Storm Surfers

Journal 3: Storm Surfers

Strom Surfers is a documentary about two Australian surfing legends, Ross Clarke-Jones and Tom Carroll who spent a few years travelling all around the world searching for the most dangerous waves on earth. At nearly 50 years old, both of them still dare to tackle those big and dangerous waves, which other surfers would never attempt. With the help from the meteorologist and surf forecaster, Ben Matson, the hunt for waves as high as a four storey building becomes a strategized and time conquest. Their show only can be seen in Discovery Channel. This journal will examine various media platforms that used by the Storm Surfers to extend its life and marketability of the program. The platforms that this journal will be focusing on are Storm Surfers' Twitter, Facebook page, IPhone and IPad applications, and its YouTube channel.

Firstly, this documentary has brought themselves closer to their audience by creating Twitter account. Storm Surfers has developed their own Twitter account to share the surfing tips with surfing enthusiasts, links to teaser of their upcoming episodes and the experience while making this documentary. But, they mainly used Twitter to update their audience about their latest episodes and videos. By having the social media approach, this documentary is able to extend its life of the show by engaging with the audiences through micro-blog. For instance, if there is no more Storm Surfers on Television, the fans and audiences still can follow the recent updates and videos of the program via Twitter.

In order to increase the program rating and its reputation, Storm Surfers has created a YouTube Channel, which contains videos of Storm Surfers duo hitting the waves. By having this YouTube channel, it enables audiences to watch the teaser and behind the scene of Storm Surfers as well as interesting videos which were 'favourited' by its channel. Also, this is to expand the contents of the channel so the audiences/viewers will get to watch different variety of surfing videos. This YouTube channel also allows the audiences/viewers to give their opinions or critics by left the comment underneath the video. Moreover, this YouTube channel is a platform for Storm Surfers to further its market to their potential audiences/viewers.

Beside Twitter and YouTube, the Storm Surfers also has its own Facebook fan page. Therefore, all the Storm Surfers Facebook fans can access to their recent updates, programs, videos and photos by just hit the 'Like' tab on its page. With the evolution of the Facebook fan page, Storm Surfers is able to market their program further through 'word of mouth' method. By having one person 'Like' their fan page, the activity of that person can be seen