What’s poppin’?

Social media is no longer a “trend” like it was 5 years ago. It has now become the norm. Social media is used all around the world and it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2020, an estimated 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025. (Clement, 2020)

With an estimated 7.6 billion people in the world, nearly half are on social media in some capacity. People are no longer waiting for the local or global news on television to find out what’s happening in the world that day.

The best social media network to share breaking news? Twitter.

Twitter has revolutionized the life of news as we know it and the newsrooms are in a rush to catch up. For example, the death of Kobe Bryant sent shockwaves throughout the entire world, but if you ask most people how they found out about his death, they would say twitter. Twitter has become the instant news hot bed and journalists are conforming to this by being much more active on social media sites like Twitter.

The audience can turn to Twitter to complain about a product. They can snap images of a protest and instantly share them on Instagram. They can use Facebook to generate buzz about an event. The list of things this now-active audience can do is endless.

In the long run, the main apps will always be Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Twitter is a virtual media scene, Instagram gives the visuals of the streets, and Facebook is combination that is a little more catered for the older generation. I am not sure if Facebook will be able to keep up with Twitter as the trends seem to lean towards people leaving Facebook in the future. Facebook has attempted to keep up by adding a lot of the same features their competition has. Journalism has went from pen to pad to revolutionizing into active social media users. Keeping up with the latest trends is what helps drive up an audience but at what cost? As journalists I feel as though our engagement with the audience should be as authentic as possible while also providing our best work to the people. As the use of social media goes up, so should the integrity of not just trying to be “hip”. Stick to what works for you and the masses will come.

References

Clement J. (15 July 2020) Number of Global social network users 2017–2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/