There are many reasons why publishers would want to include social media with their articles; for instance, it enables them to deliver complete storytelling by incorporating the voice of the crowd. And readers believe including social media content improves the reader-friendliness of articles, as a research by Crowdynews, one of the largest social media curation platforms globally, shows.

As part of a recent survey of American consumers, Crowdynews, one of the largest social media curation platforms globally, asked how including relevant content from social media would impact an article’s credibility, factual accuracy, and reader-friendliness.

It further asked if these attributes were impacted whether the social media content came from one social network (e.g., only Twitter) or from multiple social sources (e.g., Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube co-mingled into a single stream).

Of our respondents, 36 per cent values the inclusion of a single social media source and thinks it benefits the read- friendliness of the articles they’re reading. This is even more so for millennials.

Of those ages 18-29, 45 per cent claim it improves reader-friendliness compared to 32 per cent of ages 30-44.

“We suspect this is related to younger people being more accustomed to social media. They would expect social media where they are reading the news, a trend we’re seeing with social media platforms becoming the new distribution channels for news,” the report ‘Social media improves reader-friendliness of your content’ by Crowdynews says.

MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA
Including multiple social media sources alongside articles has a slightly higher impact on respondents’ perception of an article’s reader-friendliness, the survey found.

In general, 36 per cent claims there is an impact on reader-friendliness with a single source, while almost 40 per cent thinks this is true for including multiple social media sources.

Interestingly, the survey found that women seem to favor multiple social media sources over one source compared to men: 45 per cent of women say including multiple sources improves reader-friendliness, while 32 per cent of men say the same. Prior research shows how women previously have been more avid social media users compared to men, but men have since started catching up.

CREDIBILITY & FACTUAL ACCURACY
While the survey’s respondents felt the reader-friendliness of articles was improved when a single or multiple-source social media stream is included, the results were less conclusive about whether an article’s credibility or factual accuracy is impacted by accompanying social media.

“We hypothesise that this is due to the relative immediacy of social content (people reporting what they see now) as well as a persisting legacy of receiving news from a verified source, like an authority figure or news outlet. As social media continues to pervade the news storytelling arena, we would expect these attributes to have a more positive outcome from future respondents,” the report said.

SUMMARY
Readers expect social media where they consume their news. Moreover, social media platforms are increasingly becoming the distribution channels for news themselves. Millennial readers especially value the inclusion of social media (45 per cent) compared to those aged 30-44 years old (32 per cent).

Women favor multiple social media sources (45 per cent claims an impact on reader-friendliness) over men (32 per cent say the same).

Overall, the impact of reader-friendliness by including multiple sources is slightly higher (40 per cent multiple versus 36 per cent single). The results were less conclusive about the impact on an article’s credibility or factual accuracy, which may be related to the relative immediacy of social content and because people likely think they’re receiving news from a verified source.