Twitter has been in the news quite a bit themselves lately. The second largest social network in the world, launched in 2006, is preparing for the next billion dollar IPO, which could come as soon as later this month.
The Pew Research Center, which has been tracking social and consumer data and trends for years, along with the John S and James L Knight Foundation have just released research notes on a survey specifically highlighting data that pertains to news consumption. While more Americans turn to Facebook to get their news (30%) the 8% of Americans consuming their news via Twitter “stand out as younger, more mobile and more educated” reports journalism.org.
A separate study by Pew revealed that conversations on Twitter surrounding major news events have three specific trends: what gets posted centers on passing along breaking news; the sentiment shifts considerably over time; and conversations aren’t necessarily inline with public opinion.
At least part of this can be contributed to the way Twitter itself is used. It’s hard to tell long stories in 140 characters or less, however more and more news reporters, both traditional and online, are turning to the social network to “live tweet” breaking news. The very recent shooting tragedy at Garden Plaza in New Jersey (still unfolding as we publish), has news people and passerbys congregated at the scene, live tweeting in almost real time.
The sentiment shifting over time can also be contributed to the speed at which news is delivered across Twitter. As people have more and more time to turn to Twitter and other sources to find out more about a specific event or story, the sentiment changes. It also changes when new news breaks and the other stories age. Whereas with traditional media this cycle could take 24 hours, its even quicker than the “15 minute” news cycle that was made relevant when traditional news sources began turning towards online media.
The final thought trend can be contributed to the original survey data.
The survey looked at 5,000 US adults (3268 Facebook users and 736 Twitter users). They also ran an analysis surrounding major news events that were shared on Twitter over the last three years.
The survey revealed that 16% of US adults use twitter and a little more than half of those turn to Twitter as news, which for the survey was defined as “information about events and issues that involve more than just your friends or family.”
Twitter users consume more news using a mobile device than Facebook users. According to the survey of the Twitter news consumers over 85% get news from their mobile device while only 64% of Facebook users consume news on a mobile device.
Nearly half of the Twitter news consumers were also between the ages of 18-29. In comparison only 34% of Facebook news consumers were found to be in the same age group. To add to that only 2% of Twitter’s news consumers were over 65 where 7% of news consumers on Facebook were over 65.
As for education, 40% of Twitter’s news consumers had at least a bachelor’s degree whereas only 30% of Facebook’s news consumers had a bachelor’s.
Find out more here at journalism.org
