News Websites and Social Media are Most Common Paths to Online News

We are lambasted with online news every single day, but where are we finding this information and what are we doing with it?  The Pew Research Center has just released some interesting research results that shed some light on these two questions.

The Results of the Study

For the study, more than 2,000 American adults who received some type of online news from February 24 to March 1, 2016 were asked the following two times a day:

a) If they had gotten news online within the past two hours; and

b) If so, what their experience was with the news

The study found that there are a number of different pathways Americans use to get their digital news fix.  But the two most common in the study were news websites and social media.  Below are the results of their research:

• News organization website or app: 36%
• Social media: 35%
• Search engine: 20%
• News organization email, alert or text: 15%
• Email from family or friend: 7%
• Other: 9%

When Consumers of Online News Take the Most Action

The study found that people were more likely to take some sort of action when they receive a news-related email from a family or a friend (73%).  Talking with someone offline was the most common action taken after consuming digital news.

News received through a search engine was second most likely to elicit some sort of action at 62%.  For social media, 53% of instances resulted in a follow-up action while for a news organization website or app, action was taken only 49% of the time.

Key Takeaways from the Study

Social media is overall the most effective way to get information out to people and to evoke action from consumers.  But as this study shows, nothing beats “word-of-mouth”-type marketing amongst trusted friends and family when it comes to inspiring people to take action.

Want to learn more about how you can improve your digital media marketing strategy?  Give Small Screen Producer a call today to learn more about the exciting opportunities you can start taking advantage of at (281) 569-4370.