News Highlights 2017: Mia Freedman, Mamamia Women’s Network

Print and online editors choose their highlights of 2017

Mia Freedman, Creative director, Mamamia Women’s Network

It’s been a huge year for Mamamia in terms of women being in the centre of the news and we’ve seen enormous growth in both videos and podcasts. Samuel Johnson reached out to us in the days after his incredible sister Connie Johnson died. He asked us to fly down to Canberra the day before her funeral so he and Connie’s sister and best friend could talk to Mamamia about her, because women had always been her and Sam’s focus with Love Your Sister and he trusted us with the story.

We recorded an exclusive interview for our No Filter podcast that was just heartbreaking but also uplifting and joyous in a strange way. We are finding that No Filter has become the go-to place for public figures when they want to do a serious, nuanced interview that’s not the usual radio or video sound bite. No Filter has had six million downloads this year and this interview was a real honour for us to do.

The other big story for us this year has been the use of humour to create branded content for our partners. There’s so much bad news at the moment that having a laugh has never been more important. We’ve had dozens of our original humorous videos go viral and the Life Hacks series is the perfect example of that. We’ve finally nailed the formula for making viral branded content and our audience has embraced it.