SNEWS Mini-Survey provides look at how industry folk are utilizing social media

The SNEWS® Mini-Survey that ended May 19, 2009, asked, “Where do you get most of your business or industry news?” Perhaps not surprisingly, 85 percent answered “Business/Trade journal websites.”

But things got significantly more interesting from there. Forty-four percent responded that they got most of their business and industry news from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Many news sites, including SNEWS, now regularly feed headlines and story links directly to Twitter (to start following SNEWS on Twitter, simply click here). However, we suspect the response that a significant percentage of news comes from social networking sites is because news tidbits and informal “did you hear” sort of information is frequently bantered about there — frequently well before any news source has even posted the news. Newspaper websites and blogs each garnered 44 percent of the responses. Even “gossip, hear-say, email forwards” earned a nod of 26 percent — not as if that’s really what we a SNEWS would call news.

As for print — sigh — it indeed appears to be dying a quiet death in many reader’s eyes when it comes to its importance for business and industry news. “Business/trade journals — print” realized only 22 percent of the votes, and “Newspapers — print” garnered a sorry 18 percent.

Our new survey question, “What do you feel most motivates your customers to buy from your store?” is now live and awaiting your feedback.

To make your vote count, simply go to the SNEWS Reader Poll section in the right navigation bar of every web page in SNEWS or click here. 
–SNEWS® Editors