Facebook is driving traffic to news web sites, but Twitter barely registers

SOCIAL MEDIA WEB SITE Facebook is becoming an important driver of traffic to the world's top news web sites, while Twitter is having very little impact at all.

A report by the Pew Research Centre's Project for Excellence in Journalism on the top 25 news web sites in the US reveals how Facebook makes up the second and third most vital traffic drivers, with search engines like Google remaining in the top position.

In stark contrast, however, Twitter barely registered at all, which is a surprising finding given how popoular it is as a source of news. Indeed, many journalists, both professional and amateur, report directly on Twitter and most news articles get linked there, but it seems to be having a much smaller effect on traffic than Facebook and other resources.

It's clear that Facebook with its over half a billion members is a major player in all online arenas. Recently it was discovered that Facebook acounts for close to one in three ads on the internet. Since most news outlets also depend on advertising, that means Facebook is contribuing doubly to the ad market.

The growing influence of social notworking media is becoming increasingly important, so much so that news agencies are beginning to craft news that caters for the burgeoning social audience. Pew Research believes that this will ultimately affect the economics of the news industry, because reporters will no longer simply write stories that readers want to know about, but rather they will write stories that they think readers will want to share with others.

The study found that most news web sites depend on casual users who visit irregularly for a short space of time. Often these users will be directed to a news story through Facebook, rather than visiting the news outlets' web sites directly.

Some people are loyal news followers, which the report labeled 'power users'. These people visit their favourite news web sites at least 10 times a month, spending more than an hour reading the stories. However, these made up a relatively small number of total readers, ranging from as little as one per cent for Bing News to 18 per cent for CNN, with an average of only seven per cent in general.

The report found that news organisations will need to factor social network media into their strategy for deliving news and monetising those delivery channels. Most news outlets depend upon advertising from companies or search engines like Google to stay afloat, but a growing number now feature paywalls, where users must subscribe to access the news.

Rupert Murdoch recently tried the paywall approach with The Times. While on the surface this will bring in more direct money through subscribers, it often acts as a deterrent for many readers, particularly considering the free availability of news on the internet.

After erecting a paywall The New York Times lost 15 per cent of its readership and 30 per cent of its page views in the first 12 days. In contrast, however, the UK-based Times reportedly is doing well online, both through its pay-walled website and its Ipad edition.

Pew Research suggests that these web sites need to be versatile, catering for different audiences and employing different monetisation approaches. For now, however, we're not convinced that paywalls are well suited to the open nature of the internet. µ