In the last few years, there has been a major change in the way people access news, with more and more people preferring blogs or tweets to newspapers. The newspaper industry is clearly losing the online battle. Bloggers and tweeters are fast and flexible and are now posing a major threat to the newspaper industry. There is a pressing need for newspaper companies to come up with a solution to survive on the internet. The answer could lie in social media.
According to this article, U.S internet users spend 23% of their time on social networking. This excludes the time spent checking emails, playing games, performing searches or watching videos. This indicates how much power social networking sites hold.
Going social in a big way is a good solution for newspapers. Popular social networking sites provide a huge potential audience – Facebook has more than 500 million users while 145 million plus people use Twitter. This is a great opportunity and the newspaper industry needs to take advantage of it.
In spite of the huge potential of social networking sites, very few newspapers have taken these channels seriously so far. A site like Facebook can give a major boost to the popularity of a newspaper. Newspaper companies can actively interact and discuss the content with their readers to understand their audience better. It’s a great way to reach and connect with the younger generation as well. The good news for the industry is that some companies, like CNN, are now beginning to use social media marketing platforms to their advantage.