Live Blogging Guide for News and Media Publishers

Nowadays, people prefer to be updated very often. As a result, live breaking news has more demand compared to a newspaper. Many news and media outlets have sensed this consumption preference and started providing real-time coverage via TV channels, social media and their official website.

A recent report from Gitnux states that 76% of global news consumers prefer to access news online.

While social media can be a convenient source to keep tabs on the latest news, it is cluttered with different types of content. 

News and media channels use social platforms to distribute news coverage. However, the reader has to manually refresh the feed every time to get new updates about a particular event. But this isn't the ideal way for readers to consume news.

Live blogging precisely cements this gap by centralizing all the news related to an event or announcement on one page. 

Even though the concept has been around for a while, it’s the right time for news and media publishers to leverage it for audience growth and engagement.

Why News Publishers Should Consider Live Blogging?

Live blogging requires time, resources, and a dedicated team to deliver factually legit content quickly to the readers.

If you’re a news or media publisher who’s on the fence about live blogging, here are 5 reasons why it’s worth your investment.

Helps to Achieve Brand Goals

If you aim to become an established news or media channel, you need to be the first source people turn to for the latest news updates. 

Running a live blog during popular events such as the ICC World Cup, Apple Event, and more helps you reach a broader audience. 

A live blog is extremely engaging and can help retain your regular readers by offering them the latest information in one spot. It also has the potential to hold back flyby visitors from organic search.

Consistent and well-executed live blogging can help you establish authority in your niche. When readers turn to your platform for real-time updates and expert commentary on events, your brand becomes synonymous with trustworthiness and reliability.

Over time, this trust can convert casual readers into loyal followers and subscribers, giving you a significant edge.

Drive Active Engagement

People often discuss live events with friends and colleagues to exchange opinions.  As a publisher, you can provide this platform for your audience who have common interests.

Adding a poll to get user opinions or a comment box to encourage healthy discussions will attract an active audience to your website.

As you keep updating the blogs with real-time insights, your readers can comment, ask questions and share the page with their friends circle.

Ultimately, you can foster a community of active audiences to help you take your visibility to the next level.

Monetary ROI

Live blogging requires frequent updates from journalists, reporters in the newsroom and editors to fact-check and verify the information as it comes in. It also needs a lot of media, such as images and video, to create attention-driving content. 

Even though it takes a lot of effort and resources to run a live blog, you can see visible results such as increased traffic, higher engagement, better time on site and brand visibility when you target the right interests of the audience. 

You can even convert this generated traffic into revenue by displaying ads or offering monthly subscriptions to readers. 

Better Use of Content

Live blogging allows your reporters to go beyond the surface and provide insights, opinions, and context that traditional articles may lack. This added layer of analysis enhances the overall quality of the information you deliver to the readers. 

Once the event concludes, the live blog can be repurposed into standalone articles, delving deep into the highlights, helping journalists and editors save time. 

If you create a detailed article about a highlight of an event, link it to your live blog section so readers won't need to go elsewhere to get the details.

Readers Feel Like They Are a Part of All the Live-action

Live blogging offers a unique opportunity to connect with your readers in real-time. 

As events unfold, you can provide minute-by-minute updates, allowing your audience to follow along as if they were right there on the scene. 

This real-time connection fosters a sense of involvement in the event, making readers feel like they are more than passive observers.

Ideal to Cover Current Events

Live blogging proves to be highly advantageous for publications when it comes to covering specific live events, such as sports matches, tech product launches, or fashion extravaganzas.

Sports enthusiasts and fans eagerly anticipate the moment-to-moment action of a live match, and a well-organized live blog ensures they stay in the loop with every goal, tackle, or critical play. 

Such real-time coverage establishes your publication as a go-to source for sports updates, building trust and a loyal readership.

Social Media Growth

Updates from the live blog can be converted into bite-sized posts for your social media channel, driving traffic and engagement across various social platforms. This strategic content repurposing approach can enhance your social media presence and keep your audience hooked. 

By leveraging the real-time updates and raw insights captured in your live blog, your social media team can craft compelling and up-to-the-minute posts that align with the content format of different social media platforms. 

Visual assets like images and videos from your on-field reporters can be incorporated to make your posts more visually appealing and shareable. 

Further, linking the live blog as a reference to your social media posts can reel your existing audience to the blog page. 

This approach attracts new followers who are interested in the ongoing event but also retains existing ones who rely on your channel for comprehensive coverage.

How to Get Started with Live Blogging?

If you plan to start a live blog, the first step is to ensure your Content Management System (CMS) has a live blog function and is equipped with the required templates to broadcast different events on your website. 

Popular CMS such as  Drupal and Joomla have a module that you can add to enable live blogging functions. 

However, if your existing CMS does not have a default live blog module, you can use live blogging software to access the features. 

Fret not! You don’t need any technical or advanced coding knowledge to use the tools below. 

Popular Live Blogging Platform that Connects with Your CMS

24Liveblog

24Liveblog is an intuitive live blogging platform that seamlessly integrates with your CMS. You can embed the Javascript code to your website to publish your live blog. Alternatively, if you’re a WordPress user, you can download the 24Liveblog WordPress plugin directly. The tool specializes in helping publishers cover sports events with 10+ sports templates like Cricket, Football, Boxing, Tennis, etc.,

News and media channels can find a variety of mobile-friendly themes and templates to publish events, breaking news, and other live updates in real time. The plugin offers a user-friendly interface where you can create, research, publish, and preview content –all under one tab.

