Evolving with Purpose: Our Journey to Digital Growth with the GNI Digital Native Catalyst Program
Guwahati: At Northeast Now, we have always taken pride in being a voice for the eight Northeastern states of India ; telling stories that reflect the heart, diversity, and aspirations of our region. Over the years, we have built a loyal readership that values credible, local-first journalism.
Yet, as the digital landscape evolved, we realized that high-quality journalism alone wasn’t enough - it needed to be discoverable.
Our participation in the GNI Digital Native Catalyst Program came at a time when we were eager to understand how to scale sustainably in the digital space. The journey began with a Digital Maturity Assessment, which gave us an objective view of where we stood as a digital-first newsroom. The assessment helped us identify not just what was working, but also the gaps - from our content workflows to technical performance and how our stories reached audiences organically.
This clarity was followed by a series of one-on-one consultation sessions with experts from Mediology Software, where we deep-dived into the relationship between editorial strategy, technology, and audience growth. These sessions were not just about fixing problems — they were about building long-term capability. We learned how to look at search, discovery, and performance as integral parts of storytelling, not separate technical exercises.
Through these discussions, we understood that every story we publish has two journeys - one in the newsroom, and one in how it reaches the reader. Optimizing that second journey meant improving how our stories were structured, tagged, and surfaced online. We worked with the team to enhance both editorial and technical elements: strengthening metadata, improving page performance, and aligning with search and discover best practices.
The impact was immediate and eye-opening. Our stories began surfacing more frequently to readers across India and beyond — many discovering Northeast Now for the first time. It reaffirmed what we had always believed: that there is a deep interest in local, community-driven journalism when it’s made more visible and accessible.
But beyond the numbers, what truly stood out from this experience was the strategic mindset shift. The program helped us think more long-term about our digital growth — to see search optimization, structured data, and technical health as ongoing disciplines that can strengthen our sustainability as a digital-native publisher. It equipped our team with frameworks and tools to continue improving long after the program ends.
Looking back, the GNI Digital Native Catalyst Program has been a transformative chapter in our journey. It not only helped us achieve stronger visibility and organic growth but also deepened our understanding of what it means to be digitally mature — to balance quality journalism with the technology that carries it forward.
Today, we’re not just reaching more readers; we’re reaching them smarter, faster, and more meaningfully. And that’s a change that will continue to shape our newsroom for years to come.