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European survey highlights journalists’ increasing dependency on social media

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Cision urges PR professionals to use social media more effectively as a means to build closer relationships with journalists

LONDON, 23 September, 2010 – While social media is viewed as an “important tool” by the majority (74 per cent) of UK journalists, the press is divided over whether the PR industry fully understands how to use social channels to help them do their job even more efficiently. This is the major finding of a wide-ranging study of journalists from across the UK, France and Germany conducted by Cision, the leading provider of software, services and tools for the media and public relations industry, and the University of Sunderland.

Cision regularly surveys journalists, but in the first of what will become an annual study has found that UK journalists value social media more as a research tool than their counterparts in France and Germany. Yet despite the UK media’s increasing reliance on tools such as Twitter, Wikipedia and LinkedIn to source stories and fact check, the majority of interaction with PR professionals is still conducted via more traditional means such as press releases and telephone calls, journalists said.

When asked whether they believed PRs understood how to use social media when working with journalists, a third (32 per cent) of UK respondents said no, while a quarter (25 per cent) thought they did. With 40 per cent of UK journalists sourcing stories on Twitter, those PRs not currently “social media-savvy” must get up to speed, according to Cision Europe’s CEO, Peter Granat.

“Our study of some of the UK’s most experienced journalists demonstrates a glaring gap between the way the press uses social media to generate stories and the more traditional methods which some in the PR industry still prefer,” Granat said. “Many PRs are using social media to great effect - for example, following and responding swiftly to journalists’ requests on Twitter - and are giving themselves a significant competitive edge as a result. What’s clear from Cision’s survey is that the rest of the industry needs to catch up to build better relations between PR professionals and journalists – and fast!”

Other key findings:

The vast majority (88 per cent) of UK journalists use social media more in 2010 as part of their work than they did three years ago

  • The press release still has its uses, with a fifth (21 per cent) saying they use releases more now than three years ago, compared to 17.5 per cent who use releases less
  • A fifth (20 per cent) of UK journalists access Twitter at least once a day as part of their story sourcing, although rarely to fact check
  • 81 per cent of UK journalists access blogs as part of their story research, underlining the importance of blogs as a source for corporate comment
  • 41 per cent of UK journalists do not receive “social media releases”
  • Personal contacts are still important in PR-journalist relations, with half (50 per cent) of journalists talking to personal contacts daily

For more on the survey, view the executive summary here: uk.cision.com/sjresearch 

About the survey
In July 2010, Cision Media Research, linked with the University of Sunderland, completed an online survey in the UK, France and Germany simultaneously. The survey was designed to enhance the media industry’s understanding of social media uptake and the impact of social media technologies and processes on journalists’ work.

Respondents were taken from Cision’s media database of more than 1.5 million influencers globally. Country-specific sub-panels were set up and 5,000 journalists per country were invited with broad spread of work experience, media types as well as geographies.

About Cision
Cision (uk.cision.com) empowers businesses to make better decisions and improve performance through its CisionPoint software solutions for corporate communication and PR professionals. Powered by local experts with global reach, Cision delivers relevant media information, targeted distribution, media monitoring, and precise media analysis. Cision has offices in Europe, North America and Asia, and has partners in 125 countries. Cision AB is quoted on the Nordic Exchange with revenue of SEK 1.5 billion in 2009.

For More Information:
Lucy Griffin
UK Marketing Manager
+44 (0)20 7689 1110
lucy.griffin@cision.com

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Cision PR Peter Granat social media social journalism survey Cision research University of Sunderland Cision Media Research social media uptake