By Marissa Baker
With Social Media websites taking over the net, it is no wonder that journalists are using it as an essential advertising tool. I analyzed the social media pages of three different journalists in order to examine the ways in which different types of media personalities are using sites like Twitter and Facebook. Each uses their social media websites in different ways to promote their work as well as to connect with their audiences.
First up is Nina Garcia, the editor and chief of Marie Claire Magazine as well as a judge on Lifetime’s reality series Project Runway. She is also the recent author of “Nina Garcia’s Look Book”. Garcia has 6,918 followers on her Twitter account and 423 friends on Facebook. She uses her social media profiles to connect with fans and involves them in some of the magazine’s creative decisions. Garcia did an audience poll on her SM sites to see which November cover they liked the best and she announced that the winning cover would be the one to hit newsstands. She also gives her followers an inside look at upcoming fashion trends straight from the runway. Garcia updates her Twitter every couple of days and her tweets are mostly about Marie Claire and insider fashion forecasts. Her Facebook page is similar in subject matter, but each update is accompanied by a picture or video. Most of her pictures on Facebook promote Project Runway and the magazine or ones taken from her camera phone at various designer showrooms. Overall, Garcia keeps her SM profile updates professional. She does update frequently about her travels and celebrities she is interviewing or interested in, but these posts are still work related for the most part. There is limited audience interaction on her profiles. She retweets rarely and although her fans comment on her updates, she does not usually comment back.
Next up is Mariana Van Zeller, correspondent for Current TV’s documentary series, Vanguard, since August 2005. She has 2,778 friends on Facebook and 3,585 followers on Twitter. She uses both profiles several times a week and she uses them both to inform her audience of work related projects and to give them tid-bits about what is going on with her life. Van Zeller’s Facebook page is linked to her Twitter so every new tweet shows up as a new update on her Fb as well. Personal information on Van Zeller is limited on her profiles. Both list her occupation, while her Facebook includes her likes and interests in music, movies and television. Van Zeller retweets and responds to other users comments and questions often.
Lastly, I analyzed the Twitter and Facebook of Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor for ABC Evening News. Couric updates her social media profiles several times a day and has 94,784 followers on Twitter and 51,211 friends on Facebook. Most of Couric’s posts are professional providing her audience with links to her interviews and stories. All of her pictures on Facebook are work related and serve as another tool to get more viewers to tune into her show. It is in her Twitter page where we see some personal updates such as her accompanying her mother to the doctor, but again they are mostly professional. With celebrity comes less audience interaction. It is not surprising then that Couric does not retweet or respond to user comments and questions very often. The information of her profiles is strictly professional except that she is a single mother.
All three journalists use their social media profiles to advertise themselves as well as their work. Some use video and pictures to draw in their audience while others provide links that send users to read their stories or watch their shows. The level of celebrity has a definite impact on the amount of friends and followers that a journalist will have. This number is also affected by the amount of time the journalist spends updating and how often they log on. Whether they have thousands or hundreds of users reading their updates, journalists have adapted to using social media websites as a necessary part of the job.
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