Hello there,

I came across an interesting post from the Head of Digital for a regional news site on LinkedIn the other day. 

She’d had a journalism student apply for an internship and this student had expressed an interest in working on the social media desk. Their school was skeptical and questioned whether the role was journalistic enough. Internships like these are only approved by schools if they meet certain criteria and responsibilities: coming up with topic and angles, conducting research, creating product, planning and organising and being able to collaborate. They weren’t sure those criteria would be met.

While the school was unsure, both student and Head of Digital were in no doubt about its value. All those things mentioned above are precisely what any social media editor worth their salt is doing in 2024. Sure, there may be places where social media is mostly about creatively promoting other people’s work, but increasingly it’s common for newsrooms to dedicate specific manpower to this area - especially in the ongoing mission to meaningfully engage younger audiences.

That this is happening doesn’t mean editorial teams are completely on board. The aversion to social media is being reignited by the German professor Martin Andree. His book, entitled Big Tech Must Go, reflects on where most online attention is being directed.

Andree highlights the attention monopoly held by digital giants like Meta, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon, which comes at the expense of journalism and other independent information. He argues that this imbalance undermines the free market economy and even democracy itself. According to his calculations, 80% to 90% of online advertising revenue goes to these companies. He claims they erode democratic principles, such as paying taxes. “I’m not painting a dystopia. These are the factual dynamics of the open internet, right now”, he said during an interview in Amsterdam this week.

The fact that journalistic productions on social media are hard to monetise is hardly a reason for journalism schools to discourage students from engaging with them. However, the enthusiastic reception of Martin Andree’s critique in rooms full of journalists reflects the conflicting feelings that are hard to reconcile and demand creativity from the journalistic sector.

TikTok videos that prove journalism belongs there

I suspect Martin Andree wouldn’t appreciate the blog we wrote some time ago about TikTok. Yet, in the spirit of embracing diverse opinions, I’ll highlight it anyway.

After all, news media continue to struggle with engaging younger audiences. And where are these young media consumers? On TikTok.

The platform and its format are perfectly tailored to short attention spans and users’ seemingly insatiable desire for content that makes them smile, laugh, dance, or nod in agreement.

While it’s an obvious choice for light entertainment and non-news content, TikTok is increasingly becoming an enticing platform for news media as well.

Traffic to news via social media

From a media business perspective, the question remains: what does visibility on social media actually yield?

Recent data analysis from smartocto reveals that traffic from Facebook to news sites has been steadily declining in recent years. However, for most media outlets, it’s still a significant portion of their audience and remains hard to ignore. Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn, on the other hand, have a marginal impact.

Interestingly, this decline is partly offset by growing traffic from Google Discover. Another ‘big tech’ player, one might say—but this is a platform over which you have far less control than social media.

WEBINAR

This newsletter highlights two significant challenges for the media sector: managing social media and navigating Google Discover. These are precisely the topics we’ll discuss in the upcoming webinar we’ve recently announced:

5 media trends you shouldn’t ignore in 2025

During the webinar, we’ll answer the questions that might keep you up at night:

  • How can you identify brand-specific user needs?
  • How can AI tools strengthen your newsroom's goals?
  • How can you still reach new audiences via social media in 2025?
  • How should you handle the growing influence of Google Discover?
  • How can you create valuable newsletters and use them to build audience relationships?

We’ll announce the experts one by one - on, you guessed it, social media. Dmitry Shishkin is the first confirmed guest.

We strongly encourage webinar attendees to submit their own questions for our experts to address. Start the new year on the right foot with this valuable smartocto webinar. 

  • Businesses are typically slow to adopt new technologies, The Economist writes. In this case, it’s an analysis of the economic impact of artificial intelligence: “There will be no immediate productivity boost from AI.”
  • Bluesky continues to grow as an alternative to Twitter/X. Interestingly, an age-old debate about account ownership (and whether the real person is behind it) is being resolved on the platform, as analysed by NiemanLab.

Since this was a long newsletter, I’ll keep the ending short: thank you for reading. 

Make sure you follow us over on LinkedIn (yes, yes, we know: another social media platform) - our new client case is very seasonal…

We’ll send another newsletter at the end of the year. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

See you soon!

Stefan ten Teije
Editor @ smartocto