News Consumption in Today’s Digital World

The average human attention span is roughly 8 seconds, according to a New York Times Source, so it seems logical that the mobile applications that have concise, bite-sized content are most popular. Two perfect examples are Snapchat and Instagram that both have content short enough to keep the users engaged and coming back for more. It would make sense, then, that news apps with short content would be preferred methods of consuming news, however a recent Pew Research study draws other conclusions. Pew Research discovered that long-form journalism will not go extinct despite society’s obsession with digital technology. Longer articles attract an equal number of mobile visitors as shorter news articles do, demonstrating that bite-sized news does not trump full-length articles. With that being said, Pew Research also reported that only 22 percent of Americans trust social media as an accurate news source.

Pew Research’s study is in line with a recent article by Business Insider that points to headlines involving Facebook’s fake news and how “messy” the digital world is. Situations like Facebook’s create additional trust issues among users who question the accuracy of the news they read. A very interesting statista chart included in the Business Insider article shows the percent of Americans who trust each news source. The data depicted in the chart should be a slight relief for print newspapers and broadcast TV who don’t have to be too threatened by social media entering their news landscape due to the fact that 59 percent of Americans trust broadcast tv over 15 percent who trust social media.  This is a chart depicting the percentages of Americans who trust news from different sources. It shows that 59 percent of Americans trust broadcast tv while 15 percent trust social media.

So even though we have shorter attention spans than goldfish (New York Times), we still prefer full-length articles from credible sources like news apps over finding news on our social media apps. This information is meaningful to almost anyone in the business world because of digital media’s relevancy in all facets of business. The knowledge that full-length articles and apps other than social media are preferred methods of getting news should influence  how businesses establish themselves in the digital space.

To read more about short attention spans click here .

To see Pew Research’s findings click here .

Long Live the Millennial Blogs

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In recent years as blogging has transformed from an extracurricular into a business platform, a divide between mediocre and exceptional blogs has emerged. Blogging has been experimented with and manipulated by across all generations, but none garner as much attention as the millennial blogs.

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Vine is PR Divine

After reading the article, “2 Tips for PR Pros to Add Vine to the Communications Mix” (http://www.prnewsonline.com/water-cooler/2013/04/24/2-tips-for-pr-pros-to-add-vine-to-the-communications-mix/) by Matthew Schwartz, I can say that I recommend Vine to all my other fellow PR collegues . For those who don’t know, Vine was created by Twitter as an extra mobile app that allows you to make and post video clips. The most fun part, in my opinion, is that it only films when you hold down the bottom, allowing you to only film exactly what you want while skipping around what you don’t and without wasting too much time. This is because each video can only last a maximum of six seconds. However, in this day and age, no one has any time – or at least they think they don’t.  Everyone today is so impatient that this has become the perfect tool for “PR pros and communicators to convey a quick message or, at the least, supplement an existing message on another media channel”(Schwartz). Basically, because of Vine’s growing popularity, those who work in PR should jump the gun on this free, easy to use application.  Apparently I am not the only one convinced that Vine has become the next great thing.  Jason Woodward, a digital/social media associate at Hunter Public Relations also agrees. However, he believes that PR professionals need to know two things before they begin using Vine. The first tip Woodward gives is that “Brands can tell stories on Vine that they know their viewers will watch all the way to the end”(Woodward). This is because, as I’ve mentioned, no one in this day in age has the time anymore but people are more likely to actually watch the vine video to completion due to its short length. Also, because the Vine video span is so short it leaves no room for a brand to do anything but tell their story right away, getting straight to the point. The second thing Woodward says is that “Content is still king, but creativity has become the prince”(Woodward). However, because the vines video span is so short, content is the most important thing in your marketing message. You must be creative and because you cannot edit.  You really need to master this to gain the attention of others, which I believe gets the real message across because this means there is no room to mislead viewers. I know when I get my first job at a PR firm this is the first thing I am going to encourage them to use, if they aren’t already!