Key Features 

• 20+ language choices to appeal to a worldwide audience. 
• Supports text updates, images, videos, social media embeds, and other forms of media.
• 20+ intuitive and simple live blog templates to support clutter-free blogging. 
• AdSense and DFP enable monetization opportunities.
• Interactive features like live video, live voice streaming, polls, slideshow, and Q&A give publishers more control over their content format. 
• Inbuilt search center that allows you to find relevant insights from different media like Youtube, Reddit, X (Twitter), etc., under the same tab. 
• Offers multiple interactive options like a chat section, audio comments, pop-ups, reaction options, native donation integration, chat greetings etc.,
• The free version is available with limited restrictions, and you can easily integrate it with your CMS. 

Pricing

• Starter - $0
• Premium - $39
• Business - $49

Arena.im

Arena.im is a popular live blogging tool supporting over 40 live blogging categories with 50+ language options. With its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with your CMS Arena.IM simplifies the process of delivering real-time updates to a broad audience. 

Integrating Arena.im with your CMS is simple. You need to copy and paste the Javascript, Iframe, or AMP code, whichever works best for your website to go live. WordPress users can directly install the plugin and save the hassle.

The unique feature of this platform is the chat option. Publishers have more control over live chat. The Chat pre-modification feature lets publishers choose which comments are displayed to the public, allowing them to manage spam comments that pop up during events.

Key features

• Arena.im offers more chat positions compared to 24liveblog.
• You can create a live blog for different timelines, i.e., the events that occur in the past, present, and future.
• Workspace access to members allows you to delegate tasks within the team and be more efficient. 
• Allows you to add social channels to the streaming tab and cross-promote content in just a click. 
• Track content engagement, views, average session time and traffic source within Arena in real-time. 
• Integration with Adsense to monetize traffic. 
• Connect your social feed to the live blog portal to centralize content production. 
• Three different feed formats and theme options for users to choose the one that aligns with the nature of the event. 

Pricing

• Free - $0
• Starter - $49 per month 
• Professional - $349 per month 
• Business - $999 per month 
• Enterprise - Custom plan 

Easy Liveblogs

EasyLiveblog is a powerful WordPress plugin developed by Jeffrey Van Rossum and designed to simplify live blogging on WordPress. It allows publishers to instantly publish content directly from WordPress, including text, images, videos, and social media feeds. 

The plugin also supports automatic updates, ensuring that readers see the latest information without manually refreshing the page. You can install the plugin directly in WordPress in just a click (if you have a paid WordPress plan)

Key Features

• Highly user-friendly with WordPress, offering all the essential features publishers require to run a live blog. 
• Editors can save multiple drafts and stay prepared to publish content quickly.
• Easily embed social media posts from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc., in a click. 
• Ideal for growing news publishing sites and editors with little to no technical knowledge. 
• Viewing and editing all published posts under one tab is easy.

Pricing 

• Free WordPress Plugin

Live Blog by Sourcefabric

Live Blog by Sourcefabric is an open-source blogging software ideal for news channels and independent journalists. This tool provides ready-to-use code, making it compatible with different CMSs. Similar to EasyLiveBlogs, this is a basic live blogging software providing essential features to create and run a live blog about any popular events. 

Key Features

• Offers a mobile reporter app that allows you to create and update live blogs from your preferred device. 
• Delivers content to mobile and desktop users in a readable format so editors don’t have to manually optimize it for different devices. 
• Drag and drop features enable publishers to quickly design the blog page according to the nature of the event. 
• SEO-friendly themes are highly beneficial as they help publishers optimize the UX and content to gain SERP visibility. 
• The team collaboration feature allows you to collaborate with team members and be the first one to deliver content to the readers. 

Pricing 

• Free WordPress Plugin 

Live Center 

Live Center blogging platform is a real-time content publishing tool that allows individuals and organizations to share updates, commentary, and multimedia content with the audience as events unfold. 

The platform offers three solutions to integrate live blogs with your CMS: WordPress Plugin, Javascript, and Iframe code. Their resource section has detailed step-by-step instructions to help non-technical users navigate the process. 

This tool enables users to provide live coverage of various events, such as conferences, sports games, product launches, breaking news, etc.

Key Features 

• Specializes in generic categories like finance, sports news and media, public broadcast, etc. 
• Multiple themes, preview features, and an intuitive workspace make it an ideal tool for beginners.
• Enables independent bloggers and publishers to create subscriber-only content and help monetize existing blogs.
• Offers comment, chat, and poll features to keep the audience engaged.
• Allows you to embed social media posts like tweets, Instagram, and Facebook posts to let you leverage bite-sized content.

Pricing

• Basic -€ 99
• Premium -€ 559
• Enterprise - Custom Plan
• Custom - Custom Plan 

What Should Be Your Next Steps as News /Media Publisher? 

Live blogging acts as a central repository for all relevant information, making it easier for readers to follow the story from start to finish. 

It eliminates the need for readers to sift through multiple articles or sources, streamlining their experience and breaking down complex events in an understandable format.

By leveraging this lucrative content format, news and media channels can stay relevant in today's fast-paced digital landscape and effectively meet the evolving needs of your readers.