With mobile and video today's winning tools for publishers, Hong Kong's Apple Daily has been ideally positioned to gain audience and engagement during the city's 'umbrella revolution'.

The 20-year-old Next Media newspaper has exploited its popularity with a young and highly-educated audience by emphasising its traditional pro-democracy stance.

And group chief executive Cassian Cheung says it has paid off handsomely, with a "huge jump" in mobile traffic and social media engagement, with more than 18 million more Facebook fans and shares.

With 87 per cent smartphone penetration and more than 70 per cent of residents using their phones to read news, Apple had already responded with 'mobile first' policies, mobile-friendly user interfaces and Next's inimitable video animation style.

As protests continued, it used real time live streaming to broadcast live events, interviews and ad hoc press conferences, so video-journalists to record the event when a giant banner was unfurled on a local landmark... even though police soon removed it. Readers contributed 9000 pictures and 5000 "selfie" videos were compiled on YouTube, with FaceBook posts scoring an average 10,000 likes and leading to more than three million page views.

Speaking at WAN-Ifra's Digital Media Asia event in Singapore, he said Apple Daily had used photo maps, 360° vision and drone-based cameras among a range of devices and techniques, but never lost sight of the need to maintain "the right tone and manner" in its coverage.

Advertising revenue had followed, with digital publishing now profitable as a standalone: "We'd always known that on day digital would overtake print," he says.

In fact, Cheung urged delegates not to see themselves as newspapers, but as platforms showing content "as good or better than other media can deliver". After all, many readers are 15-20-year-olds "who have probably never bought a newspaper in their lives".

The changing workplace was emphasised by deputy Head of Singapore Press Holdings Digital Su-Lin Tan, who urged that journalists consider that their work "starts on publication, not ends there... they need to learn a new mindset".

And from Norway, digital editor Hildegunn Soldal shared the insights of Dagbladet's 20 years online, speed and agility online in a mobile-motivated market. She too, urged delegates to consider how they might plan a story if they didn't have to think of print, with "an integrated newsroom now not necessarily the best approach".

Essential were clear goals and a core business model.

Also on the theme were contributions from Berlin-based American Robb Montgomery - on video production - and Israeli consultant Grig Davidovitz on the importance of homepage design and identity. And the Philippines Daily Inquirer's growing use of chat apps as a developing revenue stream.

Left: Robb Montgomery with some of his video journlists' "toys"

On our homepage: Next Media group chief executive Cassian Cheung