CNN Analysis
In the past week, I have completed an analysis on all the social media news platforms used by the national and international news entity, CNN. The reason I gravitated towards CNN is due to the fact that I already follow up on their posts on Twitter and their main page. CNN also happens to be one of the leading cable news networks in the United States alongside FOX and MSNBC, therefore, analyzing either of these entities would aid me as a reader and viewer to know how exactly am I receiving my information.
To start off, I began by analyzing CNN’s main page, www.cnn.com. My initial observation was that the website is clean, organized, and categorized. I believe this is crucial for any website regardless of what purpose it serves because as a reader and viewer, you want to be able to go on that website and not feel overwhelmed by what is presented. Going along with the aesthetics of CNN’s social media platforms, their Facebook and Twitter accounts are both succinct and organized and their Instagram account only posts pictures that are of high quality. As stated before, I believe this is great for readability due to the fact that the information is presented in a way that is easy on the eyes of the consumer.
As soon as you open up the main page of CNN, the first stories you see are “Breaking News” and “Top Stories”.
I believe this is a smart layout due to the fact that readers do not have to scroll and click on different tabs in order to get to the information that one might deem as more important and crucial than other information. Another thing you initially see when opening up the main website is the categorized topics on the top bar.
Some of these topics include but are not limited to politics, money, entertainment, style, health, U.S., and opinion. This is an aspect that I had never paid much attention to prior to this assignment so I was surprised to see how broad and inclusive the topics CNN writes articles on are. I assume that this positively affects their readership due to the fact that a lot of interests are being represented.
An interesting element of CNN’s website that I found while completing this analysis is that they label their paid partnership content very clearly.
I am not sure if this is something CNN has always done or if they barely started doing so after the Federal Trade Commission decided that partnership posts have to be disclosed across all social media platforms. Regardless, I personally believe that this is a positive thing because as a reader, I feel like I am not being deceived if I am aware of sponsored partnership posts. I also found very interesting that CNN has a button at the top of their website labeled “Live TV”, however, one must sign in with their tv provider in order to watch the live broadcasting for more than the 15-minute free pass.
Overall, CNN’s main page proved to be very succinct and easy to follow along, however, I found it very difficult to find any social media buttons or hyperlinks that could easily direct readers to CNN’s social media platforms. Once I did find them, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were the ones presented.
On CNN’s Facebook page, the first thing I noticed was Anderson Cooper on the cover photo. I believe that having Anderson Cooper as the cover photo was a wise choice because almost everyone knows Anderson Cooper and labels him as someone who is passionate and credible in his work. Not only does Anderson Cooper give a good name to CNN, but it also gives a sense of familiarity to readers when they head on over to CNN’s Facebook page. Another thing I initially noticed was that you can “chat” with CNN through Facebook messenger.
I think this is a phenomenal idea due to the fact that if you are trying to find a post on Facebook that was posted more than 24 hours ago on a page that is very active, it might take a lot of scrolling in order to find it. However, with the chat, CNN allows readers to ask specific questions that direct to specific articles.
CNN’s Facebook page does not post entire articles on their feed but instead post leads that attract readers’ attention along with the link to the article which when clicked on, will direct the reader to the main website. Their Facebook page is active, posting an average of three articles on the hour. Their page promotes the main website as well as their Instagram account.
Out of all the social media platforms, Instagram proved to be CNN’s least active. Although they post high quality, colorful, and attention-grabbing photos, CNN’s account does not promote the main website or any of the other social media accounts and also does not post include article links in their captions.
CNN’s Twitter account proved to be the most active of all social media accounts owned by CNN. With tweets being posted almost every 15 minutes, the Twitter account, in my opinion, is the best social media platform of CNN’s to follow in order to get caught up rapidly. With the option to get push notifications on every tweet posted by an account, I believe every news entity should get a Twitter account in order to be successful.
Overall, CNN is utilizing almost all of their social media accounts to their full potential which will most definitely broaden and increase their readership. Albeit that there might be a lot of things to be cautious of when using social media to interact with news such as clickbait or “fake news”, it is a phenomenal tool to use to not only become informed but inform others.
