Until 2010, the road to success in the screen industry depended on convincing broadcasters and film producers to provide you with airtime or production resources. Nowadays you only need an internet connection and a laptop or a smartphone.
Over the past decade, a new creative industry has emerged called Social Media Entertainment. It's populated by young entertainers and activists you may never have heard of: Hank Green, Casey Neistadt, PewDiePie and Tyler Oakley.
These creators started out as amateurs, but have become media professionals who make money from content they publish on social media platforms. They are setting up their own media brands, building global fan bases and strengthening Australia's profile among young people around the world.
The Australian Government is currently conducting separate research into the future of film and television content in that country and the market effects of digital platforms. Any decisions we make in these areas can affect social media entertainment. Therefore, it is crucial that we understand the industry so that we do not inadvertently strangle it when it is just starting.
The Australian market is growing
Social Media Entertainment came into being shortly after Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2006 - around the same time Twitter and its colleagues in China, Youku and Weibo hit the market.
It can be a lucrative profession. More than three million YouTube creators worldwide earn money from the content they upload. Then there are, among others, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch. The bigger the audience, the more money has to be earned. In 2016, content creators in the US alone earned more than $ 5.9 billion on nine digital and social media platforms.
The majority of highest-paid creators are based in the US, but popular Australian creators are the Van Vuuren, Wengie and SketchShe groups. It is estimated that the number of content creators in Australia has more than doubled in the last 15 years. This increase is almost entirely attributable to 230,000 additional online video content creators entering the industry.
A new revenue model
Social media entertainment is certainly part of the gig economy. It is inherently unstable and has grown tremendously over a ten-year period. But the business models of social media entertainment have changed fundamentally during this time.
Developers have learned how to manage risk by diversifying their offerings in response to platform competition. For example, instead of making money from a single source, such as YouTube's advertising revenue, developers earn revenue from multiple sources, including merchandising, licensing, crowdfunding, and live performances.
One of the biggest changes has been the rise of the "influencer" who makes money with brand integration. For example, when an Instagram star is paid to publish pictures of themselves with a company's product.
Successful developers of social media entertainment operate a model of entrepreneurial action that devotes as much or even more attention to building and maintaining a community of subscribers than actually creating content. These fan communities are so passionate that they follow the creators through thick and thin. And the feedback is real-time, constant, full and often confronted. This includes negatives such as trolling.
Each type of revenue model in this practice depends on community support. Mainstream art, cultural and canvas industries with all their lectures to build up an audience have a lot to learn from the creators.
Of course that costs a lot of work. Creators often upload content several times a week, create and maintain their communities, address the vagaries of algorithms, and manage their authenticity with sophisticated brands and even more sophisticated communities. Nevertheless, they enter the industry by the thousands.
Reforbes, in touch with tomorrow
A new kind of engagement
It's premiere to promote social media entertainment in the same category as traditional entertainment formats, such as film, television, print and radio - all of which are subject to Australian content regulation or receive public subsidy. Nevertheless, there's a lot for industry, policymakers and regulators to get their heads around.
One difficulty is to draw the line between amateur creators and professionals, which is not always clear. Taste and quality are always in the eye of the party when it comes to screen content. But to be useful for policy makers, debates about quality needs. It's not just about the quality of the content, but the quality and diversity of engagement.
The younger generation has largely switched off from linear television. But these young people, from eight to 22 years of age, make up a huge video market - around 20% of the Australian population.
Social media entertainment engages this demographic. It also provides production and career building opportunity for new voices. That includes young, culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse creators and audiences.
And there is a lot of social innovation practice going on. For example, Nerdfighters is a global community of young people that jump around a YouTube video series. Several thousand Australians are nerdfighters, who often get together in real life to support each other.
Greater than many mainstream screen work. So it's a mistake to perpetuate the "us professionals" versus "them amateurs" line, even if, for regulatory purposes, you have to draw the line somewhere.
Supporting content creators
There has been a great deal of movement around the globe, broadcasting and supporting arts media for social media entertainment. And support and enablement programs in this arena can afford to be more responsive and experimental due to much lower production costs.
In 2016, RackaRacka, run out of Adelaide by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, were beneficiaries of the Skip Ahead program. By then, their work making action packed videos full of choreographed fight scenes, comic violence, and pop culture. Their Marvel VS DC video alone boasted some 37 million views (it now has nearly 60 million).
Graeme Mason, the CEO of Screen Australia, has described RackaRacka as Australia's most successful content creators, and they were rated 5th on Australia's Cultural Power Index in 2017, ahead of screen icon, Nicole Kidman.
How social media regulation could hurt
The big digital platforms that have been created have a provocative influence in the Australian communications and cultural policy space, to say the least. We have now entered a new era of potential regulatory oversight of the platforms.
While it's clear that it might well be on social media entertainment.
Let's not forget the "adpocalypse" and its unintended, but very unfortunate, consequences. In 2017, the revenue streams of numerous creators were lost when Google and Facebook changed the rules. They were made in response to some of their major ads.
RackaRacka's content is caught in the adpocalypse. They are now in Los Angeles pursuing international opportunities.
Policymakers should tread carefully
The rapid response of the platforms, the seemingly minor policy decisions, the widespread detrimental effects on this nascent industry, and the people driving it.
In media policy, we need better demand-side In-screen support policy, we need more attention to business model innovation, some of which must be modeled on social media entertainment.
We must take these creators seriously. With better recognition and support, the new voices found in social media entertainment.
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