creating an audience online
TRANSCRIPT
How to create an online audience
Guest Lecture
Monday, February 20th 2012
• Graduated in journalism from UCF in 2009• Worked at Barefoot Media.• Clients included restaurants; beach events;
food producers; festivals. Specialised in producing digital marketing strategies.
• Currently freelancing at Munro & Forster - London-based specialist healthcare company. Focusing on health & fitness and food brands.
Aims for today
• Clearer idea of what’s possible by looking at platforms and successful case studies.
• Come away with a viable idea.
Why?
• Good practise.
• Building ‘social authority’ can lead to amazing opportunities.
• If you don’t, somebody else will.
• You may even enjoy it.
Why couldn’t I do this 10/15/20 years ago?
• Better technology: internet; faster internet; broadband; faster broadband; increase in use of mobile devices.
• Demand for information sooner due to better access to content.
• The rise of the internet has broken down geographical and financial barriers to entry.
What are social media?
“Tools that allow the sharing of information and creation of communities through online networks of people.”
Quote from THE INTERNET.
Content is King…
What content would Elvis create?
• Interesting – you want people to share your content amongst friends.
• Original – has it been done before?• Consistent – people like knowing what
to expect and when. Don’t take on too much.
• Affordable - what are the costs involved?
Find your audience
• Be clever about it - Google “Google Keyword Tool”.
• Get in touch with Rob & Andrea Edlin from Niddocks.
Play your keywords right
Monthly Google searches…• Restaurant reviews -
49,500 - Low• Restaurant reviews Cornwall
140 - Low• Restaurants in Cornwall
9,900 - Medium• Seafood Cornwall
1,600 - Low• Seafood restaurants Cornwall
480 - Low• Rick Stein restaurants
4,400 - Low • Rick Stein resturant
73 - Low• Rick Stein Hotel Cornwall
58 - Medium• Food in Cornwall
6,000 - Low
Research your audience
• How old are they?
• How good are they with technology? Do they have a smartphone?
• What is their preferred content format?
• Where are they located?
• Fastest growing free service blogging platform.
• Free and easy to set-up and use.• Suited to easy to share content - images,
video, audio - reblog button.• Previously popular with young creatives and
porngraphers, now filled with memes and cat pictures.
• Comes with a range of pre-designed themes. • Jay-Z and Beyonce released the first photos
of Blue Ivy Carter via Tumblr.
They were pretty cute….
Posterous
• Shorter blogging platform, like Tumblr.
• Can be set to automatically update Wordpress & Blogger accounts.
• Free to use.
• Less users than Tumblr.
• Most customisable although requires most technical knowledge to make it look pretty.
• Potential cost of hosting on your own server if you use open source CMS software.
• Unlike Tumblr and Posterous, can be adapted to add e-commerce.
• Doesn’t look great on mobile.
• Owned by Google. • Like Wordpress, more suited to longer
entries than Tumblr & Posterous. • More visits to Blogger than Tumblr &
Wordpress. • Popular with Mums.• Cheaper to customise than Wordpress.
How to amplify your audience• Monitor - install Google analytics. What works, what
doesn’t? Adapt. • Comment on relevant posts and start the
conversation.• Email - increase loyalty and engagement by offering
your readers the opportunity for people to receive updates to their inboxes.
• SEO - use your keywords and tag posts. Keep the content fresh.
• RSS - set up so people can add you to their readers.• Share content on relevant social media platforms and
connect with the key influencers in your audience.
• More Tweets during the Superbowl than ever other event.
• First point for many for breaking news.• Makes it easier to connect with
influencers in respective industries.
• In four minutes and 26 seconds, over 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.
• Charlie bit my finger - viewed over 422 million times. Made the creator over £100,000.
• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.
• SB.TV a great case study.
• 1 in every 7 pages accessed online is Facebook.
• 750 million+ users. If it was a country it’d be the 3rd biggest in the world.
• Over 100 million+ access through their mobile phones.
• Bigger than Google in the USA.
• Reached 1 million users in just over 2 months (something that took Twitter over 2 years). It’s now growing over twice as fast as Flickr.
• There are currently more than 7 million users worldwide, uploading 1.3m photos each day
• Over 150 million photos have been uploaded in total, on average 15 per second
• Instagram has enjoyed 78 million likes on pictures so far
• 8/10 of all photos uploaded have had a filter added.
• “Pinterest is an online pinboard that allows you to organise and share things you love.”
• According to a recent study conducted by Sharaholic, Pinterest drove more referral traffic to sites in January than Google+, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn and MySpace all combined.
• http://pinterest.com/ucfalmouth/
Dave Lee• Graduated from Lincoln 2008. • Founder and editor of the University of Lincoln's student
newspaper, The Linc: Winner of publication of the year, best reporting and editor of the year at the Lincoln Student Media Awards 2008.
• Due to work with jBlog he picked up work experience with Sky News, Andrew Gilligan.
• After graduating, asked to go to New Zealand to teach online news for 2 months.
• Now works as technology reporter for BBC News.
Josh Halliday
• Graduated from journalism University of Sunderland 2010
• Created local news blog in Sunderland.• Edited uni magazine, Degrees North. • Over 10,000 followers on Twitter. • Media and technology reporter at The
Guardian straight out of uni.
Joseph Stashko
• Journalism student at University of Central Lancashire
• Writes NewsStash (WordPress). Focusing on technology and new forms of journalism.
• Over 2,700 followers on Twitter.• Supplements online activity with work
experience at Times, Mirror, Live Magazine.
What do these have in common?
• Worked outside of the requirements of their course.
• Created conversation and communities.
• Created links with industry.• Involved with university publications. • Worked pretty hard.
Others…
WIWT
• Poppy Disney documents what she wears everyday.
• Vodaphone paid her to attend London Fashion week and blog on their behalf.
• Now created a social network inviting others to share what they wear.
• Simple, interesting, consistent, shareable, original.
What sets David apart?
• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/griffenphotography - 964 fans
• @DavidGriffen - nearly 600 followers
• http://mobilephonefoodphotography.com/
• Benefits: social media week.
You’re too busy?
• Be organised - set aside an hour a day. • Automate the process - schedule posts.• Remember you’re investing in your future.
Predict the future• Mobile internet connection will continue to
grow - 40% of all connections are mobile, going to raise to 80% in the near future.
• Faster internet connections will further increase the popularity of video content.
• Innovate and be open to change.
“Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.”
Jim Hightower, The New York Times, March 9, 1986
