Today’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism digital news report provides some much needed-momentum to some media organisations, businesses and brands alike to rethink how they use digital and social media.

The report talks about how we face “a continual transformation of digital”. But far from being something that should terrify us, it’s a really exciting time to change things, become more insight-driven, experiment and innovate – and reap the benefits.

The old way of just posting the same series of article links on Twitter and Facebook, or the same video with the same post copy, isn’t as effective as it once was.

I’ve pulled out some of the most relevant findings and how they can be useful to your business.

Where do people get their news or information from?

The report notes that social is growing as the main way people get their news, and it claims there has been a steady decline in people accessing websites and apps directly.

Despite some of the headlines, Facebook is still the most important platform to share news – although this will likely decline as Meta shifts away from prioritising and investing in it. One of the country’s biggest digital publishers, LadBible, still enjoy huge success on there, using performance data to inform them what posts to put on there.

Twitter can still work for big events, newsworthy moments and particularly to appeal to those working or interested in the media, politics and finance. But I’m sure a lot of you have seen how news is not driving engagement as much, generally.

It’s interesting to see how ITV News has cut back on posting and being more focused on what they share, redirecting efforts to other platforms (more of which later.)

The report also shows increases in YouTube and WhatsApp, both of which generally have untapped potential for many organisations.

Getting your news into the WhatsApp ecosystem is key – that’s where people mostly talk, share their thoughts and forward on things to group chats of like-minded individuals, rather than be criticised or put down on public forums.

Think about how you use WhatsApp – personally, I use it the most of any channel to share and read stories that I exchange with family, mates and colleagues. I think there’s real opportunity there, especially with the community group function, for organisations.

YouTube is still generally underutilised, particularly by brands, who still see it as a dumping ground for TV ads and don’t maintain and grow it. Though it has proven fruitful, there is so much more opportunity than just putting clips of your output on there – smaller, digitally-savvy operations have been making some great and popular bespoke shows and content – some slick, others just two experts chatting about topics and answering viewers’ questions. The chance to monetise is probably the best of the platforms, too.

I’ve seen a lot of chatter today about the stats showing an increase in TikTok usage for news – but Instagram is still twice as big a source, including among 18-24 year olds. The visual element is crucial, but put effort into the post copy too – tell the story there. How many times have you really bothered to go to the link in the bio unless you’re really motivated?

Surprisingly, there was no mention of LinkedIn, which has increasingly become influential and a powerful tool to promote your work, engage and connect with people.

What I also felt was missing from the report was the importance of your own platforms (a view Thomas Baekdal is a big advocate of.) Social publishers can change your business model overnight and seriously affect your distribution. We’ve seen how BBC News under Naja Nielsen and ITV News under Stephen Hull and Matt Williams are investing in iPlayer and Sounds and ITVX, and it has paid off. And Global are providing news content from LBC in their app, which houses The News Agents. Live tweeting has been replaced by liveblogs on news sites – something ITV News was doing a decade ago, under Julian March and before that, Andrew Sparrow at the Guardian.

Also, and this seems to have been overlooked, all audiences – including 18-24 year olds – prefer to read text-based versions of news than listen or watch something. Future online news habits will evolve, with more audio and visual formats, but investing in your website is still a sensible move.

Who do people get their news and information from?

Mainstream outlets and journalists still are ahead on Twitter and Facebook, but that’s not so clear cut on other platforms where smaller and more niche media, and especially more personalities and ordinary people, are influential.So, it’s not just thinking about what your reporter or chief executive posts, but how you encourage people with an engaged following on a niche subject you’re talking about to share/post about what you are doing.

Unless it’s genuinely useful and informative to that audience, will trigger an emotional reaction, or is visually attractive enough for them to stop scrolling, it’ll be hard to get your followers to read the post, tap on the link – and you’ll be lucky to get them to share or like it.

Rather than pump out posts, think about why someone would want to share it: as Jeff Jarvis acutely observed a decade ago, primarily we share things as it reflects how we want to be seen by others, or a reflection of our beliefs.

Think before you post: what do I want someone to feel about this post? How can I encourage them to read/watch or share/like it?

Think about the messenger too – it’s often better to show the beneficiary or human side to the story, than a dry corporate voice. ‘Ordinary people’ as the Reuters Institute call them, can deliver your messages with greater success.

For ITV News, taking a ‘people like me’ approach to The Rundown series on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok has really paid off, with a regular set of younger multiskilled producer/presenters selecting, presenting and editing the stories.

I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with communities on Twitter and Facebook, setting up accounts on niche interests and cultivating and engaging a following on subjects from ‘on this day’ memories of WWF wrestling to non-alcoholic beer. If you share something that appeals to that audience, and appear genuine and credible in that sphere, it can fly. Think about how you can do that, or how you can tap into that community as a welcome addition, not an awkward outsider just pushing your links.

It’s been pleasing to see the evolution of how these groups are treated. Once dismissed as “echo chambers”, now they’re talked about more as “communities”, with a range of views on like-minded subjects.

Who chooses what news and information you see?

I was a bit surprised in the presentation of the report’s findings that the authors jokingly said: “Don’t worry, we won’t talk about AI!” Thanks to Dataminr’s Kirsten Dewar for raising it in the Q&A. Yes, there’s been a lot of attention on it recently, not helped by some alarmist or misleading stories, but it has the potential to be a gamechanger in terms of production and promotion.

