Monday, March 19, 2012

Traditional news sites outshine social media sites


Despite what you might have heard, social media has not taken over the news business. In fact, only 9 percent of American adults say they get their news direction from Facebook or Twitter. Most continue to go directly to news websites, use keyword searches or aggregators.

That's really not much of a surprise to me. Admittedly I'm older than many in the Pew Research Survey, and the survey has much, much more than just this number (frankly, the spread of mobile technology and the somewhat surprising fact that is building on loyalty for traditional news sites are much more important), but we hear so much about social media -- which is gobbling up so much of the advertising dollar -- that it's welcome to have some sanity returned to the business.

In short, readers trust old brands for news. They also like news-specific sites for their news reporting while leaving the latest friend checking in at Appleby's or niece needing a piece for Farmville to social media.

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