Industry Hot Take: Sharing News Online

By Victoria Moore, GLC Intern Extraordinaire

The start of a new decade doesn't just indicate the passing of 10 years, but also provides us an opportunity to look to the past for lessons and to the future for predictions. As we jump head first into 2020, many public relations and business professionals are looking to the past to predict how they can effectively keep up with the ever-changing digital landscape.

Any social media user knows this: social media is an efficient, accessible way to share personal and professional information. A study featured in the World Economic Forum states that 80 percent of people will be active on some social media platform by 2023. Whether you find yourself scrolling through the endless pictures of your friends' children on their Facebook pages or the numerous industry news articles on LinkedIn, you are keeping up with the online conversation. What you may not realize is how reliant the marketing, business and public relations industries are becoming on this very concept.

So many of us get news through posts shared by my friends and family on social media platforms first, rather than the media outlet or company social media account where the news was initially published. The link may take us to that outlet, but we're first seeing the news on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. A 2012 study from PR Daily states that people are getting their news from social media more than ever before. Individuals tend to access news information shared from their friends and family members more than news shared from a media outlet or a brand or company's social media account. The goal of businesses is to strategically share their news so that it will best reach their desired audience(s). But what does this mean for our future as working professionals if the public is accessing news using personal social media before traditional media outlets or business accounts?

A perfect example of the growth of online news beyond traditional news outlets is LinkedIn’s online newsroom. The network currently employs 65 journalists and is looking to add to that number. By placing editors in different countries (including 20 editors based in the United States), LinkedIn is succeeding in is moving the conversation from a professional, stagnant one to a personal, shareable one.

As publicists and businesses plan for the year ahead, it's important to reflect on how your content is being received and conveyed to the public. This past decade is proof that there are endless ways to share information online, but having that information go beyond traditional media outlets and reach readers personally is vital.