


We do our best to ensure that our media management trainings provide answers to the fundamental questions media professionals have to ask; we offer tools that allow media professionals to build strategies, find new audiences, resources, partners to offer a better and more up-to-date news product. Five days of training in Lviv – this time with sociologists involved, together with Ukrainian and international media experts.
It is not just about audience research, it is about what the community thinks about social cohesion, about what unites or divides people. The training is part of the ‘Enhancing Media Resilience in Ukraine’ project, which IRMI has been implementing together with Fondation Hirondelle with the financial support of Swiss Solidarity.
Determining the community’s priorities and needs, being in the loop, being in demand, being competitive are essential for the media. How to measure your audience needs, sentiments, be part of research, use sociological tools, and then make a good use of research findings is the subject matter of these training days. The trainees are editors and managers of the regional media that are part of the project – like no other understand how the success of a media outlet depends on an accurate understanding of the audience needs, especially in the matter that is most relevant to our society. Therefore, today we present the general findings of the first, qualitative stage of the research, we conducted in the hromadas where our grantees work. With the expert researcher, Ph.D. Alina Kalashnikova, we discuss the possibilities of using research, external and internal audiences, qualitative and quantitative methods, target audience, sampling, and more. And most importantly – how to research the hromadas scattered across Ukraine and abroad. We are generating questions for the next, quantitative stage of the research.
From the analysis of needs to the development of media strategies – this is how we will move throughout the training. So: can each editorial office afford a thorough training on legal principles of personnel management? The question is probably a rhetorical one. With this in mind, we invited Taras Boykovych, a lawyer and an IRMI expert, to conduct a public consultation for our partner media. Journalists were interested in personnel management, workflow organization, economic activities of the media and many other matters.
Taras Boykovych:
– Journalists, especially news organisations leadership, must be very well versed about legal regulations. Being knowledgeable about rights, managing the media competently, not to harm oneself and others, being able to professionally explain legal matters to readers is extremely important for the media. I believe Ukrainian media law is quite good, well adapted to international frameworks; the thing is just for it to be executed, to make it work, simply put.
Discussion of communication tools, editorial strategies that focus on greater audience engagement, productive public relations was facilitated by Angelina Soldatenko. The day ended on a team building note: emotionally, everyone supported Ukraine’s national team at Euro-2024 Ukraine vs Belgium match.
The quintessence of the next training day, SEO-related – from trainer and SEO expert Olga Odarchenko:
-SEO does not exist in isolation from content. It is a means of its delivery, which helps to create the content that the user needs. With regard to the demand in search engines, of course. But in fact, it’s all about content, not about search engines, but about the audience. The most common mistake of media professionals is that they want to do either everything or nothing pertaining SEO, although first you need to understand what the audience needs are and what exactly competitors are doing. There are also technical errors, there are no analysts, when the media do not track the consequences of what they do (or do not do). What would be the advice for beginners? Create your website. Focus on your audience, track feedback, reviews, views, analyze what is in demand to inform your agenda. Is it possible for local newsrooms to master SEO tools on their own and at a low cost? -Definitely yes. You don’t need to be a SEO guru to optimize your site and mind you readers interests. There are many examples known to us when the media have retained their audiences thanks to a competent SEO person. SEO also helps you make money.