A three-day event kickstarted today at Hotel Fairmont, Jaipur.

 

And of course, the JWB squad visited and gained insights on meaningful journalism.

We attended the workshop by Facebook India ‘Facebook for Newsrooms.’Varun Gupta and Saurabh Doshi , handling Media Partnerships, Facebook India, shared about the vast opportunities Facebook offers to the journalists, news publishers, media blogs and other content publishers.

He started the session with the idea, “Think Mobile First.”

“Out of 7 Million Indians who use Facebook daily, 6.5 of them do it on mobile. So, as content publishers, please understand that your readers will be on mobile. So, whatever you publish, consider and think mobile first. The desktop is a dead market now.”

He shared the mission of Facebook regarding the news it feeds to its users.

“To best inform and entertain them is what we strive for. We want to help people discover and discuss news that matters to them.”

“You’ll find one news story in your first five top posts. So, the news is crucial for us, and we make sure it reaches our users,” he told.

With the help of a slide show, he explained how a news publisher and blogs could develop, distribute, and engage their target audience and grow their scale of operation.

“You need to connect, innovate, and monetize, and Facebook will help you in all of it.”

He highlighted various tools and services for the journalists and how they can use them best to their advantage.

“You can go live and broadcast the stories live. The power of live feed is unprecedented.”

“People are responding more to the personal human interest stories. So try to create content that you know your audience would click on. Also, the vernacular news is growing multifold and engage a more regional audience.”

“We have introduced Instant articles which load over seven times faster than the regular ones. The instant article will reduce your bounce rate, by over 70 percent. It is a revolutionary product, and the engagement it generates is astounding.”

He discussed the exceptional case studies of content publishers which grew their business on Facebook and gained worldwide readership.

“I believe is now more sought after than Hindustan Times.”

“ is just a one-year-old company, and it built its business on Facebook through FB page and later developed its own website,” he added.

He urged the journalists and bloggers to try all different formats of news publishing on Facebook.

“Try everything and it’s okay if you fail because that’s the beauty of being online. You can start afresh always.”

On monetizing, Varun talked about the existing revenue generating systems like Audience Network, Direct sold ads, Branded Content and Native CTA.
And, he also revealed that Facebook is testing out other revenue generating systems through video streamings which will be beneficial for the publishers.

“It’s just in the testing phase, so it might take some time to reach the users. But, it will be certainly path-breaking.”

To conclude, Varun said,

“We are all building a virtual reality for our readers. And at the end, distribution is the currency for the journalists and media publications.”

It was an illuminating workshop and enriching experience for us. Later the session was opened for the audience.

JWB: What’s the next big thing on Facebook in terms of growing the business?

Varun: lt’s FB messenger and videos, according to me. As publishers, you always push your content to your target readers, but the messenger focuses on the pull strategy. The user will choose what they want to read and then the publisher can directly inbox them with their articles and news.  And of course, the video viewers are growing by the day.

Facebook is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to reach your audience and with its new features and value additions, it will only give greater wings to the publishers and businesses.

P.S.- You, too can attend the enlightening sessions by the esteemed speakers at the Talk Journalism on 30th and 31st July. And, guess what? The registration is free!