Tweeting the News: Tweeting the News: How Americans and U.S. News How Americans and U.S. News Organizations Use Social Media Organizations Use Social Media

Dr. Marcus Messner@marcusmessnerwww.marcusmessner.com

School of Mass Communications Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

PressCamp Santa Cruz, Bolivia December 3, 2011

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OutlineOutline

VCU student surveyU.S. social media usesMedia engagement on Twitter

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

Survey on news and technology habits

November 2011Global communications class at VCU

148 students4

VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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VCU student surveyVCU student survey

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Top news sourcesGoogle 27.7%CNN 16.2%Yahoo 7.4%

U.S. social media usesU.S. social media uses

Pew Internet & American Life Project66% of U.S. online adults use social media

61% use every day

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U.S. social media usesU.S. social media uses

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Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Online social networks and social bookmarking allow traditional news media to increase Web trafficPromote news content (hyperlinks)Breaking news coverageBuilding and engaging community

Goal of Twitter study was to explore the adoption rate of Twitter by traditional news media in the U.S.

Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Social bookmarkingSample: Top 100 newspapers and top

100 TV stations in the United StatesMarch 25-26, 2009 & August 1-2, 2010

Twitter useAnalysis of newspapers and TV stations

with Twitter accounts: 180 in 2009, 198 in 2010

April 4-5, 2009 & August 1-2, 2010

Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Adoption of social bookmarking for Twitter?2009: 36.7% (n=73)2010: 91.7% (n=182)

Difference in adoption of social bookmarking for Twitter and other social networking sites?Facebook MySpace Twitter

2009 83.9% (n=167)

38.2% (n=76) 36.7% (n=73)

2010 97.5% (n=194)

59.8% (n=119)

91.5% (n=182)

Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Traditional news media use of Twitter?2009: 90.5% (n=180) have accounts2010: 99.5% (n=198) have accounts

2009: Ø 8.7 daily tweets (max: 110)2010: Ø 5.6 daily tweets (max: 96)

2009: 34.4% (n=62) did not tweet2010: 26.3% (n=52) did not tweet

Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Traditional news media use of Twitter?2009: 94.3% (n=1478) tweets news related, 5.7%

(n=90) personal2010: 96.5% (n=1073) tweets news related, 3.5%

(n=39) personal

2009: 93% (n=1458) of tweets had hyperlinks2010: 95.5% (n=1062) of tweets had hyperlinks

2009: 98.5% (n=1438) internal links2010: 99.3% (n=1055) internal links

Media engagement on Twitter Media engagement on Twitter

Twitter is fully adopted by traditional news media, but not used to its full potentialMainly used as a promotional tool with

extensive internal linkingMost tweets are still shovelwareLittle online community building and

engagementDisconnect between Twitter adoption

and social bookmarking availability

What to do?What to do?

More attention needs to be paid to community building

Twitter needs to be engaged as an online social network, not just another publication platform

Regular engagement, even with shovelware

Questions?Questions?

Dr. Marcus Messner@marcusmessnerwww.marcusmessner.com

School of Mass Communications Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

PressCamp Santa Cruz, Bolivia December 3, 2011