The awards, presented Tuesday evening at a ceremony during the World Publishing Expo in Frankfurt, Germany, honours publishers that have mastered audience engagement and gained large followings on Twitter, Facebook, or on other social media platforms.

“These winners demonstrate just how quickly newspapers have mastered the art of social media, and how quickly they are adapting to the rapid changes in technology, audience preferences, and multimedia news delivery,” said Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of WAN-IFRA. “XMA shows again in 2012 that the mission for news publishers is, and has always been, about engaging audience.

“We've learned, since the emergence of social media on a broad scale, that today's Internet driving force relies on technology to build audiences and gather communities around a wide range of topics. XMA winners understand the ongoing revolution in terms of audience management. Publishers must now fight for attraction and visibility in a widely open environment, while our industry used to rely mainly on a closed and controlled environment. We all understand that social media is not a substitute but a vital support to our core mission of delivering quality content to the right audience. There is a great deal to be learned and emulated here.”

“Top Trends in Social Media: Best of the XMA Cross Media Awards,” a new report, is available free to WAN-IFRA members and for sale to non-members. Full details can be found at at http://www.wan-ifra.org/socialmediatrends

The World Publishing Expo continues through Wednesday. Follow the events on the conference blog at http://blog.wan-ifra.org/blogs/world-publishing-expo-2012-blog or on Twitter with #wpe12

The XMA winners:

Best community engagement

1. Últimas Noticias - "El diario de la gente", Venezuela

2. Presse Druck - "retter.tv", Germany

3. WVW-Westdeutsche Verlags- und Werbegesellschaft - "Lokalkompass", Germany

Best use of Facebook by a newspaper

1. Guardian News & Media - "Guardian Facebook App", UK

2. 24sata - "24sata Facebook activity", Croatia

3. Le Parisien - "Le Parisien on Facebook", France

Monetization

1. Singapore Press Holdings - "omy Blog Club", Singapore

2. Regionalmedien Austria - "Agrarmarketing Tirol – Fotogewinnspiel", Austria

3. Singapore Press Holdings - "Flying High", Singapore

Special projects

1. Verdens Gang - "The 22nd of July terror attack", Norway

2. The Times Newspapers - "The Times for the Cities Fit for Cycling campaign", UK

3. Aftonbladet - "CreateTV for Rockbjörnen", Sweden

The XMA Cross Media Awards, now in its seventh year, showcases the most creative examples in cross-media publishing.  Full details of the awards, including past winners, can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org/microsites/xma-cross-media-awards

WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is the global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries. Its core mission is to defend and promote press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity and the development of prosperous businesses.

Learn more about WAN-IFRA at http://www.wan-ifra.org or through the WAN-IFRA Magazine at http://www.wan-ifra.org/magazine

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Deputy CEO and Director of Communications and Public Affairs, WAN-IFRA, 96 bis, rue Beaubourg, 75003 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 07. Fax: +33 1 42 78 92 33. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: larry.kilman@wan-ifra.org