Extra! Extra! Social Media Says ‘Bye-Bye’ To The News?

It’s not just Canada that is dealing with the news business.

Axios is reporting that, Social Media Traffic To Top News Sites Craters.
The situation: “Traffic referrals to the top global news sites from Meta‘s Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, has collapsed over the past year, according to data from Similarweb… Website business models that depended on clicks from social media are now broken… Meanwhile, news companies are scrambling to find business solutions while simultaneously fighting to protect their work in the AI era.”
And, even though Google has agreed to cough up about $100 million in Canada for the Online News Act, it seems like Facebook won’t be allowing links or news organizations to share content on the social networking platform any time soon.
So, while the rest of the world is trying to understand why this is the case outside of Canada, behind the scenes many of the tech giants have reconciled that news, simply put, isn’t worth it.

How is news not worth it?

1. Anything related to free speech and democracy saw the tech giants being blamed. If they continue to throttle the amount of news being shared on their platforms, who will the other media outlets blame in the upcoming elections?
2. The less news on social media, the less likely there is to be a spread of misinformation.
3. Brands with significant advertising dollars want “brand safety” and often won’t advertise next to news.
4. Content from politicians speaking directly (on social media) to their audience seems to be an easier path forward for these social media channels.
5. Social media platforms don’t have to defend what a link is, what sharing news items means, and more to traditional publishers regarding intellectual property and copyright.

But, more importantly…

• Social media platforms are indicating that their users are happier without news and the conversations around it.
• Social media platforms are indicating that their users are spending more time online, which indicates that the lack of traffic caused by the news is not impacting time spent on the platform. 
• Social media platforms are indicating that their users who click on news links only to leave the social networking platform to be confronted with a paywall is not a great user experience.

So, what does this mean for democracy and the future of news?

There’s much more to it…

This, and other current topics were discussed along with Saul Colt (The Idea Integration Company), Jonathan Sackett (NEI) and host Bob Knorpp (always a good human) on the very excellent BeanCast Podcast (which I’ve been fortunate to be a guest on in the past). I don’t know what it is about BeanCast, Bob Knorpp and these other panelists, but there is always “something in the water” when we record these conversations that brings out a lot of stimulating ideas and insights (and some friendly disagreements too!).

Are you ready for this deep dive into the world of media and marketing? Here is: BeanCast #729 – The Election is Coming.

For about an hour, we discussed and debated the following topics:

• Managing Election Advertising.
• Musk vs. Iger.
• Disney+ Adds Retail.
• News Traffic Plummets.

Take a listen and jump into the fray…

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement  and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.