Does News matter in an era of Social Networks?

India is one of the countries where news consumption in all media (print, TV, online) is on the rise. At the last count — there were an estimated 15,000 newspapers and 250 news channels in India the total unique users visiting news information sites in the country grew by 45% in 2014 to 45 MN in 2014 (from 31 MN in 2013) and spent over 2 billion minutes on news content every month.

However, more and more users are spending their time on social networks. How does that impact how the consumer hears news and more importantly what does that mean for those of us who create news?

I did a little experiment today to understand what users are doing on social networks — and specifically looked at events that are popular in India.

What the pictures above show is that some of the most popular conversations on social networks (Facebook in this case) is being driven by users understanding what is happening in the world around them and a prominent source of that is news from trusted media organisations. We don’t just use social networks to find news but also join in the conversation by commenting and sharing with our friends and community. And in India, there is particularly the case given the passion for news. A lot of the consumption then happens on news sites as users try to find more into details.

The Reuters digital news report for 2016 has some interesting findings about audience behaviour — they are more and more engaged on news now. I mentioned previously that more than 54% of Indians went to a new site every day. Similar levels were reported at a global level with 18% of the population as news lovers who check news more than 5 times a day and 44% checking news between 1–5 times daily.

As importantly, when consuming news they are active participators — according to the same Reuters survey:

1. 31% are proactive participators — where they write on a blog about news, comment on stories or send stories to a social network

2. 21% are reactive participators will share, rate or like a news story they run across and finally

3. 48% will talk online with their friends or face to face about a news story they read online.

News brands are trusted (more than individual journalists and editors).

What does this ultimately mean for marketers? 
 It means a winning combination — the combination of engaged users who are actively reading, commenting and sharing trusted content.