The Impact of Social Media

on Publishing and the

Rise of Social Media Curation

The Rise of Social Storytelling

In a world where real-time social media networks have become a platform for citizen journalism,
do we consider these networks to be news outlets themselves?

Twitter leads the media and the blogosphere in

breaking news about US Airways flight 1549
crashing in New York's Hudson river

February 2009

Social media changed news coverage

after the Boston marathon attack

January 2015
The Paris shootings: When a calamity strikes,
many of us turn to Twitter for news

First tweet from the US Airways flight 1549 disaster

January 2009
News of the plane crash involving Turkish Airlines
flight 1951 near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam
broke first on Twitter, before being picked up by the
mainstream media

April 2013
Charlie Hebdo: A week of horror when social media
came into its own

November 2015

First tweet from the Boston marathon attack

Social Media is Changing the News

Individuals used Twitter to break the news of a plane landing on the Hudson river, as well as the
Turkish Airlines crash at Schiphol in 09, the Boston marathon bombings in 2013, and more
recently, the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in January of 2015 and the Paris shootings
in November of 2015.
However, people turn to social media not only in crisis situations: social media also plays a huge
part in sports, entertainment, and politics. Oreo did a great job during 2013s Super Bowl,
turning a blackout into a viral marketing opportunity. You probably remember that night when
Ellen DeGeneres Oscar selfie topped the year on Twitter? It was 2014s most retweeted
entertainment tweet.
Twitter has become integral to the political conversation and has enabled direct communication
between politicians and the world. Do you remember Barack Obamas most retweeted tweet?
Announcing his second presidential term, Obama received over 700K retweets and close to 300K
likes.
People turn to social media for many reasons, creating a wide variety of conversations, from
#LeftShark to #BlackLivesMatter, from #SCOTUS to #DeflageGate. 76% of internet-using
Americans are on social media. Safe to say, social media is hot.

Journalism in the Age of Social Media

As social networks reshape news telling and news sharing, their impact goes well beyond those of
news consumers. The creators and distributors of news are also evolving in response to this
phenomenon.
Practicing journalism has changed because of this dynamic, because readers now expect to receive
news instantly and get constant updates.
Fortunately, 5 out of the 6 editors surveyed by Jennifer Alejandro said speed or immediacy was the
primary benefit social media afforded them. The main risks they identified were accuracy, the need
for verification, and the loss of control over the information. Social media adds a layer of
information to existing news sources, helps journalists source eyewitnesses quickly, and enables
editors to tell the complete story, but how do you ensure the positive benefits of social without
spending exorbitant amounts of time and resources on finding, policing, and monitoring social sites?
Those focused on the digital strategy of a publication know that readers are more demanding than
before. They expect a highly engaging experience and want to be engaged where they are: on social
media or with social media content. With attention spans of just seconds (humans now have
shorter attention spans than goldfish, thanks to smartphones), audiences are harder to reach and
more difficult to keep engaged than ever before.

The Editors Conundrum

The Editors Conundrum

In some cases, journalists compete with the average citizen for reporting in breaking news
situations, because sites such as Twitter are increasingly being used as an outlet for and
In a world where real-time
have
become
a platform
for citizen journalism,
a way to social
spreadmedia
news,networks
especially
by the
younger
generation.
do we consider these networks to be news outlets themselves?

The changing consumer perception of news and the desire for real-time updates has encouraged
journalists to step into a different role in situations where theyre live-tweeting from the scene and
updating readers with vital information on events. The challenge for editors has been around getting
people to read as much of their content as possible. However, visitors who arrive from social media
are more fickle than those who arrive directly.
People rely less on homepages and search engines, and are more focused on getting the news
where they spend most of their online time on social media. At 31% and rising, social referrals
have now become the single biggest source of traffic for most online publishers. However, those
being referred from social media are tricky customers: they tend to spend a lot less time on site and
view far fewer pages.
How do you give readers what they want, while continuing to deliver high-quality, fact-checked and
award-winning content? By combining both editorial and social content, which helps publishers to
change this dynamic.
In order to engage this social audience and keep it hooked, its crucial to blend your editorial content
with high-quality social content. The result is a more social-oriented website, where todays
audiences feel more at home and spend more time.

Turning Engagement
into Revenue

Social referrals are tricky customers and can create countless headaches for those responsible
for digital engagement and monetization on a publishers site.

Readers expect a high-quality digital experience. They expect a site to be fast, with speedy load
times and interactive elements such as video, but also expect a refined, leading-edge visual
presentation with fancy images and fonts. Publishers need to be aware that their credibility
diminishes if they dont deliver this high-quality experience.
To live up to todays higher expectations, websites need to be engagement-oriented. The key is to
keep innovating in user experience, driven by social. Use the power of social media to expand your
audience engagement.
Editorial content, enriched by social content, should be more interactive: readers want to like, share,
comment, and discover. Interaction drives stickiness and more opportunities for monetization:
the longer your readers stay on your site, the more revenue you make.

33%

50%

31%

46%

Nearly 1 in 3 adults under

age 40 get news & product
info from social media

Half of social network

users have shared photos
or videos

Over 31% of websites

traffic arrives through
social media

Over 46% of social network

users have discussed a
news issue or event

The Best of Both Worlds

Most audiences consume news through multiple sources from publishers and the social sphere.
A tool that brings both social media and traditional reporting together helps give readers what
they want. Social media curation tools, which bring safe, relevant, and timely social content to
your site from across properties, do this for you.

A social media curation platform finds & filters relevant social content and posts in real-time
next to your articles. The social media curation platforms that publishers worldwide rely on to tell
the whole story and drive engagement typically have the following attributes:
INTELLIGENT & RELEVANT
Using artificial intelligence, social media
curation platforms find the most relevant
data out of millions of articles and social
media posts. The more sophisticated
platforms also take language into
consideration.

REAL-TIME
Nothing turns readers away more than
stale content. Deliver the crowds
perspective on breaking news and
events from social media into one single
stream to get a real-time take on events.

AUTOMATED
Based on natural language processing
and artificial intelligence, highly
intelligent algorithms select the most
relevant social media content on a completely automated basis. That is what
makes the product powerful and unique.

CLOUD-BASED
A cloud-based social media curation
platform enables you to focus on your
core - the news and your audience. Look
for a platform that is easy to use with a
worldwide scalable infrastructure that
allows you to set it up once and save
time & money.

SAFE
Protecting your brand means excluding
profane, irrelevant, and competitive
content. Advanced filtering makes it
possible to automatically filter out
unwanted content, and allows you to
blacklist your competitors. In the end:
you stay in control of the content.

REVENUE-GENERATING
Using an ad-supported stream helps you
not only create new revenue opportunities, but also eliminate up-front fees and
capital costs. By integrating the social
conversation into your website, you will
be able to keep people on your site
longer and better monetize the traffic.

DISCOVER THE VALUE

OF SOCIAL MEDIA CURATION
Find out how you can engage your audience with the power of social content.

GET STARTED

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