Social Media Catches What Mainstream Misses
The stories and issues that gain traction on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube differ substantially not only from those that lead in the mainstream press but also from one another, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
Each of the three social platforms studied has its own personality and function. For example, over a 29-week study period that included analysis of Twitter, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube just once shared the same top story—the civil protests that followed the Iranian elections during the week of June 15-19, 2010.
Across all three social platforms, however, attention spans are similarly brief: 53% of the lead stories on blogs stayed on top of the list for no more than three days. On Twitter that was true of 72% of lead stories, and 52% were on the list for just 24 hours.
Below, other findings from the study New Media, Old Media, from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).
Bloggers Prefer Emotional Stories, Science and Technology
Bloggers gravitate toward stories that elicit emotion, those that involve the rights of an individual or group, or those that trigger ideological passion. During the 49-week study period that included analysis of blogs and YouTube, popular blog stories were often those that people could personalize and then share in the social forum—at times in highly partisan language.
In the broadest sense, the top news agenda in the blogosphere coincides with traditional press. Among bloggers, politics (17%) and foreign events (12%) were the topic areas linked to most often, compared with traditional press's 15% and 9%, respectively.
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Comments
Excellent insight into the nature of the big 3 social media channels! The key to successful communicating hasn't changed though: if you want to get the word out about your business, product, or cause, your message must be positioned in such a way that the audience you're pitching will be receptive to what you have to say. Social media helps in this regard: it is important to consider what audience you're targeting and the media channel you're using before writing your copy. Although this will be more time consuming, the results will be well worth it!
"your message must be positioned in such a way that the audience you're pitching will be receptive to what you have to say", probably a large number of us know that... however, how/when/where/by whom to deliver it seems very relevant as well. I once hired the target market to market for me with "mysterious" result...