Media Trends 2017 Edition

Why is social media important to information providers? For the first time in the Pew Center’s surveys, more than half (55%) of Americans ages 50 or older report getting news on social media sites in 2017.

And not just one site Not only have Americans grown somewhat in their use of social media for news overall, but now they are more likely than ever to get news from multiple social media sites. About one quarter of all U.S. adults (26%) get news from two or more of these sites, up from 18% in 2016 and 15% in 2013. Instagram’s news users, for example, are much more likely to also get news on Snapchat (40% do so) than are LinkedIn’s news users (8% of LinkedIn news users also get news on Snapchat), for example. But Facebook, with such a large news user base, overlaps with just about every other social media site

So which sites are we getting our news from? Facebook by far still leads every other social media site as a source of news. This is largely due to Facebook’s large user base, compared with other platforms, and the fact that most of its users get news on the site.  With Twitter, while a large share of its users get news on the site (74% say they do), its audience is significantly smaller overall. This means that overall, fewer Americans get news on Twitter (11% of U.S. adults).

Which sites are growing in importance? Since 2013, at least half of Twitter users have reported getting news on the site, but in 2017, with a president who frequently makes announcements on the platform, that share has increased to about three-quarters (74%), up 15 percentage points from last year.

Twitter, in addition to getting nearly daily attention from the president’s posts, spent the year promoting the platform’s potential for news publishers and has announced launches for multiple news streaming partnerships. YouTube launched and expanded YouTube TV, and the site added a “breaking news” summary on its homepage. It also continues to be used for disseminating information to small, dispersed communities. Snapchat won over a number of big news names this year for its group of Discover publishers: CNN, NBC, and The New York Times joined, and the platform plans on continuing to bring in others.

Demographics of users There are some key differences in the demographic makeup of each site’s news users. Instagram and Snapchat news consumers are considerably more likely to be nonwhite and younger. Twitter and LinkedIn have the largest share of college graduates among their news users – 59% of LinkedIn’s news users have college degrees, as do 45% of Twitter’s news users. The news user bases of the two largest sites – Facebook and YouTube – include more older Americans than those of smaller sites such as Instagram and Snapchat. Snapchat has by far the youngest group of news users – 82% are ages 18-29. While Facebook and YouTube are still the most popular among this age group for news overall, the makeup of the app’s news audience means that about one-in-five (21%) 18- to 29-year-olds now get news on Snapchat.

Many social media news consumers still get news from more traditional platforms Many social media news users also get news from a variety of other platforms, although there are some differences among the users of the various sites. Twitter news users, for example, are more likely to also often get news via news websites and apps than Facebook or YouTube news users. Facebook news users are more likely to often get news from local TV than those on YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat.

The Modern News Consumer, Pathway to News: Pew Research

About two-thirds (63%) of Americans say family and friends are an important way they get news, whether online or offline; 10% see them as the most important. Still, online news organizations play the larger role: 36% of online news consumers often get news from news organizations, compared with about half as many who do so from people with whom they are close (15%). Even fewer (6%) say they often get news from people they’re not close with.

"If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next." : State of Media, Pew Research.

The fact that young adults have greater interest in news on social media does not result in greater engagement with news there, as they are no more likely to share/repost news stories or comment on news stories than others. Despite their lower levels of news interest in general, on social media, those ages 18-29 are at least as likely as others to often click on links to news stories (30%, which is on par with those ages 30-49 and higher than those 50+).

More people are getting news from their phones: Source

Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy 2016 study on the ongoing mobile revolution Mobile devices are less conducive to the consumption of news than desktop computers for a variety of reasons, including connection speed, smaller screens and variable costs for access. Although news outlets are reaching a wider audience through mobile devices, and there are some dedicated news consumers who spend a significant amount of time using news apps, most mobile users’ encounters with news are incidental and brief. The conclusion? “We found that, relative to computer users, mobile users spent less time reading news content and were less likely to notice and follow links and to do so for longer periods of time.” Source

Source Facebook sends by far the most mobile readers to news sites of any social media site, while Twitter mobile users spend more engaged time with news content Both Facebook and Twitter serve as important sources of news for a solid portion of users, but for each only a small core consider it the most important source.

And traditional publishers recognize the need for social media sites

Many college newspapers are going from print to digital and social media “A strong emphasis will be placed on covering campus news on social networks such as Twitter.” Source

The danger of relying on nontraditional news outlets

In this class we will learn how to cater to the platform All social media platforms are not created equal – and that’s a good thing. Each social network has its own unique strengths, opportunities and quirks, and this is one reason why it’s not a good idea to draft one post promoting your content and then blast it out across all your social channels. On Twitter, you want short, witty verbal content with a picture and relevant hashtags. On Instagram, you want a luscious picture (also hashtags), on Snapchat, an engaging multimedia story.