Twitter Continues to Be the Most Effective Platform for Media Publishers, TikTok Nowhere to Be Seen

If you were to take a look at the landscape of the social media industry just a decade ago, you would notice a faceoff between two major players namely Facebook and Twitter. In spite of the fact that this is the case, Twitter failed to sustain its growth due to some questionable policies and the social media platform quickly lost its steam as Facebook surpassed it partly due to its acquisition of platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp with all things having been considered and taken into account.

These past few years have seen a number of new players emerge as well such as Snapchat, Pinterest and of course TikTok. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that despite Twitter’s seeming lack of pull among social media users, it continues to be the place where media publishers can gain the highest possible number of followers. This comes from research conducted by Axios wherein 82 major news and media outlets were surveyed and analyzed.

Each and every one of these publishers had a Twitter account because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing them to expand their reach. Facebook came in second with Instagram coming in third, and while YouTube fell way behind it was still an important resource for media agencies and news outlets.

Interestingly, TikTok seems to be missing from this list. Around 25% of the surveyed organizations did not have TikTok accounts, and even the ones that had the foresight to create one had a lot of trouble finding followers. There are two possible reasons for this. Firstly, TikTok is still quite a new platform, and organizations are still somewhat hesitant to fully invest in it. Additionally, TikTok’s algorithm is considerably less predictable, and that makes Twitter the preferred choice.

Another thing to note here is that TikTok is still finding an identity for itself. Most of its users are looking for light entertainment, so there might not be an audience for news right now although this could change in the future.

The type of media that publishers are putting out there can also dramatically impact how well they perform. For example, publishers who post business and finance related content tend to find a lot of success on LinkedIn due to its community of professionals looking to hone their skills and build a proper network. Meanwhile, sports oriented publishers like ESPN tend to perform better on Instagram, and that makes TikTok a good option for them as well.

Meanwhile, news outlets branch outside of Twitter by setting up shop on YouTube and Facebook as well. Hence, while Twitter is the standard platform that they post on first, they refine their content for publishing on various other platforms as well depending on their niche. That gives each platform a bit of an edge, and it is interesting to see Twitter continuing to fight it out so many years later. We will have to see if the upcoming Elon Musk acquisition has any kind of an impact on Twitter’s current status as a hub for news and media publishing.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World