Media is a highly competitive business, where time is money and customer loyalty and engagement are the coin of the realm. As more and more media properties emerge every day, consumers have increasing digital choices when it comes to news, sports, entertainment, and other content. 

If those experiences aren’t fast, amazing, engaging, and tuned to the topics or trends that speak to your audience, the competition is just one click away. And that means lost eyeballs and lost advertising dollars. 

From agile content publishing to understanding how to optimize that content, the WordPress VIP content management platform delivers rock-solid performance, rapid content delivery, and data-driven insights into how content is performing. So you can be confident that when your audience wants the scoop on the latest K-pop release or world conflict, they get it, and fast. 

Here are five reasons why media companies fly the flag for WordPress VIP—and why they tend to have happier, more productive staff.

1. They can react fast to breaking news and exploding trends with data-driven insight. 

Media companies need to get breaking news out before anyone else, capitalize on the latest pop culture phenomenon, or go big promoting the latest season of a hit streaming series. But it’s not just speed they crave. They need to make the right call when promoting or demoting what’s trending and engaging across channels, devices, and mobile apps. Their content creators behind the wheel require feedback but they can’t expect to rely on data science teams to help them make day-to-day decisions.

The WordPress VIP angle: Onboard Parse.ly analytics gives data-driven signals to editorial, content, and marketing teams alike in real-time, so it’s easy to see what’s trending not just in terms of clicks but also in terms of engagement. In short, helping content creators deliver what audiences actually value keeps a media organization one step ahead of competitors 

Explore more:

• Bloomberg: Global Growth by Paying Attention to Local audiences
• How Parse.ly Helped Gannett Standardize Content Analytics for 600+ Publications

“The ability to break things down by region—especially when cross-referenced against Parse.ly’s range of metric-users, engaged time, social referrals and interactions—is priceless.”

—Adam Blenford, Managing Editor of Digital in Europe, Bloomberg

2. Their content creators can create content easily and quickly.

Media orgs can’t afford to have their content teams roadblocked by a hard-to-use content platform beyond the grasp of non-technologists. That’s why any publishing solution needs to empower everyone with a stake in the game to create content quickly, on deadline, and collaboratively—without worrying how to get their work published or how it will look in the wild on various channels or devices.

The WordPress VIP angle: Our easy-to-use, enterprise-grade platform leverages the most popular, friendliest CMS—WordPress, known and beloved by journalists, writers, and marketers the world over, democratizing publishing across an organization. For example, the Gutenberg block editor frees content creators from having to learn arcane commands to make edits or publish their work on time—all without developer help. They just get on with it.

Explore more:

• Behind the Scenes of News UK’s Rampant Speed to Value
• How City A.M. Found Its Digital Voice, Tripled Its Readership, and Built a Future-Proof Tech Stack

“All our digital editors are comfortable with WordPress. It’s easy to use and lets them get new content up quickly.”

—Miriam Keck, Digital Director, City A.M.

3. Their sites can scale to meet traffic tidal waves—expected and unexpected.

Media is never constant, nor is traffic. During natural catastrophes, the Super Bowl or World Cup, election season, or simply after that social post goes viral, media sites need to brace for massive traffic spikes. And have the confidence that—on their biggest hour or day—their CMS and site can scale to handle the incoming surge without setting off alarm bells in engineering.

“WordPress VIP […] put up the absolute fastest scores that I’ve seen by a wide margin. They blew my test rig out of the water.”

—Kevin Ohashi, Founder, Review Signal

The WordPress VIP angle: Our rigorously battle-tested infrastructure dynamically scales to handle the load of the biggest traffic spikes. For more than a decade, we’ve been optimizing some of the biggest media sites in the world. Best of all, Parse.ly analytics monitors what’s blowing up as it happens in near real-time—so you not only understand what’s happening but can react quickly to maximize the engagement. 

Explore more:

• How FiveThirtyEight Shattered Traffic Records with Zero Downtime During the U.S. Election
• Avoiding CMS Disaster: How to Improve Website Performance 

“You always worry about issues or a loss of traffic when rolling out a site refresh. We experienced none of that. In fact, within days we saw our site traffic increase.”

—Miriam Keck, Digital Director, City A.M.

4. Their developers and content teams can collaborate on creating engaging experiences for customers.

Media is more than just breaking news, funny TikTok videos, and new seasons of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” It’s how consumers consume that media. To lay the groundwork for memorable, responsive, and fast digital experiences on web, mobile, and other content delivery channels, content developers and creators need the freedom to work hand-in-hand, without getting in each other’s way or blocking things. That means the freedom and flexibility to customize how content is created as well as how the architecture delivers that content. 

“We would not be as successful as we are if we didn’t have this open source ethos and mentality—and everyone in the team open to that as well.”

— Nici Catton, VP of Product Delivery, PMC (parent company of Rolling Stone) 

The WordPress VIP angle: From custom blocks and themes for different types of content to mix-and-match architecture options (e.g., headless deployments) on the backend, the WordPress VIP platform allows limitless flexibility in building great customer experiences. Because our platform is based on open standards and open source, developer teams enjoy plug-and-play functionality based on what works for the editorial side of the house. 

Explore more:

• Digital Publishing Rocks: Behind the Scenes of Product Innovation at Rolling Stone.
• How Al Jazeera Built Their Digital Experience Using Headless WordPress

“Making the decision to move forward with decoupled WordPress, and with WordPress VIP, was really a very smart decision.”

—David “Hos” Hostetter, Digital CTO, Al Jazeera Media Network

5. Their security and infrastructure can rise to meet the bad actors threat.

Media isn’t always the most popular voice in the room. From run-of-the-mill hackers to state actors, many media companies have a target on their backs. That’s why backend security can never be an afterthought, even for content teams who “just want to hit publish” and out to lunch. All it takes is one rogue DoS attack to effectively bring down a site, a real engagement buzzkill.

The WordPress VIP angle: Our platform offers the highest level of WordPress security. Built with multiple levels of security controls and protection—including edge protection, secure networking, robust access controls, continuous security monitoring, and code scanning—WordPress VIP meets the most exacting security requirements. That’s why it is trusted by customers not only in media circles but also in high-risk industries such as banking, pharmaceuticals, public utilities, and government. It is the only WordPress platform to achieve FedRAMP Authority to Operate (ATO).

Explore more:

• Demystifying WordPress Security
• A Guide to Choosing the Most Secure WordPress Hosting

“Using WordPress VIP means that my team can focus on being creative and innovative, rather than spending time worrying about architecture.”

—Ryan Pugatch, VP of Strategic Technology, Hachette Book Group

The media is the message

Sites cracking under the traffic payload. Staffers stymied by tech from getting out breaking news fast. Management at a loss as to what really engages those consumers of media. It’s all headline news of the worst kind for media organizations scrambling to stay current and ahead of the competition. 

Better to wake up every morning to better news and better customer experiences with WordPress VIP and Parse.ly analytics.