the human attention span. For businesses and brands, it’s about aggressively capturing the attention of the right audience in the form of consumers. There is a difference between a ready to buy, sceptical and oversaturated consumer. Grabbing this attention therefore entails carefully curating the right message and content, placing it on the right platform and at the right time in order to meet the minds of consumers not just for a moment but to stick in their psyche for a sustainable period of time.
When does attention economy happen?
Attention economy often occurs when a consumer sees a product ad or piece of information while waiting for something to happen. This can be an ad while waiting for a sports game.
Attention economy can also happen when a consumer is actively searching for relevant information and products for a particular need.
Attention economy also frequently happens when a consumer encounters information or product/business ad just after finishing an intellectually engaging activity which could be a work meeting or even an academic class.
Capturing the above indicated points of the attention economy demands that the media and in particular community news should conceptualise product ads, articles and visual content in a manner that promotes talkability. There is a huge difference between a consumer seeing something and a consumer who sees something and chooses to share and spread the word. Talkability provokes a consumer chain reaction which results in a huge audience attention towards a product, business brand or any other development for that matter through discussing and sharing news, discussing product ads and marketing campaigns and other information.
How community news media is meeting the challenge of attention economy in audiences
Local content with broader impact – Community news entities often operate on the premise of serving the immediate community. However, there are local issues which have a broader effect and resonates with audiences beyond a unique community. These issues include climate change, crime, poverty, clean water, etc. Community news entities are therefore meeting this challenge by coming up with local content which resonates with a broader audience.
Cross-platform convergence – Consumers are constantly searching for new platforms and channels where they can engage and source new information. Community news entities have therefore adopted a multi-platform approach which involves producing and publishing content across multiple platforms.
Social news – Social media is a big deal and is at the heart of information and advertising. It initiates and accelerates the speed of the news cycle and information consumption by consumers. Community news entities have therefore tapped into the power of social media to compete in the attention economy.
Short and impactful – How you structure your content determines how much attention you capture. Shorter articles and eye-grabbing multimedia have proven to be more impactful with a strong ability to capture the attention of the audience within 6-14 seconds. An increasing number of community news organisations have come to this realisation and have made serious content production adjustments.
Maintain habitual consumers of information -It is fact that tradition runs very deep in the consumer markets. There are still consumers who maintain information consumption traditions such as reading the morning paper, looking out for articles on particular days and looking for connections for more information. Community news providers have a duty to capture this audience by sticking to publishing content as scheduled, delivering newspapers on set dates and displaying ads and information on times which suit these traditionalists.
Hive Digital Media in the audience economy
Hive Digital Media has responded to the changing market dynamics and the power of the attention economy by offering services such as technical support, content creation, marketing services, SEO and conversion optimisation, etc.
Through its internal marketing and content team, Hive produces and delivers high quality content which is broadcast across the 59 hyperlocal community newspapers + social network pages in communities around the country. Hive Digital Media has tapped into the strength and deep-rooted reach of Caxton’s Local News Network (LNN) by creating content which is distributed across a brand safe environment to interest categories within the Caxton network of brands. The audience is also directed to the article via social media, newsletters and display advertising. This is done by offering social media boosted posts as part of an overall content campaign to ensure that content on a Hyperlocal website reaches the right audiences on 3rd party platforms like Facebook in order to drive higher traffic and interested audiences.
Hive has also recently invested in a publisher-oriented DMP (data management platform) called CARBON DMP. Using the DMP, Hive is able to collect & deliver relevant, targeted campaigns that can be charged to clients at a higher premium. Using this DMP, Hive is able to create brand specific audiences which can be retargeted based on brand and business needs. The DMP offers a centralized overview of your readers and enables you to identify your most engaged audiences. Precise targeting can be driven through audience interest or location data to deliver primed mobile brand messages. Carbon provides Hive with high quality 1st and 3rd party data that opens up opportunities for new clients and helps Hive to understand readers in new ways.
How this works is that:
A reader visits an LNN site and is captured in the DMP for targeting later on.
