Feature
Truly
365
How can event websites stay
up to date? Media 10 has
partnered with InLoop for an
innovative AI solution
H
ow best to stay relevant to your
audience is something every event
organiser ponders. It’s increasingly
difficult to even stay wanted, let alone
relevant and informative, in such a
content-rich world.
Media 10, organiser of events
including 100% Optical and UK
Construction Week, has launched a new
approach to this age-old question in the
form of a partnership with tech company
InLoop, an AI-powered content curator
and publisher.
The organiser has recently launched
‘Construction Buzz’, a news platform
for UK Construction Week, following on
from the success of ‘Optical Insider’ for
the 100% Optical site.
“If you’re an organiser and you
want to be a source of news for your
community, then you could employ
someone who could write a story a
day or two a day,” says Rob Nathan,
marketing director at Media 10. “But a
show can’t support a team of editorial
writers, it wouldn’t make sense. This bit
of kit does away with that.
“Now we have on our website a
constant news platform. That news
platform is cleverly aggregated using
artificial intelligence, so it’s not just a
Google strafe. It’s based on preferences,
on popularity and a whole host of
factors.
“You have a new feed on your page,
and you can then have daily, weekly,
bi-weekly newsletters, and it also gives
us the ability, if we want, to write our
own stories which integrate with the
platform.”
24 — September
“The platform helps associations and
brands create professional publications,
enabling engagement with their
audience and ecosystem,” adds Oren
Ahronson, president and CEO of InLoop.
“Readers (visitors and the ecosystem)
get a periodic update on what’s trending
in their industry; exhibitors are afforded
the opportunity to remain visible to
their audience not only during the
show, but all year long; and the brand/
show becomes a professional publisher
(without the heavy costs) while
generating revenue.”
The process works with some initial
preparation from the organiser followed
by minimal oversight, with users able
to customise and personalise their
newsfeeds.
“The process starts with curating
the most relevant content from all over
the web, pulling it, ranking it, tagging
it, and storing it in our ‘Content Hub’,”
explains Ahronson. “This is all done
automatically and 24/7. We then produce
the publication (newsletter, newsfeed,
social post), aligned with our partner’s
branding and deliver it. This is also
done by our platform with nominal
human involvement, if at all. We analyse
industry trends and readers’ engagement
and allow for personalisation – this helps
people save time, and ensures they only
get the most relevant content of interest
to them.
“We use technology to do the
heavy lifting, freeing the content and
marketing people to deal with work
that machines cannot do. By using
technology, our platform replaces the
need for several tools (aggregators,
CMS, designing tools, mail service
providers, analytics tools and more) and
many hours of monotonous work, that a
machine can do better and faster.”
Working with Google, SEO and search
rankings have long been a source of
concern.
“Regarding the newsfeed, there is
always a trade-off between cost and
impact,” concludes Ahronson. “In an
optimal world, where budget is a non-
issue, writing original content often
enough is the best way to drive SEO.
However, most organisations need to
find an alternative. This is particularly
true for those who are targeting smaller
audiences (a few tens of thousands of
professionals) or for those who don’t
have a large content team available year-
round.
“Creating a high-quality and well-
targeted site that people see as the go-to
place to get their fresh professional news
is a great solution, which also supports
SEO.” EN