Rashid Ahmed, Zoey Lipscomb

Alex Martinez, Kirell Williams

Professor Bias
ENGL 297
20 November 2017
A Study of Social Media Writing
Introduction
Our ethnographic research focuses on the field of social media writing. Unlike legal or
business writing, social media writing is a relatively new field that focuses highly on
communication, marketing, and understanding your audience. Social media writing in many
cases combines many styles of writing to hit a target audience. A target audience in science
writing would be someone in that field of study, while in social media writing the audience
varies from case to case. Our research subject, Ms. Tia Newton, is a freelance social media
writer, currently living in Baltimore Maryland. Social media writing is very important in todays
society and will only continue to grow as the social media and wireless world grow as well. We
want to discover how social media writing is created and what makes it so effective as it moves
from a new genre to a more readily used one. We will be using chapter 14 in Solving Problems
using Technical Communication as a lens for our ethnography. This chapter has to do with
genres within technical writing.
Research Location and Subject
Our interviewee, Ms. Tia Newton, has been a freelancer for ten years and specifically a
social media consultant for five years. Ms. Newton attended the University of Maryland for her
Bachelor of Arts in Communications and then proceeded to obtain her Masters at the Art
Institute in San Francisco, California. After California, she moved to New York City to work in
public relations and managed to make her way into the social media field. Since April of 2016,
Ms. Newton has worked for Andre Walker, a hair product company, as a social media consultant
where she helps write to promote shampoo, conditioner, gel and other products for customers
with all hair types.
 Ms. Newton has done social media writing for many different companies throughout her
career that include: Cover Girl Cosmetics, Sears Roebuck and Co LLC, LA Force and Stevens,
Envi Shoes, and many more. The diverse groups of businesses she has worked for show how
broad the genre of social media writing is because all these companies have very different
methods for marketing, advertising, and the use of their social media influence. Ms. Newton has
also taught a social media course at the Community College of Baltimore County. This course
provided an overview of what social media is and how businesses use it. It also taught students
how to use blogs, social media sites, and other types of social media writing at their disposal.
Data-Collection Methods
To effectively gain information from Tia Newton, we decided to conduct an interview.
We chose this method of data-collection because we wanted to gain a first hand, face-to-face
understanding of her experience as a social media writer. We interviewed her and asked her our
planned out questions about her experiences as a social media writer, the education experience
needed to become a social media writer and what the job includes. Through our interview, we
were able to gain a visual of the type of social media writer Tia Newton is and how she became
the writer she is today. In the interview, we asked Ms. Newton our research questions, which
included:
As a social media writer, is there a lot of biased and/or inaccurate information that may
affect your writing?
What is the workplace environment like as a social media writer?
How and where do you engage with customers other than the website?
What have been your biggest accomplishments as a social media writer?
What are the most common barriers you may face as a social media writer?
These questions were designed to help us gain a better understanding of social media writing and
what it includes. The questions posed were very open-minded, and were supposed to let the
interviewee give extensive responses. On top of the interview we have obtained social media
writing from Ms. Newton that we will analyze.
Interview
 Since Ms. Newton is a freelancer, we conducted our interview at a Starbucks at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore. Before conducting our interview, we knew that Starbucks
would be an appropriate place to talk because they have a quiet setting and it was convenient for
both of us to meet up at. Her job as an everyday social media consultant is to help create a vision
to develop a brands voice. This is not the usual 9-5 that people expect. Her schedule is
twenty-four-seven and always on call filled with consistent meetings, editing and traveling.
Branding is important to reach out to the audience to get them to support not only with their
money, but their loyalty as well. Ms. Newton says that whenever she is traveling, she travels
light and under the radar. A laptop and an iphone is all she needs in addition to keeping her dress
code to the bare minimum.
Style
All black keeps her from attracting too much attention and getting distracted while on the
job. The event is about the brand, not me. If I wear hot pink to an event, I will stand out and
become a distraction to the crowd. Ms. Newton emphasized. Not only does she wear all black to
events but as an everyday fashion as well, hence her outfit at the interview was all black. She
does this because she likes to wear the fashion she advertises for in her social media writing.
The customers
Whenever Ms. Newton is writing, she concludes it's important to write for people that
want to become a committed customer for a company. It is also important to be an authentic
technical writer to influence customers to commit to the brand. Social media is a big influence of
modern branding, authenticity is a required tactic to keep customers engaged. Social media is not
about the followers, but consistent customer engagement with the brand. Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram give an opportunity for followers to easily engage and share things with each other,
which Ms. Newton takes advantage of because she is looking for an effective and quick way to
reach a target audience. The company wants customers to give their feedback on the hair
products, their questions and concerns, in addition to talking and following customers with
similar interests. As a social media writer, there may be times with problematic information that
was either biased and/or misinterpreted for the audience. For example, During an interview, Mr.