2. Once Hive knows more about the readers and their interests, targeted campaigns aimed at reaching them are considered.
3. Hive pushes the new DMP audience to the Ad Server (GAM).
4. Hive sets up a new campaign to target the specified audience.
5. The relevant reader visits an LNN site, and will see the relevant targeted ad.
From the above, it’s clear to see that the attention economy will continue to drive how media disseminates information and how brands engage with the markets. Hive Digital Media has positioned itself to be the trusted media entity with community news which captures the attention of audiences.
Hive Digital Media is a business entity which is established on a strong foundation of establishing and leveraging sustainable business partnerships. These partnerships are focused on using our expertise to explore and implement opportunities. Hive does this through strategy, production, campaign management, reporting, content creation and design). These partnerships are developed in line with Hive’s mantras which are versatility and adaptability.
Cape Town Etc is a reputable platform which has earned a reputation for being a reliable source of information. The site covers relevant content such as food, culture, arts, entertainment, fashion, property and current events.
Getaway is an established platform for all things adventure, holiday packages, nature and conservation, travel destinations and general travel related news.
OFM is a regional radio station based in Bloemfontein which has a steady audience which regularly and keenly tunes in for the latest news and the best music tunes in central South Africa.
What value does this development offer?
With the aid of the Data Revenue Management Platform (RMP), these sites will grow (enhance) already available travel, lifestyle and music audiences, as well as many others. The RMP (Revenue Management Platform) is equipped and designed to collect & deliver relevant, targeted audiences across the Caxton Network of Premium News & Lifestyle focused websites. These sites will also assist to in diversify diversifying the range of inventory Hive Digital now has, to fit the needs of business brands.
Hive’s programmatic network is delivered through Ignition which is Hive Digital Media’s programmatic one stop solution. For programmatic network products, you can contact the Hive team at [email protected]ia to find out more.
South Africa’s media space is broad with various entities and service providers competing to capture the attention of a diverse audience. The audience dynamics are generally shaped by age, lifestyle, income brackets, needs, profession, level of education and arising social and economic conditions within the environment.
This places a huge responsibility on media entities not only to provide a broad array of products and services but to also ensure that unique needs are met with tailormade products and services which are cost effective, relevant and current as well as being user friendly. One media entity doing exactly this is Hive Digital Media. One product offering from Hive which has grabbed the attention of the market and continues to make tremendous impact in different segments and niches is programmatic advertising.
What is programmatic advertising?
In layman’s language, this product offering involves the automated buying and selling of online advertising. This product offering relies on in-depth data analytics which are used to segment market audiences which in turn facilitates targeted advertising. The benefit for clients is that these tailor-made targeted ads reach the right audience at the right time. Not only are these ads designed to appeal to this segmented audience but it’s cheaper and provide provides great returns on advertising investment. In short, it’s targeted ads rather than spray wide and wait to see what happens, which is a common practice in many media advertising entities. Programmatic advertising automates the entire ad buying process and secures ad space based on the specifications set out by the advertiser.
What’s the relationship between programmatic advertising and social programmatic display?
Social programmatic content is a component within the programmatic advertising space. Social programmatic simply relies on the strength of social media to recreate social media posts which are displayed in normal banner slots. The common characteristic and goals for both are to create awareness, prospect and directly respond to a need or development.
Social programmatic as a standalone product
Social programmatic ads look & feel like content and are anchored around elements of maximum imagery & minimal text which is a key driver on social media. This creates a positive user experience where consumers can opt to engage with the brand through likes, comments, and sharing the original social media post, etc. These social programmatic ads are faster, easier and more affordable to develop than traditional display banners. They also enable the fastest creative development-to-launch a timeline in the industry which contributes towards building stronger brand equity than with conventional display advertising. These banners are quick and easy to create and have proven to be highly effective.
Key benefits of social programmatic display ads are:
Its efficient and effective
Allows for a positive experience for consumers who opt to engage.
Builds stronger brand equity than with conventional display advertising.
Better returns on ad spend
How has Hive structured its social programmatic display offering?
In the current digital age where social media is a dominant avenue for information dissemination, Hive Digital has placed prime importance on this product offering. Hive Digital has done this by establishing Ignition Buy which serves as Hive Digital’s programmatic buying unit. This strategic focus has translated into social programmatic being one of the most popular and best performing ad units. Social programmatic thus allows Hive to pull social media posts into standard banners across the Google Display Network.
