Audience Engagement Assignment

For this report, the publication I chose is called AJ+ ( Al Jazeera Plus English), which is an online media and news company or channel run by Al Jazeera Media Network. In fact, their service is available across a mobile app, a Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram page, YouTube channel, even a written content on Medium. Now, I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of politics, even though I do follow big media newspapers and broadcasters like BBC news, or even the Times Magazine, however when I think of politics, it’s always AJ+ on my mind, because of the approachable, fun and user friendly way they publish their content which makes it easier for somebody like me, where they’re always up to date with everything happening across the world, while delivering all kinds of news, even fun, rule-breaking ones, which attracts the younger generations to their profile even more. In fact, the publication has almost 10 million followers across the globe, that rage from different ages to different countries because of their diversified, consistent content across their Facebook and Twitter account. As for their Instagram account, around 134 thousand users are following it at the moment.

Moving on to the content analysis, what can be noticed on the first hand is that the way they deliver news is mostly through videos they make that range from 10 to 15 secs, or even more, where any situation is briefly and clearly described across all of their platforms, which makes it easier for the users to be interested and engaged in the content they publish. Here are different examples:

As for their content categories, here are the 3 main categories across each of the 3 platforms:

· Across Instagram, the 3 main categories were mainly about:

Culture:

Art ( and history):

Social Justice:

· Across Facebook and Twitter:

Politics ( Social movements, elections, social injustice…):

Technology:

Culture and Environment:

In addition to using creative and short videos and images in order to expose a certain situation, AJ+ highlights the most important aspects of every story in the most direct, concise way, where the brief explanations ,as well as their catchy headlines, can be enough to make a person form an opinion or take a stance towards a matter they’ve never heard of before.

For example, the 2 tweets illustrated above expose 2 different topics. The first one talks about an Indian man who made a huge difference in every girl’s life by creating menstrual pads. Now, this topic could’ve been exposed in a very objective way, however, the first phrase of the headline is “ Not all superheroes wear capes. This man wears pads”, the way the story is addressed gives the impression that this man is a superhero because he made every single women’s life easier, which is an approachable way of addressing their audience if is specially consisted of young girls who’ve been recently exposed to this subject that still makes them feel maybe a bit “shy”.

Furthermore, the second tweet talks about Mark Zuckerberg’s Testimony before the U.S. senate on fake accounts because the biggest Blacklives matter page has been found to be fake. Also, this tweets could’ve been addressed in a very objective way, but since this isn’t the first time Zuckerberg’s “credibility” is questioned, especially after a series of events like free basics and others, the cgannel chose to include a funny, sarcastic GIF about Mark’s truthfulness, which shows that AJ+ stands with other people’s rights especially concerning a sensitive topic like BLM , which of course made their audience ( of this community especially) feel more connected and engaged with their page.

Moving on to comparing their 3 pages ( Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), the content posted on the 3 pages is almost the same, there are no big differences in the topics or stories highlighted, however, one main difference is that their Instagram page has more fun, engaging stories than the 2 other pages, where for example on Instagram more stories about Art, history, and culture are exposed since younger generations mainly use this platform. Their Facebook page and twitter account are almost similar where more professional, political news are posted, since these platforms are used by journalists and media professionals that rely on the channel to get trusted information.

This is why on Instagram, posts about empowering younger generations, or customs of other cultures, or even embracing a certain trait or beauty seen as a flaw gains more popularity since it falls into the hands of younger generations, and makes them more empowered, encouraged, and safe considering all the recent events that targeted the youth generations.

On Facebook however, this tweet above about a chemical attack in Syria generated more than 1000 retweets, while on average other tweets gain 300 retweets, where an emotional appeal on the audience is involved because it tackles a topic of violating human rights that activists and journalists will mostly care about.

While looking at this channel’s 3 platforms and comparing them, one clear thing was that they barely use hashtags or name tags on Twitter and Facebook which was mainly odd, where name tags were only used if a certain community or person is related to the topic. In addition, even the official twitter account of the media network “Al Jazeera” doesn’t include any hashtags, which might a social media strategy they use to show credibility or to avoid attracting suspicious accounts to their profile.

However, the use of hashtags is widely included on the Instagram account of AJ+, where the most 2 used ones are #ajplusvideo because they make all the videos, and #ajplus (these 2 hashtags are used on every post) , the following hashtags are related to the story they takle like #food or #immigrants or #Palestine and much more.

This online channel has many strengths including the videos it makes and posts, the variety of their posts, their update with all the types of news, but most importantly is the fact that they have 4 lists on their twitter account where 2 follow American journalists with different perspectives, in order to stay updated about the topics concerning mainly America, trump, the elections the marches, and much more. In addition to the list following the AJ staff also to stay updated and connected about the upcoming events.

However, looking from a journalistic and professional approach, the funny, sarcastic way of addressing the news sometimes is not wrong, but rather fun and more engaging, however, it might be a bit overused which might form a weakness against their strategies, especially concerning Zuckerberg’s testimony recently, despite the truth of the statements of this issue, so decreasing the amount of sarcastic posts might add more of a professional touch despite the credibility and the professionalism of the channel.