It has been a record-breaking year for the East Anglian Daily Times and as 2014 dawns we are vowing to work harder and faster to bring you the very latest news and sport from Suffolk and north Essex.
On December 5, the night of the tidal surge, our team of reporters worked tirelessly through the night to update our website, run a live feed and push updates through our social media channels to ensure readers were aware of the latest forecasts, evacuation plans and breaches as high tide hit the various coastal communities in East Anglia.
Reporters and photographers followed the surge along the coast, Tweeting live from the scene and filming video footage for our website.
We recorded 133,131 page views on the website, breaking the record set in October 2012 when Paul Jewell sensationally left Portman Road.
In the wake of the surge, our readers turned to us for photos for stories on the trail of disaster left behind, the heroic rescues and the fears for the subsequent high tides.
Nearly 50,000 readers logged on the day after the surge, and between them they viewed 222,314 pages - a new record.
This year we wanted to engage more with our loyal readers via social media and set ourselves the challenge of strengthening the communities we have on Facebook and Twitter.
In August we celebrated a milestone when we reached 10,000 followers of Twitter, and now we have passed the 11,500 mark.
Our team of reporters tweet throughout the day to bring you breaking news stories, to ask your opinions on topical debates, to tell you about our latest reader offers and let you know what is coming in tomorrow’s paper.
Readers use our Facebook page to share news of events taking place in Suffolk, to contact reporters and to offer their views on a subject, but it was in November that they really proved their worth.
Colchester school girl Ella Hysom, 15, went missing in Goodmayes on Monday, November 11, leaving friends and family concerned for her welfare.
We uploaded a photo of Ella to our Facebook page and more than 500 people shared the post, spreading the word to their own friends.
Ella was found safe and well in Ilford three days after her disappearance after being spotted by a member of the public.
The EADT has seen a similar response to other missing person appeals over the past year and we would like to thank everyone who has helped us to cast the net ever further.
Regular visitors to our websites will know that this year we have strived to increase both the quality and quantity of our videos, by investing in new equipment and training for our team of photographers we can now bring you an added dimension to the breaking news stories affecting Suffolk and north Essex.
The celebrate the fact, we launched a new web page which highlights the best of our videos and allows you to scroll through the films we have produced in recent days.
Click here to see the best of our videos.Thanks to the arrival of five new reporters - spread between our west Suffolk office in Bury St Edmunds, the east office in Framlingham and our main base in Ipswich, we have also been able to improve our news coverage, both in print and online.
Our sports team have offered a live post-match web chat after almost all Ipswich Town games, giving you the chance to put yourself in the manager’s shoes, to share your favourite moments and ask the reporters their views.
As we look forward to 2014, we have more live news feeds planned, more Q&A sessions and we will be bringing you more video footage.
Could 2014 be the year that the EADT launches it’s first ever documentary?
For the latest news, follow us on Twitter @EADT24 or join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/eadt24
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