Walker (Andre Walker Hair) was doing an interview with Elle magazine about his models and
their type of hair. He stated that women with type 4 hair tend to have a harder time to keep up
with which Elle magazine translated it as women with type 4 hair are hard to keep up with.
Thus, Elle took the message as if Mr. Walker did not enjoy doing black womens hair which was
inaccurate. As a social media writer, Ms. Newton helps voice the brand; as well as defending the
brand. She reached out to the customers via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram about the situation
to apologize about the misinterpreted message and applied the accurate message that was
intended. Consultants have to be mindful that customers are not only financially invested in the
company but emotionally as well. If Ms. Newton had not did that duty then it would've caused
customers to stop supporting the brand, especially, in this instance, customers who are of color.
As Ms. Newton explained, Media is in real time, people want new products and answers as
soon as possible.
The Media
Throughout many years, society took the opportunity to rely on information through the
media such as the radio, television, and mainly the internet. For more than ten years now, social
media has become the trend for useful data, interaction, updates, etc. Everyday people go on sites
like Facebook or Twitter to engage in topics for their enjoyment. Ms. Newton provides the
opportunity to update customers about recent products, events or company updates in general for
the public to attend and support. If there is an issue regarding the website or a product then they
expect Ms. Newton to give an update a soon as possible. Social media factors in a persons
everyday life which is convenient, reliable and active.
Field-Notes/Observations
Conducting the interview was one of our important areas of focus during the project. We
concluded observations to discuss the way the environment affected our interview session.
Starbucks is the typical coffee shop that offers wifi and is a great example of a place where Ms.
Newton could do her work on the go. Knowing this we decided to hold our interview at a
Starbucks near Ms. Newtons residence. The sound of the coffee machine and conversations in
the background was not a big distraction for us. The place was a little crowded at first as Ms.
Newton was waiting for her coffee, but the size of the place was small in general. While waiting,
there was some relaxing jazz music softly playing through the speakers that eased the vibe of the
setting. When we were in the middle of listening to Ms. Newtons story about Elle magazine, the
conversation between two girls in the background was getting louder and louder which caused
some of us to forget exactly what she quoted from Mr. Walker. Luckily the issue was solved as
the two girls were leaving which left us less distracted. Though Starbucks was our only setting of
observation, Ms. Newton described her workplace setting at her apartment in Baltimore City,
which is a high rise with an open view of Mercy Hospital. Her work is conducted most of the
time at her desk outside of her bedroom.
Results
Social media writing is relatively a new genre of professional writing due to the fact the
internet and computers have only been around for about 30 years. Social media writing itself is a
mix of genres and can vary from business to journalism writing and many more. Social media
writing is not a fixed writing template it is ever evolving and changing. Our informant told us
through our interview that all she needs is a phone, apps, and the internet or cell service to work.
Years ago this easy access to social media writing was unheard of. You would have to sit at a
computer with internet to complete social media writing tasks years ago. Any genre is subject
to the pressures of changing situations, new writers and readers, and new content (Henze 344).
The artifacts of our informants work put this on full display as they range from professional
settings to more personal settings.
Our Informants Website
The website lays out all of Ms. Newtons credentials and makes an appeal to ethos by
showing anyone who may visit the website her qualifications, specific expertise, and prior
experience in the social media writing field. Along with the appeal to ethos there is a blog
attached that describes our informants job as a content manager/ marketer. Many of the articles
give tips about posting to social media. In 5 Social-Media Tips to Enhance your Marketing
things such as the most effective posting times for specific sites like Tumblr, Instagram, and
Twitter are listed. Our informant writes When I'm working with an ecommerce site, the best
time for me to post is Thursday night. My previous company Organize could sell almost three
times the amount of products online on Thursday night as compared with any other night of the
week(Newton n.p.). This one tip shows that even the smallest details can affect the social media
writings audience and exposure, which is very critical to effectively using social media writing
to reach a target audience. Along with posting time one must carefully choose which social
media site or medium to post to. This greatly depends who the target audience is because every
social media platform serves a different purpose and draws a distinctive audience. Understanding
this can make your marketing efforts go more smoothly. For example, you wouldn't want to
promote a law firm on Instagram or Pinterest (Newton n.p.). Again, the delivery greatly
depends on the target audience which greatly shows this genre is never fixed it is always
changing. Ms. Newtons post on enhancing your marketing specifically gives ways and times to
best reach a target audience. Another blog post titled SEO in a Nutshell describes a successful
social media strategy Its about adding quality and often useful content to your website that
together meet a PURPOSE that delivers USER SATISFACTION(Newton n.p.). This touches on
the need for usability when it comes to social media and how that goes hand in hand with content
to draw in a target audience.
BAD. Creative Agency
This is a site run by Ms. Newton where she puts her expertise of creating content to help
a brand get recognition and advertising. In this website there have been photos put on display to
