Is social media the future of news?
Social media users are increasingly turning to Facebook and Twitter as their preferred source of news and as business leaders it’s useful to know where our employees, customers and stakeholders access the news and information that shapes their perspective
TUNING into the six o’clock news bulletin on TV has been an integral part of our daily lives for many years. But that is changing – fast.
While social media is usually considered the go-to place to communicate with friends and family, a study from the Pew Research Centre last year discovered social media users are increasingly turning to Facebook and Twitter as their preferred source of news.
Sixty-three percent of both Twitter and Facebook users in the study said “each platform serves as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family” with uptake increasing considerably from 2013.
Using some tricky calculations based on the number of Facebook users overall, the study determined 40 percent of the (American) population considers Facebook a news source.
Millennials figure highly in the news consumption stats too. The Media Insight Project for the American Press Institute reports “57 percent of US millennials checked Facebook at least once a day to get news and information.” And the 14 percent you hope are not in your team are checking “nearly constantly”.
A Digital News Report adds that 18–24s have started to use a range of other networks, like Snapchat and Instagram, to access news stories.
News consumption through social media seems an obvious choice in our ‘on demand’ world. Why wait for a scheduled news bulletin when you can tap into news updates as they happen? Usually by the time six o’clock rolls around we’ve already read and watched the leading news stories on social media, on our mobile device.
How we tap into these news stories depends on the platform. For breaking news Twitter wins hands down; in a disaster we turn to Twitter for updates as they happen.
In a business context this corresponds with Twitter’s popularity for Tweet chats and following conferences and events live, via a hashtag. Twitter users actively check their feed for what’s new while Facebook users tend to stumble over a news story while checking out their newsfeed and then become engaged.
Social media is an interactive beast and that applies to news stories as well with millennials engaging with Facebook news stories by liking, commenting or sharing a news story or headline. Many even contribute to news stories with videos and photos. On Twitter, users tend to offer up their opinion on live news or events.
Social media platforms like Facebook, with over a billion daily users and Twitter, with 100 million daily users, wield enormous distribution power, reaching more audiences than any news publisher could alone.
Their power continues to grow as both Twitter and Facebook develop new initiatives to divert your news viewing away from the TV screen and instead to your mobile device and a social media app.
Twitter already has Periscope, the live streaming video app and has recently launched Moments, a curated newsfeed (not available in New Zealand yet). Facebook has also introduced live video, and for news publishers ‘Instant Articles’, causing a further disruption to the publishing model. Instant Articles ‘ live’ on Facebook, not on the news site – making news websites almost redundant.
Social media continues to disrupt the way we communicate and do business, and as business leaders it’s useful to know where our employees, customers and stakeholders access the news and information that shapes their perspective on the world, and on our organisations. Fiona Powell has trained, managed and presented to large and small businesses on social media. She is also the former editor of Management.