Some of the campaign benchmarks include awareness, traffic-to-site and average impression frequency, etc. The targeting metrics include device type, carrier, language, geography, age, affinity audiences, in-market audiences, in App, day & time, frequency, gender, environment, proximity, remarketing, key words, income ranges, marital status, etc.
This service offerings is a perfect fit into Hives strategic objectives which are about connecting businesses with markets through enhanced engagement as highlighted by Kirsty Needham who is the Digital Sales Manager.
“Social programmatic has been an effective and engaging product that we really enjoy connecting our clients with. It saves our clients time in creating artwork and allows us to project whatever client is sharing in their social space to a much larger carefully crafted audience in a format that many users are familiar with. This piece of tech has allowed us to project the social environment outside of the platform it lives in and the results speak for themselves” explained Kirsty.
Social programmatic display advertising is definitely a unique product which helps businesses to reach targeted audiences on the go. Contact our team at [email protected] to find out more.
Marketing practices and trends have evolved over the years in response to changing market dynamics and consumer needs. While both public and private social and business institutions have continued to spend on marketing, what has however changed over the years is how they go about it and what type of platforms they use in their efforts to reach the targeted audience. This change of position has been the catalyst behind the growing influence and reliability of hyperlocal marketing.
What is hyperlocal marketing?
Simply put, hyperlocal marketing refers to marketing initiatives that are aimed at a local geographical area and in particular consumers who are searching for products and services near their locality. With the increasing use of digital devices such as laptops and mobile phones, most of these consumers often have the ‘near me’ feature on their devices.
Hyperlocal marketing, therefore, integrates digital and print platforms in catering for businesses and other entities in the market who seek to reach current and potential customers looking for food, home products, electronic items, clothes, and even social services like healthcare, restaurants, schools, etc near their locality.
What is the best way to do hyperlocal marketing?
Target customers near your business – Hyperlocal is about a local audience and market. In order to accurately target customers near your business, you need to have reliable data statistics which point you to what consumers are looking for and possibly the demographics involved.
Target geographic events – Events are a big part of hyperlocal marketing. Not only do events attract a local audience but they attract other prospective buyers from different geographical areas. You can therefore anchor your hyperlocal marketing campaign or advert around a local event to attract customers. In doing so, you need to ensure your brand is associated with the right events aligned to your brand values to avoid negatively affecting your business brand.
Use local hyperlocal news entities – Hyperlocal news entities have in-depth knowledge and understanding of the local neighbourhood and prevailing market conditions. Most of them also possess accurate and reliable statistical capability which assists in executing a hyperlocal marketing campaign.
Create content – Content is king, so they say. Content is a key ingredient in a hyperlocal marketing campaign. You need to curate content in text or video formats which can then be circulated on a hyperlocal platform to reach a unique market segment or niche.
How does Hive deliver effective hyperlocal marketing campaigns?
Hive Digital Media operates under the more established and trusted media business umbrella of Caxton Publishers. Caxton has over the years developed an authentic and trusted platform called Local News Network (LNN) which currently boasts 59 hyperlocal print and digital newspapers which reach communities all around South Africa. Because of this local presence, LNN is the undisputed leader in community news which publishes stories that directly affect the daily lives of the readers with diverse interests, different age groups, races, religious groups and income groups.
Hyperlocal marketing campaigns execution
Leveraging on the LNN strength and expertise developed over the years, Hive Digital Media has become a reliable service provider of cost-effective hyperlocal marketing campaigns which provide excellent returns on investment.
Here are some methods Hive uses to deliver:
Advertorials – Advertorials are used to market a product or service development. These advertorials incorporate the power of good storytelling through text while supplementing it with videos, GIFs, infographics and images which all add to enhanced reader experience and attention which consequently generate a favourable impression of the client’s brand.
Social Media – Social media is a big deal when it comes to hyperlocal marketing. Hive offers social media boosted posts as part of an overall content campaign to ensure that content on a Hyperlocal website reaches the right audiences on 3rd party platforms like Facebook to drive higher traffic and interested audiences.
