Audiences around the world are increasingly using mobile devices and social networks to get their news and information. BBG is responding by rapidly increasing the production of content and high-quality journalism for these digital platforms and shifting from one-way distribution to a more audience-engaging platform.

Voice of America saw significant gains on visits to its websites. Total site visits across all languages grew by 41% over the past three years, and article views exceeded 301 million in 2016, a 30% increase compared to 2014 totals.

In September leaders of each of the five networks and their social media experts assembled for the first-ever BBG Social Media Summit, to share best practices, ideas and resources. The Washington, D.C., event featured topics such as the explosion of video on all digital platforms and the importance of tailoring content to different social platforms.

Targeting digital platforms

Social media

All five networks utilize social media to inform and engage their audiences. In most parts of the world, Facebook is the most popular social media site, and it continues to be an increasingly important platform for accessing information.

For VOA, engagements on Facebook were up 42%, to 166 million, while YouTube video views grew 93% in 2016. VOA Afghanistan (Dari and Pashto) were the fastest-growing Facebook pages in the country, with over 40 million engagement actions and 74 million video views in 2016.

In 2016 MBN saw exponential growth of engagement on its Facebook pages. MBN’s four main Facebook accounts (Alhurra, Alhurra-Iraq, Radio Sawa and Raise Your Voice) saw engagement rise by 276 percent to more than 51 million. Those same four Facebook pages had 1.13 billion video views, up nearly 1800 percent from 2015.

RFE/RL saw nearly 242 million engaged users on Facebook in 2016, which represents a 59% increase from the previous year.

VOA Hausa, which has one of the most popular websites in U.S. international media, leveraged its powerful social media following to engage youth and dissuade them insurgent recruitment. Radio show Yau Da Gobe (Today and Tomorrow) and the digital stream Dandalin VOA, were especially successful in engaging audiences in conversation.

RFE/RL’s Afghan Service had USIM’s highest level of engagement on Facebook, with a monthly average of 3.1 million engaged users, followed by Radio Farda at 2.5 million engaged users per month.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting found that while Cuban authorities block access to its website, many users in Cuba access its news content via social media and watch the live streaming of TV Martí and the visual-radio Martí programs via Facebook.

24.2 MILLION RFE/RL FACEBOOK USERS - UP 56% SINCE 2015

51 MILLION MBN FACEBOOK ENGAGEMENTS INCLUDING 1.13 Billion video views - up 1800% since 2015

166 Million VOA Facebook Engagements - up 42%

Mobile

Radio Free Asia launched a streaming application, enabling digital access to live broadcasts and podcasts of RFA’s nine language services via mobile devices. VOA’s streamer app was enhanced to include more than 40 languages. The mobile streamer apps, developed by BBG’s Office of Digital and Design Innovations, in partnership with AudioNow, make it possible for audio content to be accessed through mobile data or cellular connections to save money and bandwidth. They are available for free on the iTunes stores and Google Play.

RFE/RL’s Pangea content management system completed the conversion of all VOA, RFE/RL, MBN, and OCB websites to a responsive design, providing an optimal viewing and interaction experience across a wide range of devices, including tablets and mobile phones.

VOA & RFA actively use circumvention technology like VPNs and WeChat to reach Tibetans with news they cannot get from local sources. (Johannes Eisele/AFP)

Messaging apps

As the Chinese government tightened censorship of the web and social media, VOA and RFA used messaging apps, including the WeChat messaging service, to get reporting tips, ask questions, and provide content links.

VOA Tibetan is taking advantage of the growing use of VPNs and other circumvention tools that allow digital distribution of information to reach audiences within Tibet. VOA Tibetan began adding links to its programs on WeChat that Tibetan users have been sharing within their own circles and has received connection requests from over 300 WeChat users as a result.

RFA’s Tibetan team has been particularly active in sharing unblocked SoundCloud links and RFA Tibetan TV programming within multiple WeChat groups. RFA’s stringers also have been getting videos and photos from inside Tibet using WeChat–including exclusive coverage of illegal fishing in Qinghai Lake, the suicides of three nuns, and the demolition of Larung Gar Monastery.

VOA’s Persian Service videos on Telegram, the most popular mobile instant messenger in Iran, resulted in 32,200 new subscribers, a 64% increase. On Twitter, VOA Persian has gained 149,000 new followers, a 49.6% increase. On Instagram, Farda had 307,000 followers—a 250% increase from the year before.

Operating in one of the most restrictive environments in the world, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service is using WhatsApp and Telegram to build an innovative citizen reporting network throughout the country. Uzbek citizens frequently send the Service videos, photos, and news tips, which allow it to report on issues that directly affect people’s lives. For example, the Uzbek Service was the first media outlet to receive information on August 27 about Uzbek President Islam Karimov falling severely ill, and the first media to credibly speculate on September 1 about his death, based on persistent citizen reporting of unusual midnight funeral preparations in his hometown.

Streets in the center of Samarkand, the native city of ailing Uzbek President Islam Karimov, were blocked off as cleaning and apparent construction work was taking place on a central square late on September 1, 2016.

Creating digital-first content

Engaging with video

Current Time’s digital media team broke new ground in the BBG digital sphere, taking the network’s content direct to growing mobile and web audiences as a new product for RFE/RL’s broadcast region.

The team’s clever social media videos on news and current affairs issues were viewed more than 180 million times in 2016 on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Russian social networks such as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.

