Engagement

Rural Ramblings

Never before have we had so much news available to us or the platforms to read and watch it on. Yet, trained and experienced journalists worldwide are being laid off and/or having to work harder for the same money as the media industry struggles to find a formula that works. Nowadays, going to get a journalism degree with the prospect of starting out in a job where one could get paid more for sweeping up dust in a mill seems a bleak prospect to me

From my long experience in the media I know at the root of it all, content is king. Engage people with interesting, useful and thought-provoking content then more readers will be attracted to the brand of the publication and with that advertisers follow. However, as media outlets contract to survive and journalists are lost, content suffers and with it, the good work that keeps the powers that be accountable.

Governments, municipalities, organisations and businesses all have messages, services and products that they want as many people to see and engage with as possible. The trick now is what and where to put them. My answer, as many places as you can. Some people want a tangible thing they can hold in their hands, newspapers and magazines. Others want to hear local news and content on the radio. Many now want an interactive publication that can be read on any device with the opportunity to engage through social media.

Print has been suffering for a long time through a decline in traditional advertising. Yet, print circulations are still high and print advertising, especially if its repeated over several weeks will work for portion of the population. In 2014, we decided at The McLeod River Post to go digital only and work on our social media site. For us, the cost of printing and distribution and the unreliability of the latter made it a no brainer. We wished we’d done it sooner, our distribution is still high, and all our ads can be in colour and interactively linked to websites, emails and social media. Since then far bigger media outlets than us have gone the same way.

Engaging with the public on comments on social media can be a dangerous thing for organisations and businesses. Who has the authority to speak? What do they say? And, sometimes, jumping right in can fan the flames of a flame war. I’ve always found that quick answers on social media can lead to long problems.

Social media has hit advertising revenues hard. But there is a snag. Posting your ad/event on social media can be free, yes. But putting it on a site with few likes and follows is likely to mean that it doesn’t get seen by the audience that you’re targeting, and your project/event will suffer. Having covered more events that, I can remember I know how disappointing it can be when volunteers have worked hard just for a handful of people to show up. From experience, building a successful social media site takes time and work. But when one has thousands of followers and likes one’s reach can be long.

Finally, communities are different to the big cities when it comes to media. Journalists rarely work in our communities just for the money yet the outlets they work for are businesses and must make ends meet. Until different funding models come around, maybe crowd funding perhaps, or going non-profit, sadly there is a very real risk, and its happening already, for our community media of “use it or lose it.”