How do new media entrepreneurs use social media to connect to their audience? A research project that is examining how new media entrepreneurs and online media ventures survive in the digital space has found that a consistent theme is how active these respondents are on social network sites and how critical this engagement is in their success. This presentation discusses the respondents’ social media use and its value including a discussion on how the use is crucial in building and maintaining an audience.

1. 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
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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).
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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).
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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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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 space
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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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