Social Insights on the UK Newspaper Industry

2Social Insights on the UK Newspaper Industry | © 2015 Brandwatch.com
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................................3
1.1 How Social Changed the Newspaper Industry .....................................................................3
1.2 Aim & Methodology............................................................................................................4
2.0 A Primer on the Newspaper Industry........................................................................................5
2.1 Share of Voice....................................................................................................................5
2.2 The Media Sector Social Index............................................................................................6
2.3 The Shift from Print to Social..............................................................................................8
3.0 Brand Behavior How newspaper brands interact with their audience...................... 10
3.1 Share of Voice by Newspaper Brand .................................................................................10
3.2 Comparing Owned and Earned Activity .............................................................................11
3.2.1 Comparing Days of Week...................................................................................................13
3.2.2 Comparing Hours of the Day .............................................................................................17
3.2.3 Most Successful Day to Tweet..........................................................................................18
3.3 Conversation Topics.........................................................................................................19
3.4 Brand Communication......................................................................................................23
4.0 The Audience Composition......................................................................................................... 26
4.1 Gender .............................................................................................................................26
4.2 Profession........................................................................................................................28
4.3 Interests...........................................................................................................................29
5.0 Key Insights for Newspaper Brands ........................................................................................ 31
5.1 Summary & Key Insights for The Independent...................................................................32
5.2 Summary & Key Insights for The Telegraph ......................................................................32
About Brandwatch..................................................................................................................33
Brandwatch. Now you know. ......................................................................................................33

1.0 Introduction
1.1 How Social Changed the Newspaper Industry
The proliferation of online communication affects countless aspects of our daily lives.
Rapid and easy communication has reduced the time and effort required to transmit and
process new ideas, opinions or stories. For the media sector, that change is monumental.
Recent years witnessed an immense shift as online media surpassed print as the
preferred source of news. Unsurprisingly, the first choice of online media are often social
networks like Twitter and Facebook.1
Although this shift has led to a heavy decline in print circulations, it also offers valuable
opportunities for newspaper brands. Newspapers and Twitter for instance complement
each other to meet the unique preferences and needs of their audiences.
Twitter users cherish the ability to access news in real time. Additionally, Twitter offers
the possibility to directly engage with the news source and discuss what’s currently
happening with other Twitter users around the world. On the other hand, news
organizations provide more context, in-depth analysis, comments and opinions. They
also act as an authority and verify new events.2
“We are immersed in news. We want to be the first to know and also to be guided
by expert insight and interpretation. The combination of newsbrands and Twitter
helps keep us informed and opinionated. ... Twitter and newsbrands are most
definitely stronger together.”
Rufus Olins, chief executive, Newsworks.3
1
www.huffingtonpost.com/jayson-demers/how-social-media-is-suppo_b_3239076.html, 22.03.2015
2
NewsWorks (2013). #NewsOnTheTweet – How Newsbrands and Twitter work together to turn followers
into readers and readers into followers. www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1283696/newsonthetweet-
majority-15m-twitter-users-uk-follow-newspaper/, 22.03.2015
3
www.newsworks.org.uk/media-centre/survey-reveals-symbiotic-relationship-between-twitter-and-
newsbrands-, 22.03.20151.2 Aim & Methodology

1.2 Aim & Methodology
In 2013, NewsWorks conducted a study investigating the relationship between Twitter
and newspapers. The study revealed that Twitter users who follow a newspaper brand
are not only more affluent and more likely to purchase online than other Twitter users but
are also significantly more influential. Additionally, newspaper followers on Twitter are far
more likely to Tweet and Retweet about trending new topics, share their thoughts, and
reply to opinions about news on Twitter. They are 60% more likely to visit Twitter on a
daily basis and thereby more than twice as likely to post. This means that the group of
Twitter users following a newspaper brand are particularly interesting as they are not
only very influential, but also active and engaging.
The NewsWorks study incited a number of ensuing questions on how newspaper brands
engage with the Twitter community and how the community in turn reacts to their
engagement. The following study aims to shed light on these questions.
To begin, this study selects 10 UK newspaper brands based on their total print and online
readership numbers according to the National Readership Survey 2013 . The newspaper
brands analyzed are:
1. The Sun
2. The Daily Mail
3. The Metro
4. The Daily Mirror
5. The Guardian
6. The Daily Telegraph
7. The Times
8. The London Evening Standard
9. The Independent
10.The Daily Express
In total, 1.2 million UK-based mentions are collected from January 1st, 2015 - February
28th, 2015.
This report first examines the media sector as a whole, comparing online activity across
newspaper, TV and radio businesses. The report next focuses on the newspaper industry
to uncover the way these brands interact with their audience and the way the audience in
turn reacts to this engagement. Lastly, the report investigates the newspaper brands’
posting activity in-depth and reveals an overview of the Twitter
audience’s demographics.

