News in the Newsfeed
The younger generation spends a significant part of their day on their smartphones and this affects how they live their day to day life, and also how they consume news. 69% of people under 35 access news via smartphone, through news alerts from news aggregators like Apple News or from their social media newsfeed.
To see how people find news we see what their first contact with news is in the morning. Research has shown that 43% of those under 35 have their first contact with news via their smartphones, compared to the over 35s 19% (they prefer TV-suggesting that they have brand loyalty as they have to pick one channel to watch). Out of the people using smartphones, 39% of the over 35s go directly to a news app on their phone whereas 50% of the under 35s go straight to social media and messenger apps.
Smartphones are used more as a “time filler” than for a specific purpose so this means that the younger generation appreciate convenience and entertainment and they don’t want to work hard to find their news.
This all contributes to why news publishers around the world are finding it progressively harder to reach the younger generation and the outcome is that individual news brands are not important to those under 35 and they prefer to pick what news interests them from multiple outlets, typically the most convenient.
In the world’s top 25 apps you won’t find a news app from a brand, instead you will find social media and messenger aps as well as games. This is because the younger generation will not keep an app that does not provide an exciting user experience.
So, news brands will have to bring the news to the younger generation on their turf- social media.
However, this doesn’t mean that traditional news brands have no value to the young, research has showed that everyone has a personal “anchor news brand” who they’ll turn to when they need more information. This choice seems to come directly from their parental influence of which brand their parents are loyal to.
So where are people getting their news from?
Twitter is the younger generations go to for breaking news as they appreciate that it’s direct from the source and that it hasn’t been filtered through a news conglomerate yet so there’ll be less chance for any added bias or agenda.
Facebook is popular with all ages. 30% of the general population say they get their news articles from there as it’s diverse and you’re guaranteed to see at least 6 different topic areas.
Instagram has a younger audience with 59% of users being the ages 18–29. This agrees with the idea that the younger generation have little brand loyalty as news accounts have very few followers on Instagram. As only the top two UK news sites have more than one million followers, all the others have significantly less.
So, If the younger generation do not follow specific news brands on their social media how are they hearing news via their newsfeeds?
The answer will vary from person to person, but most will come from news stories that other people have shared or commented on, banners from Apple News, Snapchat explore, related and suggested stories when you’re viewing something else and most surprisingly, memes.
A meme is a humorous image spread on the internet and the majority of the younger generation will be following one of these meme pages. But they’re not just funny, if there’s a certain type of breaking news, typically a famous person’s death, these meme pages will share it and spread the word, reaching the younger generation faster than any news brand. This is the perfect example of how the younger generation consume their news, they like it to be convenient and amongst entertainment as they would not enjoy scrolling through a news app all day.
How to create brand loyalty for the younger generation still remains problem and many say it cannot be done. But with adaptations such as platform and media exploration as well as becoming more visual and exciting may encourage some.
