Today’s tech-savvy generation looks for its news on social media networks

It is no secret that social media networks are a growing source of news around the globe. In fact, the American Press Institute reports that 88% of millennials get their news from Facebook (read the full report here). While TV is still a leading source of news in the UK, Germany, France and Japan, online sources including social media take the lead in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, USA, Urban Brazil, Ireland and Australia. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reports that, for consumers under age 35, social media and online sites combined rate higher than TV, radio and newspaper for “bringing the news to me.” Based on the vast amount of research out there, this style of passive news consumption isn’t going anywhere, so news organizations must adapt to the changing landscape of news distribution by implementing social tools into their workflow – without increasing overhead costs.

    Repurposing and sharing stories on social media networks with the help of Dalet

For years, Dalet has focused development on the need for news agencies to be the first to break a story. In order to keep up with the hyper-active 24-hour news cycle that has become the norm thanks to social media, Dalet has developed new features for journalists to publish directly to social networking sites. With the click of a button, a Dalet user can post content straight to Facebook and Twitter, thus increasing the speed in which news is delivered to a global audience. The story can be posted as-is to social media or edited from within the Dalet client or WebSpace interfaces to customize posts for social platforms.

Along with easy-to-use tools to edit and produce video content, Dalet has also provides one-click publishing of video content to YouTube. Dalet allows multiple social accounts to be linked to one main user account, which means users can upload content to their company’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, as well their personal accounts or a network’s local news social media accounts. Users can view their posts from within the Dalet interface and search through previous posts created from Dalet.

    Stop the presses! Stop the delivery vans!

In the past, the price of running a printing press and maintaining a huge distribution network served to keep the smaller news publishers at bay. Today, social media platforms act as their own “virtual printing press,” with the ability to distribute content at a fraction of the cost of traditional print media. Social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are joined by many medium and small social media platforms who, regardless of their size, are not hampered by the requirement to invest in expensive physical equipment, nor bound by geographic limitations.

    Social media = easy access for (and to) readers

Social media also sets lower barriers of entry for readers, making it easier to attract readers. The readers are already there: Facebook has more than 1.4 billion users with nearly 1 billion people using the service in a single day! Additionally, users spend enormous amounts of time on social media sites. Rather than spending time, energy and (most importantly) money trying to attract readers, why not go to them?

Although social media offers easy access to their target audience, news agencies must also take fact checking and approval into account – these are key to an agency’s reputation. By utilizing the built-in Dalet NRCS features, a post to social media is treated as any other story requiring an approval process.

    Relationship building: interacting with readers through social media

While publishers are cautious about partnering with social media networks, they can learn more about subscribers and potential subscribers who are reading their articles online. Through social media platforms they can learn which articles stimulate conversation, and, when done well, this engagement can build a positive relationship between the news publishers and their readers.

Another sign of change to come, Facebook has recently announced that it will share analytics with the news providers with which it has partnered. Understanding how their audience finds and shares content through social media sites will help news publishers prepare content that is better targeted for their current readers as well as their desired audience.

    The benefits of using the social media features of Dalet

As news consumption increases on social media platforms, any news organization can benefit from easy-to-use Dalet social media publication tools to reach a wider audience, break news faster, and improve content based on social engagement. The world audience consumes more news faster than ever before, and Dalet has the tools to meet this demand.