Social media news updates are brief posts on a social network platform that share news-related content with a target audience. They range from personal anecdotes to professional announcements and are meant to inform and engage audiences while promoting engagement and conversation. They are typically optimized for social media platforms and include a call to action encouraging followers to like, comment, or share the news for greater visibility.
Authenticity: The ability to provide real-time insights and authentic perspectives into an event or trend makes social media a powerful tool for reporting news. This is especially true when users themselves are the source of news, such as in the case of social media coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting.
Immediacy: In many cases, social media is the fastest way to get a story out to an audience. This can be helpful when a breaking news event happens, such as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.
Lynn Sweet, a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, offers a useful reminder that no matter how she obtains her news, “News is news, whether it comes from a Twitter tip or a Facebook post.” She also notes that social media sites are often used to disseminate information to an audience a fact or two at a time, before it is organized into a full news story for dissemination on a website, in a TV broadcast, or in a newspaper. Managing all these social media channels can be challenging, but tools such as a social media management platform can help streamline processes and ensure consistency of voice and tone across all accounts.