Multi-MEdia

News and media companies are increasingly diversifying. Traditional newspaper publishers now expect their journalists to record video and take photographs, as well as to prepare their stories to the paper’s website. Online-only media outlets create text-based stories as well as videos and often audio podcasts. This is the new reality. And somehow us small “content creators” need to fit into the multi-media expectations that are part of this new media landscape. I’m no different.

For quite awhile now I’ve been sharing things I post to Instagram by embedding those posts here. I usually talk about the post in more detail, but I nevertheless am sharing the Instagram post, and not just re-publishing the photo. Similarly, I now publish announcements when I post another AmeriNZ Podcast episode, as I did yesterday. I’ve also embedded videos from my AmeriNZ YouTube Channel. But until today, I’ve never embedded anything I first posted to my AmeriNZ Facebook Page. I have no idea why I haven’t.

The embedded Facebook post up top is from the AmeriNZ Facebook Page, and it’s something that in a somewhat different format could have been a blog post. In the past, I’ve adapted things I’ve posted to Facebook into blog posts (as I did last on Monday), but I’ve never just embedded one of my Facebook posts before today, and I think it’s time I did.

The way one gets attention on Facebook—what they call “Reach”—is by having people read posts there, comment on them, share them, etc. I’ve always shared announcements of new blog posts and podcast episodes, but I’ve also shared articles to the Page, and I’ve sometimes written commentary to go along with the things I’ve shared, as I did today, and sometimes they’re longer and blog post like.

One of the ways to keep people interested in a Facebook Page is to post things to the page, but not just shares of things from other sites (like my blog or podcast or YouTube Channel), but also original content created for the Page. That’s what today’s post was—original content. Rather than repurposing and reqorking that content into a blog post, I think it makes more sense to embed the posts here, as I already do with Instagram posts (which is also owned by Facebook, of course).

There are several reasons for this. First, it potentially increases the “reach” of posts as well as potentially increasing awareness that I even have a Facebook Page. If my goal is to increase awareness of whatever content I create, it makes more sense to embed things from other places than to re-create it here. Although, just like now, I’m likely to use it as a starting point for further commentary, as I also do with my Instagram posts and YouTube videos.

Those who maximise their Facebook Pages also do live video broadcasts and post recorded videos as part of the mix of content they chare on their page. I haven’t yet done a Facebook Live video, but I wouldn’t rule that out. I can later embed the recorded version of the video here, as I did the other day with a Labour Party Facebook video.

Media companies do all the same things I do, only they do more of it and they monetise what they do. I’ll never be in competition with them, but if I want to gain and grow an audience, I need to be doing some of the same things they do, but—and this is the tricky part—without sacrificing any particular part or medium. This is going to require a lot more organisation than I’m used to doing, and I’ll have to actually start planning and scheduling what I want to post, where, and when.

While all this is new for me, it’s not really new for anyone, at least, not the individual parts. With blogging, for example, my blogging friend Roger Green has long planned his posts, a discipline I’ve always admired but (so far) failed to emulate. I also know that the prominent YouTubers I watch plan their videos well in advance and don’t just turn on their cameras and start talking. I also know podcasters who make notes for the episodes they record. I’ve done very little of any of that. This will have to change.

What I’m really talking about here is doing the same sorts of things I’ve always done, but doing them slightly differently and in a more planned and structured way. That doesn’t mean I won’t still do spontaneous or unplanned things like blog posts—I doubt I could stop myself even if I wanted to. But it should mean there could be a little more coherence and unity to to all the things I post to various places.

I mention this at all because I believe in transparency, and also because I’m just one small, tiny example of what major media organisations are also going through on a much larger scale. Tomorrow, I’ll talk a little more about that part, because some of what media organisations are doing is really interesting and even exciting.

Mainly, we’re all—content creators and consumers (and I’m both, of course) alike—finding our way through this new media landscape together. I like that. Now, let’s see where this leads.