It's Nice That Interview
I finally heard back from It's Nice That's editor, Rob Alderson.
These are the answers that he gave to my questions, they were really helpful and insightful:
1. How successful do you feel that the use of social media is in raising both your profile and revenue?
Profile definitely, it's a constant way of reaching an audience who have made the conscious decision that they are interested in what we do and a way to remind people multiple times a day that we're always updating the site and publishing new work. And of course it's a way for our existing audience to share our work with their networks therefore bringing us into contact with new readers. Revenue is much more difficult - as with many other publishers the models for raising money are always adapting and apart from driving traffic which helps advertising rates I wouldn't say we see social media as a great revenue raiser.
2. How do you choose which work to publish on your website?
We have an editorial team of four (myself, two full-time writers and an intern) and we have regular meetings to decide what gets posted from things we come across and things we are sent. Overall the mission is to :champion creativity across the art and design world" so that always has ti be at the back of our minds and beyond that we look for work that is original, exciting and/or fulfill its brief really well. The big things we want on the site if breadth of creative disciplines and a mixture of established names and new talent.
3. Which social media platform gives you the most popularity, and which do you enjoy using the most?
In terms of actually driving traffic to the site it's Facebook, but on balance I really like Twitter. It's so immediate and you can get into discussions more easily we've found. Because we don't have comments on our articles (except the weekly Opinion pieces) we have to embrace Twitter and Facebook giving readers the right to reply and giving us a chance to explain things when asked.
4. Without the use of social media, do you feel that you would be as popular and have as much attention?
No, social media has definitely helped us in a big way in terms of amplifying what we do but it shouldn't be seen as the be-all and end-all. At the end of the day if you're not providing exciting and engaging content the best social media strategy in the world isn't going to help you.