Social Media, News, etc…
3 ways to look at what social media is doing to/for news
Ben Wirz, Knight Foundation@bthewirz
Background
How News was traditionally done
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Traditional news made possible by traditional revenue model
Write/edit News
Market, Print &
Distribute
Audience Engagement
25% Subscriptions 75% Advertisement
15% Content Creation
75% Marketing & Distribution
Revenue
Costs
• High cost of distribution, natural geographic monopolies, limited audience choice & aggregated bundles of content•Mostly one-direction
Old news model created lots of:-strong, professional, editor-driven news-wealth (and style!)
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But then along comes…
…the internet-Cost of distribution goes to 0-Advertising divorces content
-65% of online ads go to Google(50%) & FB(15%) (Source: emarketer)
-Content is unbundled
-"A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa." - Mark Zuckerberg-All news sites combined get ~1% of web traffic
No cost of distribution = people read what they want,(and a lot of what they want is squirrels)
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News Biz gets tougher, struggle for audience & revenue
0-30% Subscriptions 70-100% Advertisement
60-70% Content Creation
10-20% Marketing & Distribution
Revenue
Costs
Content Creation
Marketing & Distribution
Audience Engagement
Audience contributes content
Content shared & aggregated Social Sharing
*eg Salon, HuffPo, Alaska Dispatch, BaristaNet
Ongoing Disruption
Global newspaper industry is down 40% ($51B) in revenue since 2006
Sources: Mary Meeker, 2013 Internet Trends, Ken Doctor Newsonomics of 2014
30% cuts to newsroom staff over last 10 yrs = a lot less Local and Regional news:-Government-Education-Healthcare-Arts & Culture
Source: Steven Waldman, FCC, Information Needs of Communities
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The problem facing American journalism is not fundamentally an audience problem or a credibility problem. It is a revenue problem.
-Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism
$180M/yr invested in journalism by foundations 2007-2010
$1.6B/yr editorial cuts by legacy newspapers.
Source:”The Information Needs of Communities”, FCC, June 2011
What social media means for news, Take 1: -Better channel to distribute news
-1.2B Monthly Active Users-728M log in daily-Growing 18%/yr (Sept 2013)Source: Facebook Q3 2013 Quarterly Report
-215M Monthly Active Users-100M log in daily-Growing 44%/yr (Oct 2013)Source: Twitter S-1 IPO Filing
A lot of people use social media
That was then… … this is now
No cost of sharing news socially
Using social media to distribute newsCan attract new audience at little cost
(Remember: new audience = new revenue)
Sources: Parse.ly Authority Report, Sept 2013Chartbeat, Understanding Social Sources, Oct 2013
Turns out: some people like getting news this way…
Source: Pew Research: The Role of News on Facebook, October 2013
…especially young people…
Pew Research Journalism Project: Twitter news consumers young mobile & educated, Nov 2013
…but people read topics they like* (not brands) and don’t come back…
*Choice of what to read has shifted from editors to readers.
Sources: Chartbeat, Understanding Social Sources, Oct 2013, Pew Research: The Role of News on Facebook, October 2013
And most people still don’t even get their news online.
-So social media does present a new channel for distributing traditional news (20% of online news traffic)
-But distribution is driven more by what people like than what editors choose
-And distribution of traditional news is only part of what social media does
What social media means for news, Take 2: -A new source of news
Easy Story--
-Vegetable cart repossessed by policewoman-Self immolation (Dec. 17, 2012))-Family protests (Dec. 18), posts videos on Facebook-”We are all Bouazizi” goes viral-Ben Ali leaves Tunisia (January 13, 2012 )-Arab Spring
Actual Story:
Credit: Ethan Zuckerman
• No traditional editors initiated this story
• No traditional means could stop this story (eg Gafsa)
• But “going viral” required much more than just Facebook.
Social media = new currency (literally)
Caroline Criado Perez: 1Bank of England: 0
What social media means for news, Take 3: -A new model of news
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Social media (and the internet) are making startups rethink news model
Mission/Brand
Create Distribute Consume
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You (the people) can now consume, create & distribute
Create
Distribute
Consume
Majority of traffic from FB~100% local news
-Fastest growing digital news site ever-Built to share
FB traffic = Google trafficUser base = Authors
-Majority of traffic from Pinterest-Articles optimized to be pinned
New news orgs built on social media
People like to share real news
Source: PolicyMic/KnightFoundation The 15 most shared stories on Monday , June 2013
Key questions for KF:
?What kind of news will news orgs built around social media
make?Is some news being left behind?
What is social media news better at?What do people need to know?
