In the last decade, a new creative industry called “social media” has emerged. You may not have heard of young entertainers and activists like Hank Green and Casey Neistadt. PewDiePie, Tyler Oakley, and Hank Green are also part of this industry.
PewDiePie at a 2015 gaming culture festival with other creators. cam knows/Flickr CC-BY-NC SA
They started as amateurs but have now evolved into professionals who earn money by publishing content on social media platforms. These creators are building their own media brands and fan communities around the globe while also enhancing Australia’s image among young people.
The Australian government is conducting separate inquiries into the Future of Film and Television Content and the Market Effects of Digital Platforms. We must understand social media entertainment before we can make decisions that could harm it.
Read more: How social media stars are fighting for the Left.
The Australian market is growing.
Social Media Entertainment appeared shortly after Google acquired YouTube in 2006, around the time of the launch of Twitter and its counterparts in China, Youku and Weibo.
This can be a very lucrative career. Over three million YouTubers earn money by uploading content. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are just a few of the many social media platforms. The bigger the audience, the more money you can make. In the United States, content creators made more than US$5.9 Billion in 2016.
Most of the top-paid creators reside in the US. However, Australians like the Van Vuuren Brothers, Wengie, and the SketchShe Group are also popular. According to estimates, the number of Australian content creators has increased by more than twofold in the past 15 years. This increase is almost exclusively due to the addition of 230,000 new creators of video content online.
SketchShe’s “Mime Through Time Video” has been viewed over 42 million times.
New revenue models
The gig economy includes social media entertainment. The gig economy is inherently unstable. It has seen a huge increase over the past ten years. The business models for social media entertainment changed fundamentally during this time.
In response to the competition between platforms, creators have learned to manage their risk by diversifying what they offer. Instead of earning money from one source, such as YouTube advertising, creators can now make money from many sources, such as merchandising and licensing, crowdfunding, and live appearances.
The rise of “influencers” who make money by integrating brands has been one of the most significant changes. When an Instagram star gets paid to use a product, they can post photos of it.
Read more: How copyright law is holding back Australian creators.
Successful creators of social media entertainment engage in a model of entrepreneurial practice that pays as much, if not more, attention to building and maintaining a subscriber community as they do actually to creating content. These fan communities are passionate enough to follow creators through thick and thin. And feedback is real-time, constant, fulsome, and often confronting. This includes negatives, such as trolling.
In this field, every revenue model depends on community support. Creators have much to teach mainstream arts, culture, and screen industries about audience building.
This is a huge undertaking. The creators upload content multiple times a week, maintain and build their communities, manage the vagaries algorithms, and risk manage their authenticity when dealing with brands and communities that are demanding. Thousands of people enter the industry.