Social Media Friday: Musk talks to Twitter employees and NYTimes new editor talks Twitter to employees PLUS The difference between UX, UI and product design

June 17, 2022

Media industry coverage seems to have days where things fall into themes, and over the past 24 hours that theme is definitely about changes in social media. Across the major platforms, we're seeing a lot of chunky news. The Nieman Lab shared this staggering figure: out of 1000 articles shared on Facebook, only four link to journalism. It was certainly my experience in my role as the director of digital products and platforms at a major regional public broadcast group in the US that social media could drive traffic to a handful of stories, but it wasn't something consistent enough to drive sustained audience development. It often felt like a Sisyphean task of chasing social audiences to see a one off spike and then to hunt for the next social hit. It was frustrating for staff who had the belief (largely based on national outlets with much, much larger followings - multiples and orders of magnitude larger than ours) that social media was a magic bullet that would open the flood gates to big audiences and their fame and fortune.

And Facebook wasn't the only place where we were frustrated. Twitter was good for sports and some local politics. But often, the Twitter traffic felt like a mutual admiration society amongst local journalists, a bit of an echo chamber.

Regardless, social media is not the easy path to larger audiences that it once was, and media groups will need to become more sophisticated and focused on building audiences, especially ones that are willing to buy subscriptions.

In other social media news, Elon Musk spoke to 8000 Twitter employees. (It feels like whatever wobble he had, he's back and ready to take the platform over.)

In other Twitter news, the incoming New York Times editor Joe Kahn has some views on the social media platform. And honestly, it sounds imminently sensible. He is concerned about over-reliance on Twitter by journalists, and speaking to recent social media controversies in the US, including the Washington Post recently firing a journalist, he said: "(I)t becomes problematic when journalists fight with trolls, battle sources and 'air grievances with your colleagues or other pieces of journalism.'" Having been an executive editor and senior manager on the leadership team of organisations, it should be pretty clear that it is damaging to organisational health when fights break out on social media, whether that fight is personal, political or a mix of both. If we wouldn't tolerate someone disparaging a colleague in another publication or verbally, then there can't be an exemption if its done on a major platform like Twitter.

Apart from social media, I also wanted to highlight a really interesting piece from the product thinking side of things in which Maximilian Speicher outlines the differences between UX, UI and product design. It's definitely worth a read (particularly for me as we're hiring a product designer where I work - hit me up for details).

TL;DR: Digital product design teams are often referred to as “the UX team” or “the UX/UI team,” which are terminologies that can significantly disturb a proper understanding of what UX and digital…

Out of every 1,000 times someone sees a post on Facebook, how many of them include a link to a news site? Four. No wonder Facebook doesn't want to write publishers big checks anymore.

As the elements of Web3 wend their way into the marketing universe, media agencies are taking a test-and-learn approach without rushing too fast.

How One Publisher Is Using Data To Prove Advertiser ROI - 06/16/2022g

Facebook To Change Feed To Mimic TikTok's - 06/16/2022 (you'll need to become a member to read this).

New executive editor Joe Kahn sees the value of the platform for journalists, but weighs in on when it can become problematic.

Social Media Today