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Social networking websites and online communities are undeniably popular today. People of from all walks of life including celebrities, musicians, artists, college students, and even retirees are increasingly living their lives online. So how can news organizations take advantage of this trend and use social networks to disseminate their news and information?

Understanding Social Networking

Before learning how to use social networks, news organizations must first understand how social websites work and how people use them. Essentially, online social networking websites allow members to share a variety of information including videos, pictures, blogs, interactive applications, and daily news with colleagues, friends, and family.

Adding friends and expanding the user's social network is a key aspect to successful online social networking. Users of social networking websites add friends with common interests while others add them as a friend as well, thus creating a growing network where status updates, blogs, and comments can be freely shared using applications and other website functionality.

The Vast Impact of Social Networking Websites on News Organizations

Websites such as MySpace and Facebook have often been dismissed as mere hangouts for preteens and adolescents. But in recent days, a wide range of people including entertainers, authors, and retirees have logged on to these sites to share news and information.

While some have predicted the demise of social networking websites such as MySpace and Twitter due to identity issues and security concerns, these social networking sites continue to expand and evolve exponentially with a reach that spans the entire globe. And that is precisely what defines online social networking today; the emergence of an online global community that shares news and information in an increasingly borderless world.

Ways News Organizations Can Use Social Networks

Upon gaining an understanding of how news organizations can harness online social networking as a powerful tool to promote their news and information, news broadcasters can log on and share links, videos, and television programming to a global audience.

The blogging and social networking website Twitter is a poignant example of using social media to disseminate news, generate interest in the news organization, and drive traffic to the news website. Twitter, whose claim to fame is a short blog of only 140 characters or less, has become an amazingly powerful online social networking medium for news organizations that seek to publicize their videos, articles, television programming, websites, and interactive features including online chats to a mobile audience.

Twitter is not the only social networking platform to establish a global online reach for news organizations. Social websites including MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo allow social networkers to add news broadcasters to their social network as friends or through site applications. This allows news broadcasters to connect with users via blogs, status updates, RSS feeds, mobile alerts, and bulletins. Numerous news organizations have latched on to the power of online social networking including CNN, The Washington Post, CBS, MSNBC, and local news stations.

Bottom Line on Ways News Organizations Can Use Social Media

Bottom line, news organizations can create profiles on numerous online social networking websites to promote their breaking news stories, videos, live chats, and television programming. Once news organizations understand how social networking operates, how users add friends and network with each other, and how to take advantage of the power of online social networking sites, they will see their audience grow and their market share increase.

Learn more about this author, Daniel J. Gansle.
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