One video about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unfulfilled election promises of five years ago became the top trending video on the popular Odnoklassniki social network, receiving more than 5.4 million views across social networks.

On YouTube, RFE/RL garnered almost 334 million views in 2016, representing an 82% increase from 2015.

MBN’s Facebook pages have seen a dramatic increase in video—both in terms of production as well as consumption. The number of video views on the MBN Facebook pages has grown exponentially since the network started posting videos directly to Facebook pages in May 2015 (rather than simply embedding YouTube videos there). In 2016, MBN had nearly 1.5 billion video views on its combined 21 Facebook pages.

VOA Vietnamese saw extraordinary video growth on social platforms, with more than 329 million video views across YouTube and Facebook, a 687% increase of video views compared to 2015. The service averaged 2.7 million video views weekly on YouTube. Facebook videos have shown significant engagement, averaging almost 99,000 reactions, comments, or shares weekly.

During President Barack Obama’s visit to Vietnam in May, the service received nearly 5 million video views daily on its Facebook page. RFA Vietnamese increased its Facebook fans by 63% in FY 2016 and added 12 regular weekly video features for a total of 33 regular features.

In July, VOA Ashna TV was the first media in Afghanistan to stream a live TV program on Facebook. The initiative immediately captured a very large digital audience and generated extensive engagement. The daily one-hour current affairs program in Dari and Pashto languages gets more than 30,000 views and hundreds of reactions on Facebook.

In addition, VOA is extremely competitive with other media outlets in social media. VOA Facebook pages have the largest total audience among media organizations on Facebook in Central Africa, Cambodia and Laos.

RFE/RL Mashal Radio's reporter Bashir Ghwakh with VOA presenters at a Facebook Live event.

RFE/RL Radio Mashaal reporter Bashir Ghwakh with VOA presenters at a Facebook Live event.

The power of storytelling

Radio Mashaal, RFE/RL’s Pashto language service for Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, captured video of octogenarian Syed Abdul Shani, who trekked a kilometer every day with 100 kilograms of flour on his back in order to support his family. An English-language version of the video, produced by RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom, received 40 million views on Facebook and led to an outpouring of support for Ghani Baba and his family, and discussions about poverty and social support systems for the elderly in Pakistan.

RFA launched an online investigative series that showcases such topics as the hazards of illegal gold mines in Myanmar, the vaccine crisis in China, and the future of the Mekong River as it gradually falls under China’s control in 2016.

A man, wearing a sweatshirt and a headscarf, points to a side

In December 2016, VOA’s Extremism Watch Desk released a special project, Descent into Jihad, that tells the story of Rasid Tugral, a young Turk who had transformed from an astronomer to an ISIS fighter. He joined ISIS in Syria and died in August 2016 in a clash with Syrian Kurds. The story was translated into more than 20 languages.

Interacting with audiences

MBN has a team of Community Managers for the Raise Your Voice Facebook page engaging in real time with the audience on a 24/7 basis. The Community Managers facilitate conversations, ask questions back and ensure that fruitful discussions are had on the platforms. MBN’s Facebook pages had 56 million interactions (comments, shares or likes) in 2016.

Alhurra’s Free Hour is the network’s flagship daily discussion program that addresses the most pressing topic facing the Middle East. In 2016, Free Hour hosted its first online digital discussion with Syrian Political Analyst Reem Turkmani about the Geneva Conference on Syria. Instead of having a host moderate a discussion on television, this was an opportunity for viewers to ask the questions directly to the guest using Facebook. The hour-long discussion solicited 130 comments and more than 3700 likes.

The Facebook page of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Radio Svoboda, had 91,000 engagements (likes, comments and shares) with its users per week, while VOA Russian’s Facebook page had more than 45,000 engagements per week; some of the most popular content was related to stories about America, U.S.-Russia relations, human rights issues within Russia, and other relevant issues from Ukraine to Syria that were misreported by Russian state-funded media.

Tailoring content to audiences

RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir and North Caucasus Services launched hyperlocal websites for Russian speakers in their regions in September 2016. The sites target areas particularly vulnerable to disinformation and complement the Services’ continuing reporting in Chechen, Tatar and Bashkir languages while extending their reach to new audiences. The Tatar-Bashkir Service hyperlocal website, Idel.Realii, published a social video on police brutality in Tatarstan and authorities’ ongoing refusal to investigate the death of a detained citizen in a police station four years ago. RFE/RL was the only local media outlet that raised the issue and the video received more than 50,000 views and more than 1,000 shares on Facebook.

Idel.Realii Facebook Page

Spotlight on special features

Covering Yerevan

When armed men stormed a police station in Yerevan, the Armenian Services of VOA and RFE/RL provided comprehensive digital coverage of the two-week standoff. The armed men demanded the release of opposition leader Jirair Sefilian and the resignation of President Serzh Sargsyan, and were supported by thousands of residents, who marched through the streets on July 25.

RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, which in 2016 launched 10 hours of daily online TV, provided extensive live TV coverage of the standoff. The coverage broke records with over 5.6 million visits and 13.1 million page views on the Service’s websites in Armenian and Russian, nearly 18.8 million video views on the Service’s YouTube channel and 17.7 million video views to Facebook Live and on-demand videos.

The VOA Armenian Service’s live coverage online quickly became an important and popular source of information. The Service’s website had more than 2.3 million visits and 5.5 million page views over the course of one week; its YouTube channel had 7 million views, and the Service’s live stream had more than 1.8 million views.

Shift to digital