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With more than 1 billion users on Facebook, and millions more active on sites such as YouTube and Twitter, it has become obvious that social media is an important platform for businesses.

Connecting with the huge variety of consumers already on these sites can open up significant opportunities for marketing and lead generation. Additionally, social media monitoring provides insight and understanding into how your industry, audience and competitors are reacting to market trends and products.

As well as giving businesses and consumers a platform to share their thoughts and participate in ongoing conversations, social media is also a channel through which many people access news stories and important information.

A recent study from Pew Research found that 64 per cent of adults are active on Facebook, and 30 per cent are using the site to receive news. This means that approximately half of the people using Facebook trust the site to deliver their news.

Similarly, 16 per cent of US adults are active on Twitter, with exactly half of those (8 per cent) accessing the news through tweets.

Not only are users reading news on social media, but they are also participating in the sharing and telling of stories. Half of all social network users have shared news stories on their own profiles and a further 46 per cent have discussed news on social media.

However, while social networking sites are a popular media through which to access news, Pew Research found that users on these sites spend significantly less time engaging with the news they read.

Readers who visit news stories directly through a provider's website spend an average of 4 minutes and 36 seconds on each page. In comparison, those who arrive through a link on Facebook spend just 1 minute 41 seconds reading the page.

This shows that while news is being shared and read on social media sites, engagement is significantly greater when consumers go out of their way to access the stories.

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Developers rush to patch

In the wake of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, there have been a myriad of changes impacting users of Facebook and Instagram content recently. These changes were made without any notice and were effective immediately which has impacted third-party apps worldwide.

Albeit the speed in which the changes have been made is likely to have been partly driven by the pressure to tighten data practices and potentially align certain timing as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify before Congress next week to answer questions about the company’s privacy and data policies.From the perspective of everyday users accessing the content you know and love via the Facebook and Instagram apps will see little to no change. For developers like us on the other hand, the impacts are significant and are only a hint of what is yet to come.In case you missed it, the changes made have been many and impact all third-party apps, whether legitimate or not.

Given the changes have been quick, varied and came without prior notification, we’ve pulled together a quick summary of a few that left developers and other third-party content users of these content feeds frustrated:

Instagram have removed 17 ways of accessing content

This means something as simple as code to access recent posts of a public company, suddenly stopped working. Quick changes had to be made to use alternative methods.

Facebook & Instagram have removed access to many fields

Fields like how many followers a user has, or how many posts you have made, but many more have gone.

25x drop in Instagram content

The Instagram API restricted the flow of content by 25x, meaning that public posts previously being collected has been reduced significantly, requiring different approaches to be taken that are more efficient.

These are only a few of the changes that have happened with more expect in future. With CTO Mike Schroepfer commenting that they will lock down access, review previously allowed apps, and then hand out access to the apps that deserve it.

While this is promising from the perspective that Facebook is taking action to breath some confidence back into their data practices, it will still be interesting to see how they now start to crack down on third-party apps that are using and abusing content. With the advent of AI and machine learning, the content which appeared innocuous can now be exploited and abused in the wrong hands. That means Facebook is forcing all apps that have previously been approved for accessing Events, Groups and Pages, have to be reviewed again.

For the developers working on these changes behind the scenes, it's a difficult process but something we monitor constantly to ensure the client experience is supported, and uncompromised. While at times frustrating, it’s also fascinating to watch the complexities of today's interconnected environment play, shift and unfold.

Ian Young,
Isentia Technical Architect

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Isentia's parent company Access Intelligence has been recognised as one of Europe’s fastest growing companies in the FT 1000, a yearly ranking by the Financial Times and German data platform Statista. The FT 1000, now in its 7th edition, ranks the 1,000 companies in Europe that have achieved the highest percentage growth in revenues.

Access Intelligence is an AIM-listed tech innovator, delivering high quality SaaS products that address the fundamental business needs of clients in the marketing and communications industries.

‘Understanding audiences has become essential for organisations across industries and geographies: we’re seeing that need grow every day, as more and more of our clients put media insights, reputation and audience intelligence at the center of their strategy,’ said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Access Intelligence.

The group powers the world’s most relevant brands across regions and industries: with over 6,000 clients worldwide, Access Intelligence helps clients like Apple, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, the UK House of Commons, HSBC, Twitter, and the Australian Government understand their audiences and monitor the media landscape.

The evolving Access Intelligence portfolio includes Isentia, the market-leading media monitoring, intelligence and insights solution provider; Pulsar, the audience intelligence and social listening platform; Vuelio, which provides monitoring, insight, engagement and evaluation tools for politics, editorial and social media in one place; and ResponseSource, the network that connects journalists and influencers to the PR and communications industry.

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“In the future there will be no female leaders, there will just be leaders” 

-- Sheryl Sandberg

Our recent partnered research with Women in Media showed there is still significant gender discrimination within the media and a long way to go before parity is reached. Female voices are being excluded in shaping public perception in industries where women lead in employment, such as retail, sport and health. This creates hurdles for female experts and sources, and demonstrates the largest gap between women employment share and media representation. 

All organisations have a role to play, with a responsibility to provide equal opportunities and outcomes for men and women.

Through the power of collaboration and raising each other up, it presents an opportunity for women to change the status quo.

Women in the workplace

Women’s voices and women’s participation within the workplace are lacking true representation and the amplification they deserve. Whether it’s in leadership, as a spokesperson or across the news value chain - there’s more that can be done to avoid misrepresentation of an organisation as this sends a conflicting message to their audience.

As the Women in Media research suggests, to avoid underrepresentation, organisations should:

• Review and assess their level of representation
• Invest in training and development for spokeswomen and
• Commit to monitor change. 

