ANISHA YASARATNE
ANIWA.LK
EMPLOYEES: 23
07
BREAKING THE MALE DIGITAL CONTENT HEGEMONY
With punchy listicles sprawled with animated GIFs, Aniwa.lk has a close resemblance to new media sensation Buzzfeed. Focusing purely on original Sinhala language content, Aniwa.lk is a frontrunner in forming the native-speaking digital-cultural zeitgeist of the county. The Sinhala language digital content space is a swarming oasis for gossip sites, celebrity news and political scandals. These sites may garner higher page views, but miss engaging a significant demography: women.
The local digital readership is largely male dominated. Female digital content consumers are around 20-30%, estimates Anisha Yasaratne, co-founder of Aniwa.lk. But, for Aniwa.lk, the readership is equally balanced at 50%. “Advertisers find it difficult to reach female audiences through the digital medium,” he explains. For Aniwa, this has become an edge.
Globally, it’s the opposite. A worldwide study by Nielsen Research found that women have a significantly higher digital footprint compared to men. In Sri Lanka, this paradoxical behavior is because most Sinhala content in the digital medium cater towards masculine whims and interests.
Aniwa.lk’s content strategy bridges the gender gap. According to Aniwa.lk’s data, articles emphasizing on relationships, stronger family bonds and how-to tutorials are popular among the female demographic compared to content on movies or sports. “In all articles that we publish, a part of the brief to our writers is to ensure that it is friendly and comfortable for the female audience as well,” he says.
08
TEXT TRUMPS VIDEO, ONLINE
Visual information may process 60,000 times faster than text, but does that also mean that people engage more with video than digital text articles?
In November 2016, Aniwa. lk started producing its own video content, adding another stream to generate advertisement revenue. But, the findings were perplexing. According to Anisha Yasaratne, the average read time for every article is three minutes. In contrast, even for a short viral video of one and a half minutes, the average view time is between 15 and 30 seconds; and only 30% of viewers would watch it to the end.
Videos get a higher number of eyeballs compared to articles. This is because of how video views are counted on social media platforms like Facebook. Auto play, which starts a video automatically as the opener slides into view, exaggerates the number of views in comparison to a deliberate click on an article. “There’s give and take when it comes to video,” says Yasaratne. Video can increase the reach of the message, but the effectiveness of its engagement is relatively unproven. “Our main focus now is to try to increase the number of videos that are watched to the end.”