A Scope of Daily Mail: A Look Into How Daily Mail Uses Social Media
The Daily Mail is a popular daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom. Its newspaper is the second most selling daily newspaper in the UK. Its first issue dates back to 1896. Daily Mail has since expanded from a daily newspaper into an online site called Mail Online. Mail Online launched in 2003 and has accumulated nearly 11.34 million visitors and counting making it the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world in 2014.
Along with its online presence, Daily Mail is extremely active on social media. The publication posts frequently across platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Their feeds consist of a wide variety of stories, ranging from funny short videos to breaking news stories.
Social Media and News
Recently, a story broke about a soccer team and their coach from Thailand after they became trapped in a cave due to a monsoon. This emotional and suspenseful news story has caught the attention of millions across the world. Daily Mail has been actively covering the journey of this story on three of their social media accounts.
Facebook is Daily Mail’s most popular account, having over 14 million likes on their main page. Daily Mail also created several complementary pages, including ones dedicated to sports, videos, and celebrities. Posts on their main page get anywhere from 32 shares and 213 likes to 1,923 shares and 11,000 likes. Videos on their main page over 250,000 views in just a few hours.
Daily Mail has been actively following the story of the Thai soccer team, telling several angles of it on their main Facebook page. On July 8th, Daily mail went live in Thailand breaking the news that “four members of the Thai soccer team out of the cave.”
Their next post to follow the soccer teams rescue takes a turn and reports on one of Donald Trump’s tweets relating to the rescue:
Throughout the rescue, they continued to go live and report on the story as more members came out. Even though the publication seems to make it their goal to share any news right as it happens, some of its Facebook readers found the Donald Trump tweet piece to be irrelevant to the rescue leaving several comments on the post. The Daily Mail’s Facebook page wants to appeal to a wider audience, so they create different content on the same story.
Daily Mail Facebook posts continually consist of a short caption and the link to the full story to their online site.
Their posts remain effective in that they give the viewer current news as it is happening. Daily Mail did a good job of posting updates quickly and clearly, and viewers responded well to it.
Twitter is also used consistently by Daily Mail in similar ways to Facebook. Their main Twitter page has 2.26 million followers with over 241,000 tweets. Daily Mail tweets several times an hour keeping their follower up to date constantly.
The Daily Mail took to Twitter to break the news of the Thai soccer teams rescue. They shared 4 tweets within 40 minutes to their followers:
This series kept followers in the loop Sunday morning, tweeting back to back as more members were rescued from the cave and directed them to the full article on their website.
Similar to Facebook, their tweets are concise containing a mixture of videos, pictures, and links to stories on their online site. These tweets didn’t get as much attention in comparison to Facebook. This could be caused by the use of the same image and caption making it overwhelming and less appealing to the viewer’s eye.
Snapchat
Snapchat is used on a daily basis by Daily Mail, as they post a series of multiple stories. These stories are largely based on celebrity news with large text captions, music, pictures and videos drawing you to swipe up and read the full story.
The Daily Mail additionally broke the news of the rescue to Snapchat as well, but a little bit differently. Snapchat followers were presented with one full story about the six boys being rescued later that day.
This is effective for the reader who isn’t constantly on twitter and only catches up on news once a day.
Instagram is used in a completely different way than any of the Daily Mails other social media accounts. These posts are all short videos ranging from funny cat videos to videos of crime.
The Daily Mail is best at breaking news as soon as it happens, drawing in millions of viewers who want to be up to date. Social media has given this ability to Daily Mail. It uses concise headlines to give their viewers information as fast as possible. They effectively relay the information that is being gathered about news stories and events around the world. Their reports on the rescue of the Thai soccer team did exactly that, remaining impartial, informational, and up to date on social media.
The Daily Mail, being a tabloid publication, is able to reach a large audience because of its unique and quick style. This style and their constant activity on social media allows the Daily Mail to keep viewers entertained.
