MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP: social network sites, the audience and new media professionals

MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP: social network sites, the

audience and new media

professionals

Dr Janet Fulton

PhD (Media and Communication) (UoN)

Lecturer in Communication

Faculty of Science and IT

School of Design, Communication and IT

7 July 2016

A presentation to ANZCA Conference 2016 | www.newcastle.edu.au

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INTRODUCTION

“… [the blog] doesn’t work in isolation, you’ve got your social media

networks around it and the idea is that’s how you bring your readers

into the blog … this is the key when you’re trying to work out what

social media to be on; you need to know where your readers

potentially are hanging out” (Nikki Parkinson, blogger, i/v 11.5.14).

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INTRODUCTION

• Research project: Media entrepreneurship: alternative paths for

media producers

• Funded by: University of Newcastle New Staff Grant

• Interviewing media professionals who are engaged in “the

dissemination of news and views about our world” (Simons, 2013,

p. 13) using newer forms of media.

• Thirty interviews

• Participants: political and lifestyle bloggers (fashion and beauty,

entertainment, food, health, parenting and mummy bloggers),

sports broadcasters, web developers, and online magazine

producers who write advocacy and long-form journalism

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INTRODUCTION

Research questions

• RQ1: How have these new media professionals adapted their skills

in production environments?

• RQ2: What technologies and software, including SEOs and social

media analytics, are deployed by these new media professionals?

• RQ3: What are the evolving business models they are using?

• RQ4: What are the degrees of success of these new media

professionals according to different locations in the media scape?

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THIS PRESENTATION …

• One consistent theme – highly active on social network sites (SNS)

– Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+,

Reddit and Tumblr

• This high interaction is how the respondents connect with their

audience

• These respondents are very aware of their audience

• Choose the SNS that matches the audience demographic

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Entrepreneurship: social context

• Karataş-Özkan & Chell: “entrepreneurship is embedded in a social

context, channelled and facilitated or constrained and inhibited by an

individual’s position in a social network” (2010, p. 31).

• Connection between engaging with SNS and degrees of success

• Social media used for:

– Engaging with their audience

– Keeping in contact with others in the industry

– Promoting their sites/work

“You pimp everything. You just have to now” (Anthony Caruana, i/v 9.9.14).

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Interacting with the audience

• Lowrey & Latta: “Bloggers may desire more readers, but like journalists,

they do not meet or converse with most of their readers directly” (2008, p.

188)

• Not true now

– Bloggers and other new media producers have a high awareness of

their audience and a high interactivity with their audience

– Use commenting, email, RSS, various SNS

• Anderson, et al.: “… in today’s fragmented and fraying world, knowledge of

how audiences consume information, and whether what you write, record,

or shoot reaches the people whom you want to see it, becomes critical”

(2012, pp. 37-38).

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Example: Alison Mudie (e-GPS)

“…you really have to understand your audience, have to understand the

language they speak. You have to understand where they’re going and what

they’re accessing on their Smart phones or iPads or Desktop. What time of

day they might be doing it? How, you know how often people might check

their LinkedIn on the way to work but not at work. Whereas people tend to

check Facebook after lunch or, you know so there’s real patterns and

behaviours so you need to kind of understand those” (Alison Mudie, i/v

12.5.14).

“It’s being on social media at the right times” (Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.15).

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Listening to the audience

• Jenkins, Ford & Green: “the companies that will thrive over the long

term in a ‘spreadable media’ landscape are those that listen to, care

about and ultimately aim to speak to the needs and wants of their

audiences as crucially as they do their own business goals” (2013,

loc. 107).

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Case study: Nikki Parkinson

Fashion and beauty blogger (Styling You)

“it’s real, everyday people, and in my demographic if they’re on any social

media at all the number one one [sic] they’re on is Facebook” (Nikki

Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).

“Instagram for me has become, you can’t say it’s a referrer to the blog, but

it’s a more, I’ve got a following there that is more engaged than would be on

Twitter, and I think it’s the whole visual nature of what I write about, and it

kind of gives people a little bit of an insight to my life. I enjoy it, and I think

this is the key when you’re trying to work out what social media to be on;

you need to know where your readers potentially are hanging out”

(Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).

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Case study: Zac Zavos

Sporting website (The Roar)

• Website that has commentary and opinion pieces on sport.

• From the website: “Australian Sports Opinion, Analysis, Live Scores

& News, combining our team of expert writers with fan-written

articles on the latest issues in sport” (http://www.theroar.com.au)

• Demographic prefer onsite interaction (hundreds of thousands of

online comments)

• “The Roar is kind of interesting, we’re on obviously Twitter and

Facebook but our demo is slightly older males … it’s not mind

shattering at all but I just don’t think older men share in the same

way as women and younger demographics do so most of that

community – that social media actually happens on site with The

Roar” (Zavos, i/v, 22.5.14).

