Social media is continuously finding new ways to relay information with start-ups being conceived almost everyday. They continuously find innovative ways of  using developer APIs from the largest social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and soon Google+. One of the most common uses of social networks at the moment is news, both local and national.

Case Studies

The Hudson Bay plane crash, Osama Bin Laden’s death, the News of The World hacking scandal and  in the last two days with the Oslo Bombings, social media proves that it’s the most current way of staying in touch and following events as they unfold. In the case of the Oslo bombings, a new start-up service (Storify) highlights how easy it is to aggregate content from several social media sites to form a narrative.  Take a look >> View the story line

No surprise then that established social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have been quick to make sure journalists and newsrooms around the world harness the full features their services offer.

• Facebook’s Guide for Journalists >>View the Guide
• Twitter’s Guide for media >> View the Guide

Why Fight the trend ?

So while the social networks are promoting the free and open use of their services, some newsrooms and organisations are somewhat dragging their feet  putting more resources into making sure their employees have a rulebook to function from, rather than finding innovative ways and solutions to get round the challenges they fear. Reuters in 2009 released a social media policy that asked employees to refrain from breaking news on Twitter, whilst on the other end of the spectrum, Peter Horrocks, Director General of the BBC made the following statement in Ariel soon after his appointment:

“This isn’t just a kind of fad… I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

“Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand”.

Not allowing employees to break news via the social network before posting it to the wire, seems a bold and brave move. Bold, because pretty much every major global news organisation is doing the exact opposite and brave, because these organisations are already reaching out to millions in new ways and gaining a competitive advantage.

To Reuters, social networks and employees using them “threatens [their] hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or [their] brand“. To me that sounds like the organisation can’t trust the very individuals who help build and maintain that brand and reputation.

So What are organisations like Reuters missing out on ?

Two very important areas:

1. First strike advantage & brand awareness : Quite simply, break the news first and your reputation as a news source can only grow stronger. Yes you could break it on your website but this relies on people visiting your site and can suffer from a time delay between writing the story and publishing it online. Yahoo News is well known for publishing tweets with dead links about breaking news and then later hot-swapping in the live link once the piece is written, hours later. This technique ensures you break the news first, even if you don’t have the full story.
2. To reach new audiences. The sharing power behind social networking is the almost exponential. Break the news first, share it well and very quickly your message could be anywhere in the world to hundreds of thousands of individuals. Take a look at how quickly the Osama Bin Laden news spread :View the stats . You can reach audiences and people that your traditional print, TV, web, radio or email mediums could never manage within hours.

So why do social networks need breaking news?

So far I’ve only pitched the reasons why news needs to find it’s way onto social networks. Social networks seem to be the rule makers here. They’ve created services for the every day consumer that have helped connect people and information that as an organisation it would be unwise to not take them seriously.

However I think social networks get something back from the inclusion of current news from media organisations and companies. Using an analogy stolen from the Google+ concept, users want two streams

The first is a stream of updates from their social connections ranging from friends all the way to work colleagues, essentially information and updates that come from people.

The second stream consists of information and updates from the wider world and in this stream is where users interact with brands, offers, information about events and current affairs from around the world. Breaking news is what makes this stream current and is often what people come online to look for if they aren’t using services for social reasons.

Surely newsrooms are dying a death with the advent of social networks ?

This seems to be the underline tone that we get on blogs and forums about how news and it’s discovery and dispersal is no longer the responsibility of the newsroom but instead, this concept of news being found and shared by individuals “power to the people” . I’m not convinced for several reasons.

• Firstly for those of us who live and die on social networks and cant be detached from them, it’s often difficult to remember that were still a minority. Take Twitter as an example. Not everyone has twitter or the ability to access it on a mobile device.
• The top 5% of twitter users generate 75% of the tweets from the service so the idea that everyone wants to share is slightly flawed. More people tend to be consumers of information and so newsrooms have an important role to play here. Again you can find the stats here >> View the stats
• The news and information can only come from or be spread where the technology exists. In regional parts of the country and the third world. The infrastructure just isn’t there to support computers and mobile devices alongside demanding data consumption.
• Lastly, media and how we access it still has the same relevance it had years ago. When I want a summary of the days current affairs, I go to a news channel or website, not my Twitter or Facebook feed of hundreds of followers who don’t always tweet about the world around them. Add to this the fact that actually media organisations have been quick to embrace social media and so the relationship is adapting to their advantage. They now use social media to inform their activities and enhance them, allowing them to better deploy their resources.

… I’m not a media professional or journalist so maybe I’m missing out an important perspective or maybe you agree with Reuters. They are a respectable news organisation and have made up for their lack of presence on social networks with a very strong presence on handheld devices and online.