The
news hasn’t been kind to Twitter lately.
The
social network’s stock has plummeted (even Jim Cramer is worried), and the user
experience has been assailed by old and new media alike. But a new study of
4,700 social media users by the American Press Institute shows that all is not
lost in the world of the Tweetbot.
Twitter
still excels in one important area: breaking news.
As
any journalist can tell you, timelines get quite crowded when news breaks, and
the study offers empirical proof of this—70 percent of those surveyed said they
had used Twitter in the last month to follow a news story in real time.
More than that, users actively participate during
breaking news situations:
·
80 percent of those who tracked news in the
last month clicked through to links as they scrolled.
·
Only 39 percent of Twitter users normally do
this.
There are a lot of ripple effects to this trend:
·
Half of users went to a search engine to get more
information about a topic.
·
40 percent checked another news website.
·
34 percent went to another social network.
Other sites also feel the benefit of Twitter’s reach:
·
Half of users went to a search engine to get
more information about a topic.
·
40 percent checked another news website.
·
34 percent went to another social network.
Once the breaking news event is over, many users continue
to engage with news:
·
74 percent of users go on Twitter daily.
·
64 percent said they both read and share articles
on the site.
It’s not just breaking stories that make Twitter go
crazy—anyone who’s followed the Super Bowl or the Oscars on social media knows
tweeters bring valuable information to the table:
·
79 percent of users scroll through their
timeline during these events.
·
60 percent actively tweet or retweet.
·
45 percent click stories or hashtags.
The people who report the news also benefit from all this
sharing:
·
73 percent of those polled follow individual
journalists.
·
67 percent of tweeters encountered these
journalists for the first time on Twitter.
·
53 percent followed the writers’ work outside
of Twitter after discovering them.
This
study proves a theory that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has had for years—in
a 2013 interview with CNBC, Mr. Dorsey said he knew the site was a viable
source for news during the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson,” when passengers live
tweeted Capt. Chesley Sullenberger’s heroic plane landing.
Source for the Survey | http://www.americanpressinstitute.org
Link for the PDF | http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Twitter-and-News-How-people-use-Twitter-to-get-news-American-Press-Institute.pdf
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