Here to stay
The world is moving and changing fast, so is the media landscape. With the onset of technology and birth of new media where print has been challenged, players should, with no reservations, strive to be relevant or be left in the corner, forgotten and futile.
Yesterday, September 7, as Sun.Star Davao celebrated its 22 years, we are committed to be more than just a community newspaper stagnant in news prints but to be a content provider present in multimedia platforms, especially on social media.
Gone are the days that we stay as just a paper being read on a breakfast or office tables, today, Sun. Star Davao’s presence is inevitable, may it be on every person’s mobile device, personal computer and in whatever digital platform.
While we uphold the reality that “print is not dead”, we also recognize another reality that “readers have gone digital” and we are bound to the direction of digital transformation, a necessary disruption.
As defined, digital transformation “involves a radical rethinking of how an organization uses technology in pursuit of new revenue streams or new business models.”
According to the Global Digital Media Trendbook 2015, digital media topped as the number one ad spend category worldwide, following surges in mobile, video, and social media usage patterns.
While it is but true that advertisers, the life blood of newspapers, like print, it is but also an emerging trend that they are also moving fast to digital platforms, where especially millennials, those readers 14-35 years old — tend to gravitate.
For example, of the Filipino population using social media, 95 percent are on Facebook, equivalent to 54 million monthly active users—49 million of whom engage on mobile, a proof that Filipinos spend more time on Facebook than on television, print and radio.
Recognizing these, Sun.Star Davao is riding the vehicle to digital transformation, a necessary move to stay relevant.
As of writing, Sun.Star Davao Facebook has a total of 102,742 followers and 100,403 likes, making it the most-followed and liked Mindanao-based daily community newspaper online.
But, before Facebook and all these social media networks, Sun.Star Davao already has an impressive track of innovation that can be traced in 1990s. Even before most of the major national dailies explored the internet, Sun.Star Davao went online first on February 1, 1997. That was long before the SunStar Network Exchange was organized to take care of the network’s online presence.
With all these new realities in the online realm, Sun.Star Davao strives to be relevant in the present and proactive for the future. Yes, while we are bent to do “digital first”, still our mission as a community newspaper remains: to be in every person’s consciousness and success, that will never change. Because paper or digital, Sun.Star Davao is here to stay and thrive.