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The Reuters Institute recently published its annual Digital News Report. The top line findings were very interesting. We’ve been able to pore over the study’s raw data tables. From our analysis, we’re sharing six insights. Some reinforce conventional wisdom, others turn it on its head.
The conversation about news for the past year or so has focused on social media and the spread of fake news. Social media has a strong presence in news distribution with two in five people using it in the last week as a source of news. However, marginally more people use the websites and apps of TV and radio companies as a source of news. The third most used sources are the websites and apps of newspapers. In short, established media brands dominate online news.
And the BBC dominates more than any other. Online, 51% of British adults use BBC News. Offline, the domination is equally strong, the most used traditional source of news is BBC TV News. The second most used traditional source is BBC Radio News.
To understand quite how dominant the BBC is, it’s worth noting that BBC TV News is watched by more than twice as many people as ITV News and three times as many as Sky News.
Unsurprisingly, people hate online ads. Three in five (59%) think the ads on news sites are intrusive. Only one in 11 (9%) disagree.
Despite this, only about a quarter (22%) of British adults are currently using ad blockers. Even better news for publishers is that of this group, three in five (60%) have temporarily switched off their ad blocker. Moreover, the vast majority of ad blocking occurs on computers, whereas the trend for online news consumption is mobile first.
Moving onto social media, Facebook Inc dominates massively. Of the social networks listed in the study only two of the seven most popular are not part of Mark Zuckerberg’s online empire. It’s worth noting that its two messaging apps, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, are used more than Twitter. In the broader context of news on social media, this is not good for Twitter.
More British adults source news from Facebook than any other social media network. While nearly three in 10 (29%) use Facebook, only about one in eight (12%) use Twitter.
Much was made when the report was launched of the power of messaging apps as news sources. The numbers are startling in other markets, in the UK only one in twenty (5%) adults get news from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. This number is likely to grow but that growth isn’t rapid. Back in 2015, the same study found 3% of British adults using WhatsApp as a news source.
The question of whether stumble upon or seek out news is perhaps the most interesting. Twitter is becoming a news feed. More people (7%) think of it as a useful way of getting news than those who say they tend to find news on Twitter while using it for other things (5%).
Conversely, news discovery on Facebook is more serendipitous. One in five (20%) adults mostly see news on Facebook while using it for other reasons. Only about one in 12 (8%) think of Facebook as a useful way of getting news.
At Evolving Influence, we think it’s important to go beyond the top line and understand how people consume, discover and share news. We’re poring through the data tables from this, as well as looking at data from Ofcom and other sources. If you’d like to learn more about what we’ve learnt, we’d be happy to meet for a coffee and a chat.
LinkedIn has been part of Microsoft for a few weeks now. As you’d expect from a firm with new owners, there’s been a steady stream of news it seeks to turn change into momentum. So what are they building?
The most immediate changes are cosmetic. LinkedIn has long had a reputation for being startlingly clunky network. A series of cosmetic changes, which began to rollout before the deal was complete, have updated its appearance and tweaked some of the structure; profile pages are easier to access, as are company pages for page managers. Navigating LinkedIn is still testing at the best of times, however, so expect more changes to come.
LinkeIn’s last reported revenue ($960million) showed a year-on-year increase of 23%. It’s impressive growth, but almost two-thirds came from its talent solutions offering.
We all have anecdotal evidence that people only really begin engaging with LinkedIn when they’re looking for a job. Be honest, when was the last time you brushed up your profile? LinkedIn needs to breakaway from its reliance on its talent solutions income.
It looks like one part of the solution is CRM. Microsoft has an established CRM tool, Dynamics, but it’s clunky, focused solely on the enterprise (where the money is) and unloved by anyone who uses it. LinkedIn has the potential to become a strong mobile CRM. Last week, through a calendar integration, they enabled mobile app users to see the LinkedIn profiles and updates of people they have meetings with.
This is a really simple but key integration. Better, more current information about the connections you’re actually dealing with, rather than the ability to spam people you’ve never met might be something more people are willing to pay for. And getting people to pay is critical if LinkedIn is address its financial dependency and the reputation limitations of its recruitment solutions. In its last quarterly results, LinkedIn said less than a quarter of its users visit the site at least monthly. It doesn’t, however, break out how many of those regular users pay for premium accounts. It’s likely to be a small fraction.
The calendar integration is a simple first step. Integrating with email services and other social media (where possible) could see LinkedIn become a very powerful, incredibly simple social CRM that sits in your pocket. It could become a hub that helps you manage relationships.
Last week, the second edition of FutureProof was launched at an excellent event hosted by the PRCA. Edited by Sarah Hall, the book contains 39 chapters written by leading communicators. It includes a chapter I wrote on CSR.
The book instantly became an Amazon bestseller within its category. You can download the Kindle version here. You can buy a printed edition here.
If you want to learn more about FuturePRoof, Stephen Waddington has written an excellent post titled ‘A story of two books about public relations – separated ‘by 25 years’. As has Paul Sutton, who describes it as, “call to arms for the PR industry.” Meanwhile you can listen to interviews with some of the authors on the C-Suite Podcast, whose team came down for the launch and spoke to some of the authors.
Somerset House is currently hosting the first London Design Biennale. Artists from all over the world have contributed work exploring the theme of Utopia by Design. The exhibition fits into Somerset House’s broader theme for 2016: Utopia (this year is the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia).
Thirty-seven nations, spanning six continents have contributed. Their work is varied and thought provoking. Exhibits look at everything from accessible design, visualised data and interactive installations that respond to movement and breathing.
‘Stump of Water’ is a delight.
I was particularly struck by Japan’s contribution. Artist Yasuhiro Suzuki’s installation has great variety. Pieces draw you in, encourage interaction and surprise. Titled ‘A Journey Around the Neighbourhood Globe’ the work looks at the world from various perspectives. The pieces dealing with time and globes are particularly appealing. The piece titled ‘Stump of Water’ is a delight, deeply thoughtful yet with a lightness and joy which is sometimes lacking in conceptual work.
It’s likely that the most talked about work will be Turkey’s ‘The Wish Machine’. A wonderful installation using plastic tubing that runs throughout the West Wing of Somerset House. People write wishes and place them in containers which are fed into the tubes. The wishes are pneumatically sent through the pipework and deposited into the unknown. The work is bold, easy to engage with and had people queuing up to get involved.
I recommend sitting in a corner and watching as others play.
Austria’s ‘LeveL’ is another exceptional work. Essentially a massive mobile, the work responds to movement in the air, just breathing on one of its light pods will see its glow diminish. It is a strong piece of work, that wills you to rush toward it and yet to fully get perspective on it I recommend sitting in a corner and watching as others play.
The London Design Biennale was fun and a great chance to see the work of artists from across the world. It’s on at Somerset House until 27 September. I thoroughly recommend checking it out.