In less than a year, K-pop Herald (www.kpopherald.com) has established itself as the go-to website for people who want to keep up with up-to-date news and information on Korea’s pop culture trends and entertainment scene in English.
Operated by the nation’s No. 1 English news outlet, The Korea Herald, the K-pop Herald launched on Sept. 24 with two things in mind: creating the most credible K-pop news in Korea and delivering rich Korean cultural contents across the globe.
“There were many media outlets covering K-pop in Korean, but English sources were lacking,” said Shin Yong-bae, the former digital contents desk editor who helmed the site launch. “We saw a need to launch a premium, reliable K-pop news outlet that caters to the growing interest of hallyu, while incorporating our informative resources.”
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K-pop Herald website |
The result is the K-pop Herald website, a major, fast-growing English K-pop site in Korea, offering latest celebrity news and photos.
The website has over 263,000 followers on Facebook and attracts around 15,000 weekly unique engagements — the number of people who liked, commented, shared or clicked the posts.
More than 90 percent of the K-pop Herald’s visitors are non-Koreans, with users from Myanmar and Philippines ranking top on the list, accounting for 42 percent and 16 percent of the total visitors, respectively. Pakistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Nepal and Mongolia, follow in terms of the number of visitors.
Fifty-five percent of the audiences are female, and the most are aged 18-24, reflecting the demographic of general hallyu fans.
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K-pop Herald Facebook |
Stories regarding young male stars are among the favorites, garnering the most likes and comments. Other popular topics on the website are love scandals and male celebrity’s military enlistments.
The website is largely divided into four sections — Music, TV and Film, Fashion and Beauty, and Feature — making readers easily navigate through stories.
In the TV and Film, and Music categories, visitors can access the most up-to-date stories on idol groups, singers, actors and actresses.
The Fashion and Beauty category offers the latest high-street fashion trends and celebrity styles, where the visitors can check out what stars are wearing on-screen and on-street. Also, beauty tips of the starlets are very popular, reflecting Korea’s ever-surging cosmetic and fashion industry.
The Feature section takes a closer look at diverse Korean culture, from popular exhibitions to rising hot spots in Korea, travel tips and food guide.
Recently, K-pop Herald entered into an exclusive deal with Korea’s largest portal, Naver, which launched a real-time broadcasting mobile app V.
On V, many K-pop household names, including Big Bang, BTS, Wonder Girls and Super Junior, reveal their day-to-day lives and interact in real time with the global audiences and fans.
K-pop Herald publishes daily V reports to provide aggregated show reviews and pinpoints highlights of the program.
Discover the latest hallyu news at www.kpopherald.com.
By Ahn Sung-mi, Lim Jeong-yeo and Kim Yu-jin
(sahn@heraldcorp.com) (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)(kimyujin@heraldcorp.com)