Workplaces have a responsibility to ensure there is a focus on gender balance through inclusion and diversity as well as provide support and visibility of pathways to leadership roles.

Mapping out the right spokesperson

When choosing a spokesperson, it's the role of an organisation to select someone who is a well suited representative, and be able to provide the best answers for their key audiences. The characteristics of a spokesperson are similar to that of a leader, with competency (37%), confidence (31%), and good communication (26%) being the most important. They also need to speak with authority, with their opinions being trusted, but also an ability to connect with stakeholders and not shy away from empathy, if it’s needed. 

Women need to be given the support and authority to be a trusted brand ambassador or spokesperson for the organisation. 

At a time when a story hits the media, there is a framework organisations can put into place to ensure success:

• Subject: who is the subject of the story and whose perspective does it amplify.
• Narrative: what are the stories being told or what stories are being missed. I.e. Consider which stories are written by women/men or feature more women/men, who is telling the story - experts, sources, spokespeople etc.
• Opportunity: 1. how much opportunity does the spokesperson have to express their opinion, how frequently are they visually represented, what role do they play and how are they portrayed? 2. provide training and development of spokeswomen to contribute to achieving gender equity in the media. And as spokeswomen are called on their leadership and expertise, it will present a fair representation of Australian society.

Women in Media Gender Scorecard

The Women in Media Scorecard explores the visibility of women as authors, participants and subjects of news in Australian media. It identifies core areas in media analytics (bylines, sources, experts) to monitor change over time and positive or negative shifts towards achieving parity for women in Australian media. Isentia analysis included 18,346 reports from Australian press, radio and TV news coverage over a 14-day period, from 18-31 July 2022.

Trajectory to gender parity

Some say a woman alone has power; collectively they have impact. 

Across all industries and organisations, when it comes to women supporting other women, there is power in the pack. 

Women often underestimate the value they can offer, the wisdom and knowledge they can share can benefit and support many women (and men too). 

From increasing productivity and enhancing collaboration, to inspiring organisational dedication and boosting confidence, women can be unstoppable when working towards a desired goal, together. 

“Women need to get behind other women. Encourage their expertise. Acknowledge their strengths. Champion their success. Amplify their voice.”

Interestingly, our research shows female reporters are 30% more likely to quote female sources than male reporters. This suggests that women do support women, yet women dominated industries are not being represented as such in the media. The highest underrepresentation of female sources tended to be associated with topics/sectors with a high female employment share, for example in retail, sport and health.

This presents an opportunity for organisations to increase women’s representation in leadership positions and boost women’s workforce participation. By doing this, it will encourage women to amplify other women and contribute to achieving gender parity within the workplace.

Men Dominate As Sources, Even In Industries Where Women Lead Employment

Source gender split vs industry employment

The affinity bias

The media hype plus cultural perceptions might showcase that women don't want to revel in another woman's success. Yet it’s quite the opposite.

Dedicated days like International Women’s Day are a great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of other women beyond the divisions of national, ethnic, cultural, economic or political barriers. But it shouldn't stop there. 

Status quo bias and gender blindness are two key areas of bias within organisations. For whatever reason, when we think about a leader or a person with authority, our brains default to think of a male. The ‘think manager, think male’ norms continue to hold women back and contribute to a notable gender gap in self promotion within the workplace. 

Women are 33% less likely to promote their performance and only 60% of women actively make people aware of their accomplishments. And this wasn't due to a lack of desire, however it was more likely to attribute their failures to lack of ability. Because women feel the workplace is harder on them, they’re harder on themselves, causing their confidence to take a hit. Yet for women to advance in leadership roles or further their career, self-promotion is a must. 

In instances where women are confident and assertive at work, they can be penalised by others and be referred to as bossy. In fact, women are twice as likely to be branded as bossy in the workplace for doing the same behaviours as men.This can often impact their desire to celebrate their achievements and also have a negative impact on how well they are liked by their peers.

Gender equity

Within the media landscape in particular, women reporters are more likely to:

• Challenge gender stereotypes 
• Raise gender inequality issues 
• Reference legislation or policies that promote gender equality or human rights.

Yet they don’t get seen as experts in their field and get the bylines to showcase this.

The Women in Media research shows only two of the 35 identified topic groups (6%) recorded a greater share of women sources than men. Females are notably under-represented when comparing the share of experts in media reporting with the share of sector employment. The pattern of media underrepresentation in women-dominated industries extends from sources to the share of experts quoted. 

With the spotlight on gender equity, now is the time for women to support and amplify other women across all industries.

A call to arms

At Isentia equity, inclusion and diversity is something we are all passionate about and we choose partnerships that help us shine a light on these issues. We value the voice that our women leaders and employees can have within our company and industry and are always looking for opportunities to elevate their voices. 

Company CEO Joanna Arnold believes ‘the true value of insights is when it's used to shine a light on societal issues and inspire behaviour that drives change. Our innovation in audience intelligence underpins our purpose to help surface the diverse voices shaping wider societal narratives’ so that they can be better represented in the media and other channels shaping public perception”.

The Women in Media Research highlights that much work remains to provide gender equity and share of voice for women in organisations and through representation in Australian media. 

Organisations can play an important role in gender equity by:

• Investing in training and development for their spokespeople and instill confidence into their female employees 
• Constantly review and assess their level of female representation
• Ensure the chosen person is an accurate representation of the workplace
• Commit to monitoring change and
• Build a supportive workplace culture

Moving forward, as more women encourage and support other women, the more will be received in return.

We can continue to support the positive impact organisations have towards female representation and gender parity. We want to improve the barriers and drivers for women representation in organisations across societal, organisational and individual levels. 

If you’d like to learn more about The Women in Media Scorecard or discover how Isentia can help your organisation with impactful insights-driven research, get in touch with us today. 

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