Social media trends in the US finds most Americans ask, "What's Clubhouse? PLUS Why your podcasts and newsletters should be shorter

September 22, 2021

Two social media studies have come out in the US, one from market research firm Attest (summarised by my friends at What's New in Publishing) and another from the Pew Research Center. Attest found that the most popular social media platform in the US is ... wait for it ... YouTube. Yep, it beats out Facebook. The other thing that stood out is that the vast majority of Americans, 83%, have never heard of Clubhouse. There is also a shocker in there about social media use by generation. You'll never believe who comes in second after Gen Z in terms of their use of social media.

Pew looks at social media through more of a journalism lens. While half of Twitter users get news via the social media service, only 23% of Americans use it. Facebook is used by 66% of Americans, and almost a third of its users get news from the platform. Pew also finds that more Americans use YouTube than any other social media platform, and I was surprised to find out how many people get news from YouTube.

Should you freak out about the iOS 15 and your newsletter business? Maybe not yet. US radio consultancy Jacobs Media recommends that your podcasts and newsletters get shorter.

News UK has decided to do fewer stories to continue to grow their subscription business.

PLUS Three steps to shift to first-party data. It's pitched at commercial leaders, but it's useful for all publishers to consider this. Speaking of Big Tech's impact on newsletters, what will the impact be of Google and Facebook's moves into newsletter services. (Although Google's move is very much in the R&D phase.) And the rise of automated real restate stories.

Apple's Mail Privacy Protection will scramble the plans many publishers had for their newsletters.

Attest, a consumer research platform, has released its third annual US Media Consumption Report and the findings show further seismic shifts in the way Americans are consuming media in 2021. For publishers navigating Covid disruptions, a digital ad spend boom, and fatigue for bad news, the report points to a significant decrease in TV consumption …

About half (48%) of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020. More than half of Twitter users get news on the site regularly.

The Washington Post is blazing new trails with shorter on-demand content and briefer newsletters designed to drive habitual usage.

Brands must ensure that the first-party data they are assembling is properly permissioned, meaningfully collected across channels, unified, and organized.

An internal Facebook report found that the social media platform’s algorithms – the rules its computers follow in deciding the content that you see – enabled disinformation campaigns based in Eastern Europe to reach nearly half of all Americans in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, according to a report in Technology Review. The campaigns …

The Times (UK) and The Sunday Times are aiming to grow their digital subscription business with explorations into live journalism and visual coverage.

In an email to staff Tuesday, John Witherow, editor of The Times, outlined the changes — including building out a digital hub of staffers dedicated to visual journalism (more graphics, and video) as well as and audience building (fine-tuning SEO, growing on social media).

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

Are tech giants actually bringing innovation to newsletters, or is it just about capturing a piece of the creator economy pie? Clubhouse peaked in February 2021, according to data from SensorTower. Back then, popular figures like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg would show up in audio chat rooms. These appearances drove tons of news articles and …

Disney+ , Paramount+ , AMC+ , CNN+ — If your favorite channel has a streaming component, more likely than not, look for a “plus” at the end of its name. So, how long before we start seeing this showing …