During INMA’s recent Young Audience Summit, Ellie Beetham and Mikey Olympitis of DMG Media discussed hiring creator talent, managing content decision-making, maintaining brand identity, and creator safety.

Hearing directly from the talent, Multimedia News Producer Olympitis, provided a clearer picture as to how creator journalist are impacting legacy newsrooms.

No matter how established a brand is, there are inherent risks to introducing a personal brand, particularly one that is growing from within.

“The relationship between the creator and the publisher is really important. The creator should also be an entry point for the brand as well,” Beetham, head of social creative, said.

The relationship does not have to be adversarial and actually benefits when both parties are in alignment and work off each other’s strengths: “Brands shouldn’t be scared of creators becoming bigger.”

In speaking about his experience, Olympitis acknowledges the available resources and equipment, expertise, and talent are massive advantages, whereby creators benefit from “an amazing kind of opportunity.”

“We’re quite lucky here, I suppose, having a big legacy brand behind us,” Olympitis said.

Olympitis, along with other creators on the social creative team, can tap into a production team with a slew of videographers and editors. The quality and speed of production for videos and different news products is attractive.

Prior to joining DMG, Olympitis was employed at a different news company and did not have a strong background in social media. As a young journalist, Olympitis said he sees the importance and influence of social media within journalism and the overall job economy.

Following a coffee chat with Beetham and a screen test, he was later hired and now regularly appears on-camera and serves as multimedia producer and face of the Daily Mail brand.

“One of the brilliant things of working on the U.K. page is that we get to do such a huge range of stuff,” Olympitis said.

He films nearly every day, either in-studio or out on the street, chatting with bystanders. He also writes for the podcast and Web site: “No day is the same. There are so many spinning plates at all times … It’s pretty awesome. I love it.”

The social creative team, which Beetham leads, started with 20 people and has grown to 100. DMG Media has invested in creator journalism not only by scaling its team but by “recognising that social is so important and integral to journalism,” Beetham said.

Legacy brand identity

DMG’s umbrella of brands include Daily Mail UK, Eliza, Umag, Daily Mail Post, among others. With so many brands to oversee, how does a legacy publisher maintain its brand identity?

“Each brand has individual creators that understand the brand, have the same IP, can really story tell, and sort of give from each brand perspective,” Beetham explained.

One way to maintain or strengthen brand identity is to ensure there is alignment between the creator’s strengths and the brand’s content and strategy. For example, Olympitis already had an interest in British politics and culture. During his hiring, different members of the social creative team interviewed to determine if he would be a good fit.

Content decision-making

Though there are editors and other decision makers to consider when developing content, Beetham remains focused on the brand’s audience and what content they want served and how they want to consume it.

“Young people want to be served news but just in a different way,” Beetham said.

For example, how a piece of breaking news is distributed will vary across channels and even in the presentation itself. Beetham has an audience-first approach, acknowledging that viral stories might not work for their newspaper.

Content, no matter its virality, has to align with the interest and needs of their audience.

Trends within the creator journalism space

One trend starting to bubble up is that of creator agencies and collective of freelance journalists. Does DMG have any interest in that space?

DMG is building something that cannot be publicly shared yet, Beetham said. The goal would be to support creators a little more specific to business partnerships. Beetham emphasised it’s important for creators to make their own content.

“What we’ve done is build out a team of creators who are native to the platform and really understand it, and also have grown up on it,” she said.

Banner art: Adobe stock image By DC Studio.

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