Last night a couple of us attended a CIPR discussion on how traditional print and broadcast media outlets are responding to the rise of social media. Despite the panic in some parts of the industry that social networks are stealing audiences away from traditional news outlets, the insights shared suggest this might not be the case.
The event provided a good insight into how newsroom journalists are beginning to use discussions and trending patterns on Twitter and Facebook as sources when chasing leads for new stories and piecing together reports.
As Claire Wardle from the BBC College of Journalism noted, trainee journalists entering the industry are increasingly adept at trawling for information from Twitter and Facebook. But even seasoned reporters are being trained in the use of online dashboards to collate the constant streams of information coming in from around the internet.
She cited last year’s student protests against education spending cuts as a story that demonstrated the real value of first-hand accounts posted online. During the protests, the official line was that things were progressing peacefully. However, first-hand accounts from activists held within the police barrier, which were uploaded to sites such as Twitter, Flickr and AudioBoo, painted a different picture.
Enemies or bedfellows?
A related issue that is perhaps closer to the PR and marketing community is the relationship between traditional news websites and social media platforms. One of the most interesting stats shared by Nic Newman showed that nowadays the average time users spend accessing information on traditional news sites is around four to five minutes per day. This contrasts with around half an hour spent on social media sites.
You might think this confirms the worst fears about social media eclipsing traditional news. However, the evidence Nic presented hinted at more of a symbiotic relationship between the two. Apart from people who are actually at the scene of a breaking story, the majority of posts sharing news information on Twitter and Facebook rely on linking to a traditional news website. Around 10% of all traffic to news sites now comes from links on social media (with most from Facebook thanks to its vastly greater user base). Instead of replacing news content, chatter on social media platforms is helping drive traffic to traditional coverage of stories.
One interesting detail that emerged is how the kind of story being shared on Facebook differs compared to Twitter. Nic presented a list of the current most popular stories on the two platforms. It showed that Twitter users tend to focus more on spreading the latest news developments. In contrast, on Facebook it takes days or even weeks for stories to ‘break’ in terms of large numbers of users sharing them. The types of stories shared are different as well – Twitter users like to share ‘straight’ news reports, whereas Facebook users show a greater interest in sharing the more weird and wonderful side of the news – hear about the Chinese student selling a kidney to pay for an iPad?
Learning to talk
Of particular interest to the marketing and PR professionals in the audience was the revelation that media outlets share similar challenges to commercial brands when trying to establish an effective voice and presence on Facebook and Twitter. The consensus among the speakers was that the nature of the platforms suits a bit of personality – which is why feeds from individual journalists have often had greater success in engaging with followers than the official accounts set up for programmes and papers.
Overall, the evening did a lot to dispel concerns about social media eclipsing traditional news platforms. In many ways, journalists are in the same boat aa the marketing community, faced with the challenge of balancing the new formats and dynamics of social media with their existing output.