TikTok has enjoyed huge popularity with its AI-backed For You Page, but many don’t regard it as machine-based as it is so accurate so quickly with identifying your interests. It’s notable that of the options given to people in the survey, they preferred the idea of having stories automatically selected based on what they’ve previously consumed, rather than by an editor, as they have been for decades in broadcasting, print and on websites.

Experimenting with AI, with human oversight, is not a new phenomenon. I read many years ago how PA news agency were experimenting with machines writing fact-based articles, including election results. With limited resources, focusing on the content that really serves your audience with machine-based pieces for the more low-level news could be the way forward.

But please, always check it with a human editor…

Here’s a fun challenge for Londoners… see how many bizarre errors you can find in MyLondon’s guide to London Bridge station. Written by an AI? https://t.co/44sjoYHQpR

— M@ (@mattfromlondon) June 13, 2023

In his excellent newsletter, James Ball talked about how at BuzzFeed he wrote four different headlines and after 15 minutes’ performance, the computer selected the one that was doing the best.

And LadBible revealed their ruthlessness when it comes to poor-performing content – if a post is not doing well within the first hour, it can be reworked – or removed completely.

I also wonder what the difference is between AI overseen by a person and data-based decision-making? I’ve had many experiences where senior figures want to go with their instinct of how to present or promote a story – but looking at what audiences actually have engaged with previously on the topic should play an equally strong role in informing what stories to cover.

The Telegraph, for example, has done a very good job in building their subscription business, serving stories that appeal to their audiences through their STARS audience metrics, which provide a far more sophisticated way of measuring success than the ‘most read’ stats. Dan Silver has talked about this in great depth.

Who recommends news to you goes back to my earlier point on influencers – not necessarily celebrities, but those with engaged audiences on specific topics. Those less trusting of the media are more likely to engage with stories shared by individuals they respect.

For example, at the Department for Education, we had great success with getting high-profile individuals to share our content, despite their regular criticism of the government, because it was designed to resonate with them on an issue they cared about.

This is great. Football is great. Jemima is great. https://t.co/DjIYpAubIV

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) February 9, 2022

Are you turning people off your stories?

Who hasn’t got a news alert that startles you – only to find out it’s of no interest to you at all?

A one-sized approach to the news and audiences is in the past – appoint reinforced by the report’s findings. At least the BBC, to their credit, are testing the ability to personalise text alerts.

This quote from the report’s lead author Nic Newman stood out to me:

“It is clear that many websites and apps are optimised for those that are super-engaged with every twist and turn of today’s news (and politics) agenda. But these approaches also seem to be turning large sections of the public away – with potential long-term implications for civic and democratic engagement.”

It’s no surprise that national politics is one of the biggest news turn-offs for the less news-obsessed. Focusing on the beneficiaries of government policies, or those disadvantaged by them – real people – has been a far more effective way to tell these stories where needed.

And it’s not surprising that interest in news has sharply declined in recent years – I sometimes feel bombarded by content, posts that are not relevant to me. This goes back to my earlier points on insight-based decisions on what to cover and what to post.

Thankfully we’ve seen a decline in clickbait and more sensationalised social posts, reinforced by changes to Google’s search rankings system, and there’s been a flourish of new “varied ways of connecting with audiences”, as Kamal Ahmed put it: personality-led posts and content, explainers, data journalism, fact-checking.

This is an approach that companies can utilise too. There’s no one magic solution – it’s having a range of storytelling techniques and using your previous experience of these formats to judge which is the best one to use in that instance.

Talking of which, I really enjoyed BBC News’ TikTok explainers of key political and economic topics, like this chat with Faisal Islam, made by Jan Bruck

@bbcnews

No gobbledygook allowed. #dragraceuk #bagachipz #rupaulsdragrace #inflation #bbcnews

♬ original sound – BBC News

A quick word on podcasts – a hugely popular format, but one that still has a long way to go in news, with only 8% listening monthly. Looking at the top 10 suggests more creative ways to talk about the news (and please, less of a focus on Westminster!) Certainly making video versions and promoting clips on social can help drive traffic.

That’s all well and good, but how do you make money?

This has been the big dilemma for news organisations. I’m still surprised to hear some news chiefs talk about social media being a source of income – I think gone are the days of large financial support from platforms to do news on there. And apart from YouTube, monetisation is poor.

Publishers talk about a mixture of income revenues – for example, LadBible and The News Movement are tempting brands and businesses with their knowledge of audience insight, data and social storytelling.

That best data comes from owning your own platforms. As Naja pointed out, data from social channels is “a marketing ploy” – it’s not the same as your own stats.

I was editor on The Sun’s website during a difficult time as we were working out how best to work with a paywall. I was an advocate then – even if I didn’t have all the answers – and seeing how other news providers have successfully done so, I still believe it’s the only way forward now.

It will be a difficult conversation for audiences – the UK was the lowest of 20 major countries for paying for news – but declining ad revenue isn’t going to save your business. Portraying these reader revenue models as having greater benefits beyond just news could be one solution. The Telegraph has established an award-winning games and puzzles section, for example, along with high quality, distinctive journalism.

More and more of us supporting individuals and smaller teams on Patreon because we enjoy their podcasts, and to a lesser extent Substacks. What can we learn from those successes for more established outlets?

If you want to hear the news slightly differently…

Hannah Vaughan Jones and I have been experimenting with putting some of these ideas into action with a show called Sorry You Went Viral: all about the stories that people are sharing and enjoying on social media – and the human side of what it’s like to go viral.

Check the show out on YouTube and podcasting platforms – or search for the show name on your social platforms.

I’d love to know with you about what you’re finding is working successfully for you or your organisation, or if you want to chat about how you can put some of these changes in place.