Recent Report Looks at Social Media Posting and News Consumption Trends in 2023

The Reuters Institute has released its annual review of stories consumption trends, which, in some ways, also reflect broader online usage habits, and as such, it includes some worthwhile points of note for social media marketers which can be seeking to higher connect with their audiences.

The report, conducted in partnership with YouGov, incorporates responses from almost 100,000 web users, across 52 nations, and features a heap of in-depth evaluation of stories engagement trends, in addition to people’s views on algorithmic interference, left/right wing bias, criticism of media outlets, etc.

The complete report is available in at a whopping 160 pages, so there’s plenty to dig deeper on. You’ll be able to download the complete report here, but on this post, we’ll take a take a look at a number of the high level findings.

First off, the info shows that social media is now the popular source of stories content, overall, compared to accessing news publisher web sites and apps direct.

As you’ll be able to see on this chart, that’s especially pronounced in younger user groups, with those under the age of 24 (within the UK in this instance) way more more likely to depend on social media platforms to get news content, versus visiting a publisher website direct.

That’s not great news for publishing providers, who generally get only a small portion of their referral traffic from social platforms, but this also may not account for those who find yourself tapping through to articles from a Google Search, for instance, which stays the important thing traffic driver for many.

The information also shows that this behavior varies significantly by region, with users in Asia, Latin America, and Africa more more likely to lean on social apps, while Asia-Pacific markets are likely to turn to news aggregator sites, like Yahoo, to not sleep thus far.

That is a crucial usage shift, which underlines the influence that social apps have in several regions – and it’d be interesting to also measure the health of the local media industry in regions where direct access stays strong, and the way they’re driving ongoing support for his or her local press.

The information also provides some interesting insights into evolving social media usage habits, including this overview of how younger users are shifting their social media attention over time.

Facebook and Instagram are down, while TikTok and WhatsApp are up. And Snapchat and Twitter usage stays relatively stable (even after Elon Musk’s takeover on the app).

TikTok’s growing influence has been well documented, while the rise of WhatsApp reflects the broader trend away from public sharing, with users now way more inclined to post content in smaller, private groups, versus subjecting themselves to potential scrutiny and judgment by sharing to the most important social feed.

The identical can be reflected on this chart:

People just aren’t seeking to post their very own thoughts and opinions at the identical rate as they once were, as a result of reactive angst, potential division, in addition to the never-ending memory of the web, which has left people less inclined to make use of their social platforms as a method to broadcast their perspective.

That’s driven Meta, specifically, to make messaging a much larger focus, while Twitter too is now exploring recent ways to have interaction users inside DMs, by improving the sharing experience. Meta’s own internal data has shown the identical, that fewer persons are posting to each Facebook and Instagram than they’ve prior to now, and that trend is probably going driving more people to show to messaging apps, with the improved privacy of WhatsApp also offering additional assurance.

This also implies that a smaller portion of users are actually driving the social media news agenda, as fewer persons are actively posting, which is one other trend of note inside the broader news consumption shift.

It is usually value noting that each Facebook and IG remain very talked-about overall, so it’s not like they’re dying out as critical drivers of connection. However the trends highlight TikTok’s rising influence, which has develop into a key entertainment source, together with the decreasing interest in posting for all to see.

This may be a mirrored image of Dunbar’s Number theory, which states that humans can only ever maintain meaningful relationships with a maximum of 150 people at a time, regardless of how hard we try. As such, there’s really no have to be broadcasting to everyone, or following a whole bunch of individuals, because for many, it’s only the smaller groups that you just ever maintain any real reference to either way.

The early allure of social media was that we could all have our own broadcast channel, but it appears that evidently, over time, we’re also becoming increasingly aware of the downsides that may include that, and disinterested in corresponding to a result.

By way of news consumption specifically, Facebook stays the important thing driver amongst social apps, though it has declined significantly in recent times.

As per the report:

“Facebook stays a very powerful network (aggregated across 12 countries) at 28%, but is now 14 points lower than its 2016 peak (42%). Facebook has been distancing itself from news for a while, reducing the share of stories stories people see of their feed (3% in line with the corporate’s latest figures from March 2023), but within the last 12 months it has also been scaling back on direct payments to publishers and other schemes that supported journalism. The expansion of YouTube as a news source is commonly less noticed, but along with the rise of TikTok demonstrates the shift towards video-led networks.”

Video, overall, tends to drive more engagement, so it’s no surprise to see each YouTube and TikTok gaining traction here – though that may raise more concerns in regards to the potential influence that the Chinese government may or may not have over how TikTok operates.

The report also notes that Twitter usage stays strong since Elon took over, with Twitter users also more more likely to be actively engaging with news discussion.

“Twitter users usually tend to concentrate to hard news subjects corresponding to politics and business news than users of other networks, whereas TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook users are barely more more likely to eat fun posts (or satire) that relate to news.”

This has all the time been a key consideration for Twitter. While it may need fewer users overall, those that are actively engaging in tweets are likely to be more in contact with the newest information, and usually tend to share their thoughts and opinions on such, which are sometimes then aggregated to other networks. As such, Twitter’s influence is definitely more significant than the raw numbers would suggest.

There’s a heap to dig into in the complete report, which, again, is 160 pages long, so there’s no way I can do it justice here. In the event you’re desirous about news trends, you’re higher off downloading the entire thing, and taking in the particular points of interest.

You’ll be able to access the complete 2023 Reuters Institute Digital News Report here.