Social media: Breaking through the traditional news barrier

As of 2012, printed newspaper has been surpassed big time by online news revenue. Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming the new “Sunday’s paper” causing traditional news outlets to be a thing of the past.

At least three times a week, about 46% of people read the news online. This number will continue to increase. Already, over 50% of people find out about breaking news through social media. You can find out about anything and everything via social media.

As far as online news sources go, Facebook dominates how people are finding out about things. With 59% of consumers getting their information from Facebook, the social media site blow Google out of the water with their news consumers reaching 11.6%. Even huge breaking news stories have been reported first on social media sites including; the death of Osama bin Laden and Whitney Houston (which were both reported on Twitter before anywhere else), the Hudson River plane crash and the first announcement of the royal wedding.

Although about 50% of news consumers get their breaking news from social media, there are times where some of the information reported can be inaccurate and erroneous. Many reporters rush to be the first to send out a big story across the Internet, which can cause stories to be missing important facts and accurate details. Much like social media marketing, you don’t want to say something and annoy your audience indirectly.

Social media is a revelation and a great place to read up on trending topics, but my advice would be to check your resources and make sure what you’re reading is entirely correct before you share it out or believe it to be true.