Digital-born Media Outlets: the Trend for Media Start-ups

The Internet and the social media platforms have enabled the conception of a new type of media organizations that mainly operate virtually online. The popularity of such a category has been increasing; making this kind of media organizations a wide, diverse and worth-studying type.

In the December 2018 Digital News Report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism with the support of the Google News Initiative, the digital-born media outlets are defined as organizations “developed from the outset to pursue a digital distribution model, without the legacy print or broadcast brands of most the best-known news outlets in the World.” In other words, these digital-born media outlets only have their publications digitally on the Internet with no other publication means like newspapers or Television.

Although online journalism imposes some financial obstacles in the face of those digital-born media outlets as they relinquish the revenues that come with legacy operations, these outlets have the advantage of going international by targeting far wider multinational audiences compared to the traditional media organizations, according to the 2017 and 2018 Digital News Reports.

In this article, we will shed light on two of the top digital-born media platforms in Egypt in terms of the topics they present, their business models as well as their presence on different social media platforms. Those two digital media outlets are CairoScene and Cairo Zoom.

CairoScene

It is an online magazine and comprehensive calendar for personalities and places in Cairo that was established in 2010. It is a part of MO4 network which is a creative media network that comprises a number of online media platforms covering various fields like Elfasla, Scene Traveller and SceneEats.

CairoScene is an entertaining magazine that focuses on various topics including lifestyle, home, fashion, arts, culture, tourism, celebrities, health, buzz, etc.. It is mainly concerned with all news relating to people and places shaping the scene in Cairo.

The content of CairoScene is available to everyone as the platform relies neither on subscription and membership models nor on paywalls. The main revenue source for CairoScene is advertising revenue where advertisers can get in touch with the platform through the contact information on its website. It seems that CairoScene’s main focus is greater audience reach rather than the enhanced financial sustainability created by the paywalls and different subscription and membership models.

CairoScene has a massive successful presence on almost all social media platforms which can be sensed from its audience base and the amount of resulting interaction. Apart from its Facebook page that has 460K likes, CairoScene is present on Instagram with 524K followers. Its Twitter account is followed by 46K people while it has no presence on LinkedIn. The content posted across all platforms is almost the same with slight differences. First, the content on Instagram includes additional formats like reels.

Second, CairoScene prioritizes the platforms in the following order: Instagram, Facebook then Twitter. This means that there is more content posted on Instagram than the other two platforms. This is because CairoScene has more followers and interactions on Instagram compared to other social media platforms.

This can be attributed to the nature of the news covered by the media outlet along with the nature of each platform rendering Instagram as the best and most suitable platform for the content nature that results in the most audience engagement. The success of CairoScene stems from the fact that it addresses various interests and targets a wide range of audiences with several types of topics that are of importance to them. 

Cairo Zoom  

It is an online platform for events and experiences taking place in Cairo and all over Egypt that was established in 2010. It is also a part of the MO4 network. It mainly focuses on the photography and videography of nightlife and other various openings, concerts and events in different areas such as fashion, lifestyle, culture, art etc… 

Just like CairoScene, Cairo Zoom is not restricting any of its content through paywalls or subscription and membership models. The revenue for Cairo Zoom comes from advertising. Cairo Zoom’s website includes the relevant contact details for that purpose. Similar to CairoScene’s strategy, Cairo Zoom tends to focus on reaching more audiences instead of the greater financial sustainability that comes with the other revenue streams.

Cairo Zoom is successfully present across most social media platforms with a large number of followers and wide audience engagement. The Facebook page for Cairo Zoom has exceeded 595K likes while its Instagram account has 481K followers. Another social media platform on which Cairo Zoom is present is Twitter with around 16K followers. 

Cairo Zoom posts the same content across all social media platforms, but just like CairoScene the priority is given to Instagram followed by Facebook and the content formats on Instagram are a bit modified to accommodate the features of the platform such as reels. Its Twitter account is completely neglected with the last tweet made on 28th July 2020. 

The platform is more active on Instagram with more content postings. It is simply because the content format offered by Cairo Zoom is visuals represented in videos and photos whose best fit would be Instagram resulting in more audience engagement. Cairo Zoom is successful because it covers a certain area using a different way; that is covering events and parties using mainly photos and videos which makes it stand out in the competition.

Obviously, this type of media organizations is gaining wide popularity; not only in Egypt, but also across the Middle East region and the world which makes it a good option to consider for start-ups in the media industry.