DMP – Hive has a Data Management Platform (DMP) which helps in retargeting display adverts to consumers that have engaged with a particular type of content, which ensures that a business brand and products/services get as much targeted reach as possible. Banner ads on this extended network go up to about 24 million monthly impressions. Using this DMP, Hive can create brand-specific audiences which can be retargeted based on brand and business needs.
Why are hyperlocal marketing campaigns effective?
Precise targeting – Hyperlocal marketing campaigns are done with precise targeting which is done through audience interest data or location data to deliver primed mobile brand messages where it matters.
Partnerships – Hive partners with brands to create authentic long and short-term narratives to reach engaged audiences through dynamic hyperlocal advertising and marketing.
LNN – Each LNN site attracts a diverse range of audiences who can be precisely targeted through the audience data pool across the hyperlocal network. LNN enjoys site visits of up to 6.4 million. This allows Hive to create content that strongly relates to the audience’s daily lives and interests. That is, aligning the interests of the brand with the interests of the audience at a community level.
From the above, it’s clear to see why small, medium and large-scale businesses and other institutions have continued to rely on hyperlocal marketing campaigns to reach their targeted audiences with Hive Digital Media being the reliable and credible service provider in this regard.
For hyperlocal marketing and advertising campaigns, you can contact the Hive team at [email protected]to find out more.
South Africa’s media landscape has continued to grow in leaps and bounds and consequently defying odds in the midst of various economic and social impediments. While the general media sentiment and focus has been directed towards the fast-rising and commanding emergency of digital media, there is one area of the media industry which continues to remain relevant and essential to the wellbeing of the media space, this media segment is hyperlocal community news. Hive Digital Media has tapped into the strength of hyperlocal news in its quest to inform, educate and entertain communities around the country.
What is hyperlocal community news?
Hyperlocal community news outlets are formed on the basis of providing news and information which is relevant to close-knit communities and neighbourhoods. The idea in a nutshell is to tell unique untold stories with a local angle and in a relatable way which major traditional media houses don’t pay attention to. This approach to media operations and information dissemination allows day to day community activities and events such as health, business, security and crime, education, sports etc, to be given in-depth and unbiased media coverage which resonates with community readers.
Hive Digital Media hyperlocal ability
In order to meet this need for hyperlocal news in communities around South Africa and to better assist business houses to reach various niche markets, Hive Digital Media has tapped into the strength and deep-rooted reach of Caxton’s Local News Network (LNN) which currently boasts of 59 hyperlocal community newspapers in communities around the country. These community newspapers exist in both print and digital formats with very active websites and engagement in place.
Self-moderated citizen media
This type of hyperlocal community news approach allows people to post their everyday stories on a platform without undue filtering and editing processes.
Involved proprietors on blogs
This type of hyperlocal news outlet has identified and credible bloggers who write and review local events with a unique local tone. This is often spiced up with blog polls and the active participation of community members through comments on published content.
Aggregation sites
Aggregated hyperlocal community news depends on stories from other sites which are relevant to the local community. Aggregation is done by linking to the stories.
Annotated maps
Maps are used in hyperlocal community news to alert or sensitise community members on prevailing conditions and developments in and around the community.
Mobile journalism
Mobile journalism is a one-man newsroom out in the field covering community news and events relevant to the community with videos, photos and easy to read stories.
Email lists and online forums
Email lists and online forums are still very effective by allowing content to be delivered in one email and allowing community members and readers to respond or post on their own terms.
How important is hyperlocal community news in our neighbourhoods?
Promotion of democratic rights and freedoms
South Africa is a democratic country where fundamental freedom of expression is cardinal. Hyperlocal news, therefore, promotes freedom of expression on matters which affect local communities especially on civic matters like municipal services, elections, civic responsibilities, the performance of local elected officials and the general state of the community.
Community identity
Community identity is an important aspect of building a united, secure and progressive community and country. Hyperlocal community news outlets allow community members to identify themselves with a media house they call their own and the general populace can in turn identify a particular community based on what’s published on a hyperlocal news platform.