show our informants editing skills. One photo is a black and white photo with a woman as the
focal point. The word black is written diagonally across it. The other photo is another black and
white photo of an apartment building, and it has excellence spelled on it. Together the pictures
spell black excellence. These photos show off just one of the ways our informant can get through
to a target audience. The slogan of BAD. Creative Agency is BAD. LIKE MICHAEL
JACKSON THRILLER BAD. BRAND RECOGNITION THROUGH CONTENT CREATION.
LET THE WORK SPEAK AND THE PEOPLE WILL LISTEN( Bad Creative Agency). Social
Media writing is a genre that uses aspects of many other genres, and depending on what kind of
brand our informant may be writing about that will determine how her writing is constrained if at
all.
Andre Walker Hair
Andre Walker Hair is a company that specializes in hair products for women with black
hair. Ms. Newton was hired to promote the hair products by Andre Walker. As stated earlier Ms.
Newton told us in our interview that one of her main tasks was to defend the brand when it
came under fire from a comment Andre Walker made. Andre Walker stated that a certain hair
style is very hard to upkeep and many took this comment the wrong way. She had to use social
media to defend the company and Mr. Andre Walker. This specific task showed a different side
to social media writing than just advertising. It referenced more than just a product Ms. Newton
was trying to advertise to a target audience by also trying to sway public opinion on the matter.
Along with this task our informant also took and edited pictures for the companys website.
Since the company she was advertising for had a specific product and specific audience that
constrained what she could do with both text and photos. The photos must display the hair
products in a favorable way to the target audience, which in this case is women with black hair.
In this case genres establish, articulate, and reinforce socially recognized relationships, and
these relationships play a role in how the content of messages is understood (Henze 351). There
is a clear relationship between women of color and their black hair. The pictures used on the
website are showcasing black beauty and black excellence which will resonate with the target
audience.
Four One Oh! Fashion Blog
Our informant runs a fashion blog along with all of her other work. The blog is dual
purpose because it is something she enjoys but it also brings in revenue. In this case it both
encompass a personal and professional tone. The blog contains the use of specific brands as
advertising, and the blog itself has a store. The store contains t-shirts, and pins that support black
power. The theme of Black power is sprinkled into all the work she does for companies and
herself. This theme throughout her works speaks to the target audience she is trying to persuade
using social media writing. In The Perfect Look from ASOS Ms. Newton uses her blog post to
show off outfits from ASOS, a clothing store, and puts links to the items in the text. She is
advertising for this company using her platform in hopes that she can get people to buy the
pieces she talks about and models in her blog post. In another post What to pack for a quick
weekend getaway Ms. Newton again mentions specific brands by saying Sweats are comfy. I
can layer them. And mix pieces. I found a few cool pieces at Bloomingdale's and Free People
that I cant wait to show you guys (n.p.). The blogs are written very causally in the fact theyre
not written in a way that screams buy this product Im advocating for. There is a relationship
between Ms. Newton and the readers of her blog where they trust her fashion sense and based off
that they may buy what she is advocating for.
Conclusion
Social media writing is an ever growing, ever-changing genre of professional writing.
The necessary credentials required in other genres of professional writing do not apply because
the field is very broad and very new. Once the topic or product being written about is discovered
by the intended audience then social media writing has the ability to become more specific, and
centered towards its audience. The relevance of Social Media writing is not something to be
undermined. From a logistical standpoint, it is one of fastest growing mediums of technical
communication. As of August 2017, two-thirds (67%) of Americans report that they get at least
some of their news on social media - with two-in-ten doing so often, according to a new survey
from Pew Research Center. As a primary source of information, the prominence of social media,
and technical writing in social media will only increase (Shearer).
Anyone can participate in social media writing, It is the collective voice of a specific
culture that technical communicators need to be aware of. After interviewing Ms. Newton and
studying her works, weve learned that knowing your audience is the most important factor in
social media writing. Having an awareness of what websites you should post to, and what times a
post will reach your audience effective is also very important. Social media encoompassses all
types of multi-media platforms to reach your audience in the most successful way. The
Ethnography of social media writing allows us to keep up with our changing professional world,
giving us an understanding of our current social and professional climate.
Work Cited

Andre Walker Hair. https://www.andrewalkerhair.com. 2017. Accessed 2 November

2017.

Bad Creative Agency. http://badbranding.agency. Accessed 2 November 2017.

Henze, Brent. What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Genre. Solving

Problems in Technical Communication. The University of Chicago, 2013. 337-361.

Print.

Newton, Tia. https://www.tianicolenewton.com. 2017. Accessed November 2 2017.

Newton, Tia. The Perfect Look from ASOS. Four One Oh!, 7 November 2017,

http://fourone-oh.com/2017/11/07/perfect-outfit-asos/. Accessed 8 November 2017.

Newton, Tia. What to pack for a quick weekend getaway. Four One Oh!, 6 November

2017, http://fourone-oh.com/2017/11/06/pack-quick-weekend-getaway/. Accessed 8

November 2017.

Shearer, Elisa, and Jeffrey Gottfried. News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017.

Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, 7 Sept. 2017,

www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/.

Accessed 15 November 2017.