ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Reaching over 90 million people in under a month, Rudaw’s engagement on various social media platforms was higher than many leading news organizations in the world including Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and CNN.
As the first Kurdish-owned outlet to reach these highs, it’s worthy of saying that media agencies such as CNN have eleven times more followers than Rudaw does.
With its nearly 3 million followers, Rudaw recorded more than 94,000 shares and 480,000 comments in on 616 Facebook posts in the course of 28 days. This success story isn’t Rudaw’s alone. It belongs to the entire region.
Al Arabiya is another example worth citing. It has 21 million fans on Facebook, yet their user engagement rate for the past 30 days is measured at 1.4 million, compared to almost five times that figure on Rudaw at 5.4 million. These achievements are representative of Rudaw Kurdish only as our network runs social media platforms and webpages in several regional languages, including English.
Hemin Lihony, head of Rudaw’s Digital Portal on all platforms, is ambitious for the coming year: “We’re approaching 2018, and have many targets to meet in the coming year.”
“We’re not just seeking to be a regional media outlet anymore,” he said with confidence. “We want to become an international voice for the Kurdish people, and a respectable outlet in our own right.”
The growth of Rudaw has been steady and organic as it is increasingly keeping up with the advance in social networking tools and platforms. We’re learning from our readers, picking up their cues about our coverage, and meeting their expectations while maintaining our ethics and standards of journalism.
Similarly, Rudaw’s Twitter page recorded over 20 million impressions in 28 days, a huge increase to its average monthly readers. We’re hoping to leave behind a footprint that highlights Kurdish contribution to journalism in the political, entertainment, business and culture sectors.
We’re focused on issues that affect the Kurdish people, while keeping an eye and a keen interest in global affairs such as the story of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar or the refugee influx in Europe by dispatching our crews to those spots.
Rudaw's digital media team.
In conversation with our social media teams Facebook has welcomed our achievement as “fantastic to see.”
“Over the years we’ve rebranded, shifted, and diversified our approach to social media,” Lihony highlighted the need to keep abreast of audience demand.
Lihony is mindful of the importance of quality alongside the great leaps his network has made in terms of numbers.
“It’s important for our board to receive high social metrics, but it’s equally important to achieve the respect and appreciation of our readers,” he said. “We’re not just focused on having high engagement for the sake of it, but we want to have something to show for it.”
Lihony elaborated that with success comes great responsibility.
“Rudaw’s readers, especially those that have been with us since the very beginning, are very important to us,” he maintained. “As readership numbers go up, our responsibility becomes greater — we can’t lose focus, and must remain committed to integrity.”
He hopes that he and his teams can “build on our success” in the coming year.
