In a room packed with iPads and smart phones, journalists from the country’s biggest news organisations gathered last night to discuss how social media has impacted their work.
Despite the variety of journalists present – the panel included speakers from the BBC to News International – all were agreed on one point: social media is enabling news organisations to reach a new audience of young people.
Over six million people have downloaded the Guardian’s Facebook app since it was launched in September last year – and of those users 54% are age 24 and under, while 15% are ages 13-17.
Unlike the Guardian, the BBC sees social media as a publishing platform rather than a news-gathering tool. However it plans to follow in the Guardian’s footsteps by exploiting Facebook’s reach. The BBC have increased the amount of manually created content appearing on their Facebook page, which is visited overwhelmingly by a young audience – 60% of those who “like” it are age 24 and under.
But Mark Johnson, Community Editor at The Economist, showed that Facebook isn’t the only way to reach the youngsters. He said he was pleased to see younger readers leaving comments on The Economist’s Tumblr – even if they were “OMG I never knew the Greek debt was so big. lol.”
I managed to catch Joanna Geary for a quick chat about the Guardian’s Facebook app and the website’s open newslist.