JIP goes online, offering access to Afrikaans youth

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"Our teenage target audience wants to air its views, see what others are saying and access news and reviews at anytime and anywhere. Online enables these possibilities, so we now have a constant buzz of teenage voices," said Riëtte Grobler, editor of JIP.

She believes this activity indicates the needs of the unique Afrikaans teenage market to potential advertisers. "As far as we know, it is the only website for teenagers in the Afrikaans language not aimed at parents, schools or teachers. This places us in the unique position to really make a difference where it's needed."

Said Mike van Eck, Ads24's digital business manager (and the national sales team behind the publication), "Teenagers can be overlooked as a potential market but they are the largest consumers of media. What's more, 76% of JIP Die Burger's readers are in the LSM 7-10 group and 91% of JIP Beeld readers are in the LSM 7-10 category."

"Future custodians of their brands"

He added that for brands and advertisers, the new site presents a unique opportunity to connect with tech-savvy individuals who are "future custodians of their brands."

Meanwhile, teachers use the JIP website as a tool to find articles to use in their classrooms. "We find that the website serves an instructive role: the writers of school textbooks, especially in Afrikaans (for first and second language teaching purposes), use the website as a resource for content and refer to the site in their printed publications. Learners use the website individually too," noted Grobler.

To meet the millennial generations' demand to interact, the site provides many access channels, including a website (www.jip.co.za), Facebook (www.facebook.com/Jip), Twitter (@JIPcoza), MXit and regular sponsored events and competitions.

The website reportedly reaches 36,066 unique browsers and delivers 92,971 page views each month (Source: Google Analytics, January 2012). The mobisite, m.jip.co.za, is also slowly gaining momentum. It has 2062 Twitter followers and 7284 Facebook fans, as of November 2012.