Engaging parents, developing a media product for children
Audiences are an essential asset for the growth of a media venture. This needs much consideration if the audience is children. Children are always accompanied by their parents. The growth of The Besana Mail - a media product addressing children’s media and information needs is hinged on the creation of an engagement platform with parents.
February is my second month in the Zimbabwe Entrepreneurial Journalism Program (EJP). The first month helped me to understand the media product I am working on and be able to introduce it to the world. The time I introduced my newsletter to the world the demand on my time became high for the project. Initially, I thought it was just another assignment of the program but that was the beginning of a life changing journey to face the challenges and opportunities as an entrepreneur and emerging content creator. I promised my audience to launch the newsletter in February, this month. This promise put me under pressure to deliver.
Thinking beyond the ordinary approach of making an audience, creating news and distribution of the end product – The Besana Mail was critical in my second month. The EJP wants us to perfect our ideas, refine the concepts and produce quality media products step by step. Soon after my January m Medium blog, which is my monthly assignment for the EJP, I formed a WhatsApp group on 27 January 2022 – The Besana Mail. It’s a closed social media group where I share children related news in and around Hwange. The group’s description clearly informs the members that The Besana Mail serves the community of Hwange with a mandate of creating information spaces for children in media and supports children in content creation.
I formed the WhatsApp group as a news sharing platform and distribution channel. WhatsApp journalism is key in the era of fake news and misinformation. Most of the unverified news about children and other issues are distributed through social media platforms like WhatsApp. So, embracing the platform and providing accurate and verified news stories helps build a strong local news ecosystem for Hwange. Of importance, the idea of having a Whatsapp group was to create a loyal audience base which would receive The Besana Mail newsletter at the end of February.
A closed Whatsapp group allows not only to share news but to develop and grow our audience. We created an Online Community Roundtable Discussion led by The Besana Mail Program Lead. This is a platform where we engage our audience every Friday evening. It is through community involvement that we get the issues affecting children. Initially, our audience was composed of adults, mainly parents and a few youths. But, we could not hear the side of the children (Besana) – a cause of concern to The Besana Mail. Parents started inviting children to the discussions; it’s now interactive. The Online Community Roundtable Discussion invitations are also shared weekly on The Besana Mail webpage.
Most of these discussions, comments and other information comes through mobile phones. Parents monitor the online activities of their children. With the consent of parents our audience is growing. Through our WhatsApp group for children only – The Besana Forum launched in the last week of February, with the help of a former junior member of parliament for Hwange in the child parliament. We receive five to seven entries of children everyday as new members in the groups. We expect our first newsletter this month to be directly received by 200 to 300 people though we believe readership would be higher because our content is shared across several other groups including those we don’t control.
It is not an easy task to grow an audience of children, and engage them. But, by first engaging with parents and making them understand the media product I am building helps us grow our audience and make a product they want to be associated with. To maintain a loyal audience and engage our audience, we realized that Hwange district is culturally diverse and our first newsletter is mainly in English, a language which most of the children use in their various activities. But we need parents therefore, we have two columns – one in Nambya and the other in Ndebele.
If you would like to share your thoughts about this project, you can chat with me via email at bancanemediatrust@gmail.com or my Whatsapp number +263774690758.
