Briefly News is one of the biggest news and entertainment platforms in South Africa. The website aims to keep its readers up-to-date on the latest in current affairs, celebrity news, gossip and trending stories about events and people.

"We want to show the real South Africa to the world," says Rianette Cluley, managing editor at Briefly News.

Facebook shared Briefly News' results that led to increased revenue. These included:
  • an increase of 78% in IA page views in comparison to 2019
  • twice the growth of monthly interaction rate on linked posts, and
  • 3.7 times the growth of monthly impressions on linked posts.
One Briefly News story, for example, generated nearly 250 000 page views alone, boosted by the use of Instant Articles. The accompanying revenue has also allowed the company to hire more staff.

"We use a data-driven approach and seek to improve our audience's lives in real-time," Cluley says. "Constant analysis is our everyday routine."

The Briefly News team says that it doubled down on high-quality reporting, adding value and getting exclusive content. The team also implemented regular training sessions to work in line with the platform's policies. The team additionally interacted with readers on their page to get feedback and improve the audience's experience.

Briefly News is a partner of Legit, a media holding operating in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.

Other Legit projects like Legit.ng, TUKO.co.ke and YEN.com.gh also entered the list of top-earning brands. By honing their Instant Articles strategy, Legit says that it was able to achieve higher growth and revenue, including a 47% year-on-year hike in Instant Article page views.

"Using Instant Articles has made a big difference," says Yelena Boginskaya, co-CEO at Legit. "It's changed the way people consume news, making it much more engaging and interesting. We never even questioned the need to follow in our readers' footsteps for better user experience and additional communication channels."

"High CPMs and additional monetisation opportunities were also among the factors we considered to stay financially stable and fulfil our mission: To set the bar for the quality content and maintain leadership positions locally while showing the real South Africa to the world," concludes Boginskaya.

For more information, visit www.briefly.co.za. You can also follow Briefly news on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.