The Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) today presented its experience in attracting a young audience at an international conference in Berlin. The forum was organized by the media innovation network MINDS International, which BTA joined two and a half years ago, joining Reuters, France Press, Associated Press and other leading news agencies.
The head of the “Social Networks” team at BTA Iva Toncheva and the editor-in-charge in the “Information for Abroad” directorate Joanna Vodenova told about the path to young people. They introduced the more than 100 delegates and guests of the conference at the Westin Grand Berlin Hotel to the history, content and basic principles of work at the Agency, whose updated website is freely accessible from February 2022. The BTA correspondent network was also presented, extending to all regional cities in Bulgaria, in five non-regional cities, six outside the country, in Antarctica, on the first Bulgarian military research ship “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” and during book fairs in the country.
The presence of BTA in seven social networks – Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, X, LinkedIn ” (LinkedIn) and “TikTok” (TikTok), as a way to reach more young people, as well as orienting the Agency towards recruiting young personnel.
Emphasis was placed on differentiated approaches to presenting news on TikTok, including on serious topics such as elections. BTA has maintained a profile on the social network, popular mostly among teenagers, since December 2022 and already has nearly 16,000 followers relying on its reliable content and on this platform. According to Toncheva, the Agency is among the first Bulgarian media in “TikTok” as well as in “Treads”.
Attention was also paid to the pilot project of BTA to cover the elections for the European Parliament in June this year through special envoys in all the capitals of the member countries.
The audience was also introduced to the renewed publication of the LIK magazine, including English-language issues such as “Antarctic Science”, which participants and guests of the conference received.
The process of digitizing the BTA archives, which is still ongoing and covers around 6 million pages of bulletins and 2.5 million photos, was also presented.
As part of the forum’s program, looking at the future of news agencies, their cyber security and the youth audience, Iva Toncheva also took part in a discussion panel dedicated to ways to reach the young generation through news. She proposed the creation of joint products of agencies from MINDS aimed at a youth audience, as well as joint projects on media literacy and education. The ideas generated interest first among representatives of Reuters, Associated Press and UseTheNews, a division of DPA.
Among the delegates to the 37th MINDS conference in Berlin, which took place on October 10-11, were the general director of BTA Kiril Valchev, the deputy general director Evgenia Drumeva and the director of the “Economy” directorate Tsvetomira Marinova.
MINDS organizes such forums for its already 25 members twice a year. They are attended by heads of information agencies and representatives of the various activities they develop – editorial, strategy, technology, products and sales. The conferences are aimed at exchanging ideas and experiences, as well as an opportunity to explore cooperation in many ways.
MINDS International was established in 2004 as an association of leading information agencies from around the world to cooperate in the field of digital information services.
At the end of April 2022, BTA became the 23rd member of the organization, and currently has partnership agreements with 16 of the member agencies and is conducting partnership negotiations with the remaining 8.
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