Encouraging informed and active citizenship
Information is power so they say. Hyperlocal community news platforms, therefore, keep community members informed on important aspects of their daily life but also on emerging developments which negatively or positively affect their wellbeing.
Content sharing
Community discourse and community cohesion are promoted by allowing community members to distribute and share content in various formats such as photos, videos and even letters.
Advertising for local products, businesses or services
Segment and niche marketing have proven to be very effective methods of developing a business and making record sales. Local and national business enterprises, therefore, count on hyperlocal community news outlets to market their products and services. Hive Digital Media has put in place a responsive sales team which allows businesses to reach communities they would struggle to reach.
From the above points, it’s clear to see that hyperlocal news will continue to be relevant and an important part of the media and community environment.
Hive Digital is a relatively new business media entity that has continued to make great strides in providing unique and innovative digital media solutions. These cost-effective and result-oriented solutions have earned this business brand a place among digital media industry leaders in South Africa.
Business history and product offering
Established in the year 2019 out of a merger between Spark Media and Caxton Digital, this enterprising media service provider has weathered the business storms, especially under the Covid-19 environment to entrench itself as a reliable provider of tailor-made digital solutions which are provided by a medium-sized staff compliment who are trained experts at what they do.
Hive Digital Media operates as a shared services division of the Caxton Group, offering services such as technical support, content creation, marketing services, SEO and conversion optimisation, as well as technical support across the Caxton Network.
Hive has gone the extra mile in ensuring that South Africa’s vibrant and fast-growing retail sector is well catered for. This has been achieved through their partnership with the innovative retail platform Guzzle. Guzzle is a local catalogue aggregator business website that allows consumers to browse catalogues from leading retailers in one place. Consumers use this platform to plan, compare prices and shop with convenience and at affordable prices. Guzzle currently has over 700 000 users a month who plan their shopping on this platform browsing over 11.4 million catalogue pages.
Hive Digital Media is also a provider of programmatic banner advertising expertise and services. Operating under a one-stop solution called Ignition, the programmatic side of the business is designed to allow clients to automatically buy and optimise digital campaigns in a creative and data-driven manner.
The technical aspect of the services offered, involves Hive Digital providing a technical team to be at the service of business houses to cater for sites’ ad technology or development requirements. This support team works towards improving the performance of your website in the search engine rankings as well as on-site conversions. It’s also worth noting that Hive recently invested in a publisher-oriented RMP (Revenue Management Platform) called Carbon. Carbon provides Hive Digital with high-quality 1st and 3rd party data which is aimed at unlocking a complex relationship between audience, content and revenue which are the key business pillars of Hive. Using this data, Hive Digital can collect & deliver relevant and targeted campaigns which open new business opportunities and improves the revenue and profit margins for clients and Hive as a business.
Hive Digital has created internal marketing and content creation capacity by putting in place modern tools and incorporating the best recognised industry practices, allowing their team to provide enhanced media marketing and content creation services. Hive Digital, therefore, acts as an outsourced marketing department for business houses offering strategy, production, campaign management, reporting, content creation, and even design capability. Since its inception, Hive has been offering digital media solutions to national clients.
Leveraging on the strength and market presence of media giant Caxton Newspapers through its local newspapers across the country, Hive Digital not only has an in-depth understanding of niche marketing dynamics and content production needs of market segments and communities, but it also uses this Caxton local news network to reach unique markets and use unique market intelligence to serve clients better with expertly produced and designed content.
Hive Digital has also made strategic responses towards the increased video content demand by consumers and business houses. Hive Digital provides Spectrum TV that runs on 57 local news sites spread across the country. Spectrum currently stands as the largest alternate free-to-air video platform and network in South Africa.
With its market-leading compression technology, Spectrum can reach more people at a fraction of the data costs currently incurred on other video platforms. Spectrum’s patented compression optimization, which delivers HD content over Hive’s network, means consumers can watch more content using less data.
The relaunch of the Hive Website is another step towards intensified efforts aimed at achieving service excellence and brand visibility.
With such developments, Hive Digital is cementing its place as a reliable digital solutions service provider. You can contact Hive here.
