NZME brand What the Actual?! connects with young audiences through social media

By Paula Felps

INMA

Nashville, Tennessee, USA

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Capturing younger audiences is paramount to the future of news media organsiations. To successfully capture their attention, companies must not only meet these users where they live, work, and play, but they must also talk to them in language that makes sense to them.

In other words, it’s important that they hear and see stories from people who look and talk like they do.

For the NZ Herald, that meant creating an entirely new social media brand to attract and engage younger audiences.

WhattheActual?! debuted in March 2023, offering video-driven news content that appeals to 16- to 24-year-olds by covering issues they care about in a format that is natural for them. And, importantly, it’s delivered by journalists who look and sound like they do.

Stories on What the Actual?! are curated by Mihingarangi Satele and Kahumako Rameka.
Stories on What the Actual?! are curated by Mihingarangi Satele and Kahumako Rameka.

The content, which is published on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, includes coverage of some of the biggest breaking news stories, current events, social justice topics, political news, sports, and entertainment.

For the (young) people, by the (young) people

Curated by Mihingarangi Satele and Kahumako Rameka, and led by Mitchell Powell, NZME’s search and social lead, the channel quickly started reaching audiences that previously were not accessible to NZME’s traditional media offerings and formats.

While Mihi and Mako anchored the storytelling, they also relied upon a diverse stable of contributors, each with their own areas of coverage and an understanding of that topic that allowed them to contribute a new perspective to the content.

The team set out to create an opportunity for young audiences to engage with the news in a different way and to provide an alternative to how news was being presented on social media.

Not only did the news look different on What the Actual?!, but the stories being told were out of the ordinary: a 136-year-old school being shut down in a small New Zealand town; a young Maori learning about his war-hero grandfather on a European rugby tour; and the coverage of a mass shooting in downtown Auckland, told with sensitivity and written specifically for a younger audience.

The compassion and empathy with which the stories are told have become a hallmark of the coverage and have helped younger users connect better with the stories.

Stories cover a broad range of topics, but all are told in a way that appeals to a younger, social media-savvy audience.
Stories cover a broad range of topics, but all are told in a way that appeals to a younger, social media-savvy audience.

Winning over the audience

Within the first few months, it was already apparent that What the Actual?! was making inroads with young Kiwis and had become a trusted space for them to discover the news. In the first nine months, it reached more than 2 million viewers on Instagram alone and grew from zero followers to more than 40,000.

Now, What the Actual?! receives an average of more than 500,000 monthly views and has picked up over 600,000 likes on TikTok. It has further amplified its reach by leveraging some of the existing brands within the NZME ecosystem that targeted similar demographics.

In addition, it used social media features (such as story sharing) and ran house ads voiced by the NZME team on music radio stations to extend awareness of the new brand.

In successfully reaching this younger audience, What the Actual?! has not only found a way to engage with a coveted demographic, but it has changed the way those users see and interact with the news.

About Paula Felps

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