How Social Media is Changing the Way We Consume News Realizing the power of social media, even news channels and publishers are trying to utilize its reach to present news to the masses
By Nidhi Singh
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Social media has changed the way we interact with each other now, but its biggest impact is in the way millennials are consuming news now.
With the advent of internet, newspapers are finding it hard to survive. An Assocham report revealed that the Indian newspaper industry remains robust with about 62 million copies being published on an average everyday and common households continue to remain loyal to their morning newspapers. But young members of families are found to be more inclined to read news online or on social media, Facebook being the main player in this regard. Currently, the time spent by youth on newspaper reading has come down to half of what it was earlier.
Realizing the power of social media, even news channels and publishers are trying to utilize its reach to present news to the masses.
Here's how news channels, social media platforms and publishers are changing the way we consume news:
Get Your Daily News Fix
LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network recently launched the Daily Rundown Feature for the Indian market. It will send notification to its users on news stories to keep them updated. The notification feature will provide users a summary of the day's top news, curated by LinkedIn's India team. This new feature, which is already available in a few other countries, is now being customized to suit Indian members.
Winning Over Instagram Followers Through Content:
Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster has started providing news content on Instagram after Snapchat blocked its "Discover' service in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The new Instagram content aims to provide dedicated, creative, and captivating information to Arab youth. This comes as part of Al Jazeera's digital transformation strategy to reach users on all available platforms. Al-Jazeera has currently 1.6 million followers on Instagram.
Election Updates on Whatsapp:
In a bid to reach more readers, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC,) the leading British public service broadcaster, used private mobile messaging apps to engage with the Indian audience in 2014's general elections. The news organization used to send updates to users of WeChat and WhatsApp to spread and gather election content. It had also started pushing out audio bulletins and other updates related to Indian elections via WhatsApp, WeChat and Blackberry Messenger. The BBC first used WhatsApp for coverage of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013.
News On Snapchat:
News Television channel CNN (Cable News Network) launched a daily news show called "The Update' for Snapchat this year. The show goes up at 6 pm and runs for three to five minutes, featuring stories from reporters around the world. The reporting from CNN's own anchors, correspondents, and reporters get published on Snapchat every day in various countries as per their respective time zones, with rolling updates as news breaks. Each show features five or more stories from CNN's team around the world, further making CNN as a key source of breaking news for Snapchat users.