7 July 2016

http://www.theroar.com.au


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Case study: Kayte Murphy

Blogger (Woogsworld)

• Blogger: Mrs Woog “making the most out of the mundane”

(http://www.woogsworld.com)

• Uses Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

“I’ve got a really great Facebook community. And like, it feels like they know

me. It’s very strange because they’ll email me or they’ll send me something

that they’ll know that I’ll love, and or “I thought, I thought of you when I saw

this.” And, and that’s a really great Facebook page” (i/v 21.7.14).

7 July 2016

http://www.woogsworld.com


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Case study: Kayte Murphy

Blogger (Woogsworld)

• Facebook and blog entries are different

• “I think that they’re very different audiences … everything I do is done

deliberately. So something on Facebook, it’s, if it’s a blog post you know

people skim through that in ten seconds and you know you have to sort of

write quite a catchy headline” (i/v 21.7.14).

• “… the blog is like a big party, and then the Facebook page I liken to a, like

a smaller dinner party. And then the Twitter I liken to like a seedy all out

brawl, feralness. I love it. I love Twitter” (i/v 21.7.14).

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Case study: Grant Sproule

Online magazine (Throwing Buckets)

• Surf, Skate & lιғeѕтyle мagazιne! News events and just about everything boarding.

Australia's Sickest boarding Mag. (http://throwingbuckets.com.au)

• Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

• “It seems people love that instant access to photos or, being able to comment and

just the simplicity of being able to just click on a photo and like it straight away

makes it really easy to use. And, I love being able to do that. I get so many

comments from people saying ‘Oh, you know, I love following you on Instagram

because, you know, I’m just stuck in my office but you showing me the amazing, you

know, what an amazing sort of day it is or how good the beach is’, and people that

don't live in Newcastle anymore, they might have moved away, they’ll say ‘Oh,

home, I love it, I miss it’ and stuff like that so that’s really good” (i/v 11.11.14).

• a high visual content and works well with a platform that is based around images

and video-sharing

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http://throwingbuckets.com.au


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Example: Email and newsletters

• Email and newsletters used by all the participants

• Tim Duggan considers “email to be the original one on one social network

in a way” (i/v 23.3.15).

• Used in different ways: weekly recap (Nikki Parkinson, i/v 9.5.14); to

provide extra information (Nicole Avery, i/v 18.9.14); daily email with the

top stories of the day Tim (Duggan, i/v 23.3.15; Tim Burrowes, i/v 7.8.14);

customised to suit the subscriber (Zac Zavos, i/v 22.5.14).

• “… the newsletter's very good because it's just a way of getting into

peoples’ inboxes. There are probably some people out there that they

actually don't read it [articles] over the website. They just read the

newsletter. Whereas other people might visit the website but don't even

know that there's a newsletter. People approach things and have different

perceptions of it” (Giles Parkinson, i/v 23.4.15).

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CONCLUSION

• SNS are vital in the success of online media players

- Engage with the audience, others in the space, promote

- Understand how to choose SNS to match audience

- While it’s difficult to be successful online, there are media producers

who are harnessing these knowledges

- Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+,

YouTube, Tumblr and Reddit but also email lists, RSS feeds and

online commenting

- Important to understand the demographics of the main audience

and how they engage with the online space7 July 2016


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, C.W., Bell, E. and Shirky, C. 2012. 'Post-industrial journalism: adapting to the present', Tow Center for

Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School.

Fulton, J. 2012, Journalists and their audience: a changing relationship?, paper presented at Australian and New

Zealand Communication Association conference: Communicating Change and Changing Communication in the 21st

Century, Adelaide, SA, http://www.anzca.net/component/docman/doc_download/617-anzca-2012-fulton-

relationship.html - accessed 1.1.14.

Jenkins, H., Ford, S. and Green, J. 2013, Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture, New

York University Press, New York.

Karataş-Özkan, M. and Chell, E. 2010, Nascent entrepreneurship and learning, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.

Lowrey, W. and Latta, J. 2008, 'The routines of blogging', in Making online news: the ethnography of new media

production, (Eds) C. Paterson and D. Domingo, Peter Lang, New York, pp. 185-197.

Simons, M. 2013, What's next in journalism?: new-media entrepreneurs tell their stories, Scribe Publications,

Brunswick, Victoria.

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7 July 2016

A presentation to ANZCA Conference 2016

7 July, 2016

CRICOS Provider 00109J | www.newcastle.edu.au

DISCUSSION

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7 July 2016

MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP: social network sites, the audience and new media professionals

Social Media

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