audience and industry

 Read this Smart Water case study from Influencer Intelligence and answer the following questions:

1) What is the charity link to her Smart Water brand ambassador role and how does this link to the celebrity persona she has created?

The appointment of Zendaya as the company's global brand ambassador has been made public. As the brand's ambassador, Zendaya will take part in a number of new creative projects that celebrate people who define "smart" in their own unique ways and support initiatives for community water that specifically benefit women.She will work with the Global Water Challenge, an organisation that promotes access to safe drinking water for all people.

2) Read the analysis of Zendaya’s social media profile. What statistics support why she is described as ‘a high-ranking celebrity influencer’?

3) What details are provided about Zendaya’s audience?

On Twitter and Instagram, 59% of the audience for the beverage company Smartwater is female. Its followers, whether single or married, tend to be in the age range of 25 to 29, while its audience is both younger and older. Its top market, which is primarily English-speaking, is the US, followed by the UK and Indonesia. Its top cities are New York and Los Angeles.

4) What psychographic groups would fit the profile for Zendaya’s audience in this case study?

Along with Selena Gomez, Bill Gates, and Miley Cyrus, Zendaya is listed as one of the most influential celebrities, and she has a 25.4% share of the top 10% of Twitter accounts. She is not visible on the Instagram profile, though. Instead, people like Channing Tatum, Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen Degeneres, and Oprah relate. The brand's clientele consumes MTV, People Magazine, CNN, The New York Times, Forbes, Fox, Buzzfeed, Vogue, ABC, TIME, ELLE, Sports Centre, and ESPN, according to data on media consumption. 

5) Why does the case study suggest Zendaya is a good fit for the Smart Water brand? 

In terms of age, gender, and geographic demographics, Zendaya and smartwater are generally comparable. It's possible that the company is banking on the celebrity's 190 million social media followers and more than £1 million in social media worth to boost its visibility among younger consumers. One of the most well-known people on the planet right now, Zendaya also has equity, attractiveness, and awareness scores that are far above average.

Social media data analysis

Look at this analysis website for Zendaya’s Instagram account. Complete the following tasks:

1) Pick out three notable statistics from the site.

185,331,672- followers

1807-following

3.5%-engagement

2) Scroll down through the data available. Who are Zendaya’s top mentions and what does this suggest about how she uses the account? 

Louis,Nicholas,lanacome and abdm studio

All of these accounts are related to fashion and beauty items, demonstrating how she utilises them to advertise and promote brands that she either uses personally or is an ambassador for.

3) How does Zendaya’s Instagram engagement rate of 3%+ compare with the average engagement rate for accounts with more than 100,000 followers? 

In general, it is 1.7%, but Zendaya has 3%, demonstrating the enormous number of fans she draws from all walks of life.

Zendaya: audience questions and theories

Finally, work through the following questions to apply media debates and theories to the Zendaya CSP: 

1) Is Zendaya’s website and social media constructed to appeal to a particular gender or audience?

Since Zendaya posts movie trailers and teasers to promote her work, I think it's aimed at a wider audience. She frequently shares content on Twitter and Instagram. Given that she frequently stars in a variety of genres, this is directed for both her general and mass audiences. She discusses her personal life as well, which is evident given her greater involvement rate.

2) What opportunities are there for audience interaction in Zendaya’s online presence and how controlled are these? 

She frequently shares teaser and snippet videos on social media, inviting her followers to react and share their thoughts. In her comment sections, she frequently discusses activism and charities, sparking discussion. By answering their comments, she engages her audience in conversation as well. 

3) How does Zendaya’s social media presence reflect Clay Shirky’s ‘End of Audience’ theories? 

According to shirky, there is a change in the way people consume media that is upending established structures and creating new avenues for audiences. may be seen in Zendaya's work, where she responds to tweets so that her followers can initiate contact with her. Her page fails to accurately showcase her acting efforts.

4) What effects might Zendaya’s online presence have on audiences? Is it designed to influence the audience’s views on social or political issues or is this largely a vehicle to promote Zendaya’s work? 

In my opinion, Zendaya's acting career may benefit from media exposure to promote her roles in movies, television shows, etc. She makes an effort, in my opinion, to address a few political and social topics. For instance, supporting sexuality, feminism, and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Industries

How social media companies make money

Read this analysis of how social media companies make money and answer the following questions:

1) How many users do the major social media sites boast?

"As of Q4 2022, Meta (META), formerly Facebook, had 2.96 billion monthly active users.1 Twitter (now X) stopped reporting monthly active users, but the last count in Q1 2019 was 330 million, while LinkedIn had about 900 million monthly active users as of Q1 2023."

2) What is the main way social media sites make money? 

The main source of revenue for social media businesses like Meta (formerly Facebook) and X Corp. (formerly Twitter Inc.) is the sale of advertising.

3) What does ARPU stand for and why is it important for social media companies? 

The abbreviation ARPU, or average revenue per user, is used by Meta in its 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a purpose.

4) Why has Meta spent huge money acquiring other brands like Instagram and WhatsApp? 

The company's operations clearly benefited from growing Meta's user base to a critical mass, but only to the extent that it offered marketers something of value. An indifferent onlooker would consider paying $19 billion to purchase the messaging platform WhatsApp to be the pinnacle of irresponsibility and hubris during the dot-com era.Still, it wasn't. With over 2 billion monthly active users, WhatsApp offers an even larger pool of receptive minds to sell as a unit to businesses .

Regulation of social media

Read this BBC News article on a report recommending social media regulation. Answer the following questions:

1) What suggestions does the report make? Pick out three you think are particularly interesting. 

2) Who is Christopher Wylie? 

Data consultant Christopher Wylie is Canadian. He gained notoriety as the whistleblower who gave The Guardian access to a cache of papers he had acquired during his time at Cambridge Analytica.

3) What does Wylie say about the debate between media regulation and free speech? 

4) What is ‘disinformation’ and do you agree that there are things that are objectively true or false? 

The establishment of a "statutory building code" that outlines the necessary safety and quality standards for digital platforms is one of the main recommendations. "If I were to produce a kitchen appliance, I have to do more safety testing and go through more compliance procedures to create a toaster than to create Facebook," Mr. Wylie stated to the BBC.

5) Why does Wylie compare Facebook to an oil company? 

An oil company would say: "We do not profit from pollution." Pollution is a by-product - and a harmful by-product. Regardless of whether Facebook profits from hate or not, it is a harmful by-product of the current design and there are social harms that come from this business model.

6) What does it suggest a consequence of regulating the big social networks might be? 

Facebook's strategy to solving these issues is to "wait and see" and "figure out a problem when it emerges." Every other industry must adhere to minimal safety requirements and take precautions to mitigate and prevent potential risks to people.Would more users go towards peripheral "free speech" social networks if the major social networks were regulated?

7) What has Instagram been criticised for?

This is an output from a platform that offers you suggestions. When you interact with something, these algorithms learn about it and show you more and more of it. A "cooling-off period" is discussed in the study. You might mandate that specific types of content have a cooling-off period that is triggered by an algorithm.