2.0 A Primer on the
Newspaper Industry
2.1 Share of Voice
The media sector distinguishes three major industries: newspaper, TV and radio.
Comparing the Twitter activity of those three industries, newspapers clearly dominate in
Twitter buzz, with 61% of the overall Twitter conversation related to these brands. The
remainder of media buzz is evenly distributed, with TV and radio brands triggering about
20% of online buzz.

Focusing on the owner activity reveals that newspapers brands post 2.8 times more than
the radio industry and 7.4 times more than the TV industry, which only accounts for 9% of
posts among media brands.
For audience activity, newspaper brands again have the largest share of voice within the
media sector. However, the audience buzz surrounding the TV industry impressively
increases to 21%, which implies that while TV brands are quite inactive, their audience is
actually very responsive.
2.2 The Media Sector Social Index

The following index compares the social media performance of 32 brands across the
media sector. The index includes mentions from Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums, News
articles and countless other websites. The index assesses a brand’s total online
mentions, total social mentions and the interaction between those two totals. The
maximum possible score is 100.

INDEX-POINT RANKING
The
Independent
89.84
1

Capital
FM
87.50
2

BBC
Radio
1
82.81
3

ITV
82.81
4

The
Guardian
77.34
5

The
Telegraph
75.78
6

The
Daily
Mirror
75.00
7

The
Daily
Mail
72.66
8

BBC
One
66.41
9

The
Metro
UK
64.06
10

The
Sun
61.72
11

The
Times
57.81
12

Channel
4
57.81
13

KISS
FM
56.25
14

BBC
Radio
5
56.25
15

BBC
Radio
2
53.13
16

BBC
three
52.34
17

BBC
Two
47.66
18

Channel
5
42.97
19

Classic
FM
42.19
20

ITV2
42.19
21

Heart
Radio
38.28
22

BBC
Radio
3
35.16
23

Magic
Radio
32.03
24

ITV4
32.03
25

Daily
Express
31.25
26

Smooth
Radio
30.47
27

E4
27.34
28

5*
25.78
29

More
4
20.31
30

The
London
Evening
Standard
17.19
31

ITV3
15.63
32

The social media index provides some context for the exceptional share of voice that the
newspaper industry maintains. Newspaper brands constitute six of the top ten
performers in the index. Of these brands, The Independent is a clear leader. The scores
for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail, which rank 5-8, are
all comparable. The Metro, The Sun and The Times comprise a third grouping, while The
Daily Express and The London Evening Standard trail them distantly.
The index allows brands to easily benchmark against their competitors to understand
both where they rank, and how far they’ll need to go to rank higher. While BBC Radio 1’s
performance is on par with ITV’s, Capital FM, which ranks only one position ahead of BBC
Radio 1, scores far better than both.
2.3 The Shift from Print to Social
NEWSPAPER
AVG.
CIRCULATION
FOR JAN 2015
SHARE OF
CIRCULATION
TWITTER
FOLLOWERS*
SHARE OF
TWITTER
FOLLOWERS
FACEBOOK
LIKES*
SHARE OF
FACEBOOK
LIKES
The
Sun
1,978,702
23.53%
706,440
8.89%
1,781,731
10.41

The
Daily
Mail
1,688,727
20.09%
879,536
11.07%
2,503,744
14.63%

The
Metro
1,346,864
16.02%
182.259
2.29%
1,008,369
5.89%

The
Daily
Mirror
992,235
11.80%
324,049
4.08%
1,452,794
8.49%

The

London

Evening

Standard

805,309
9.58%
28,212
0.36%
340,430
1.99%

The
Telegraph
494,675
5.88%
859,349
10.82%
2,126,659
12.43%

The
Daily

Express

457,914
5.45%
209,185
2.63%
290,140
1.70%

The
Times
396,621
4.72%
371,218
4.67%
328,875
1.92%

The
Guardian
185,429
2.21%
3,316,311
41.75%
4,304,832
25.16%

The

Independent

61,338
0.73%
1,066,117
13.42%
2,973,264
17.38%

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_newspapers_in_the_United_kingdom_by _circulation
• per 28.02.2015

The above table compares the average circulation numbers of newspaper brands against
the amount of Twitter followers and Facebook page likes. Surprisingly, the brands having
the highest print circulation are not the ones with the highest number of Twitter followers
or Facebook likes.
While The Sun is the biggest UK newspaper in terms of circulation, its Twitter and
Facebook presence is relatively weak. The Sun’s low social performance may be due to
the fact that their online content is paywalled. While The Sun is actively posting news
including links to their online articles, it is not able to provide its audience with more
context, in-depth analysis, or commentary on the events, as only snippets of the articles
are available for free. That additional context and information is a large part of the value
users get in following newspaper brands on social media – without it, there is less of an
incentive to follow these brands.
On the other hand, brands like The Guardian or The Independent are able to reach a far
bigger audience via Twitter than offline. The Guardian’s online following on Twitter and
Facebook is 40 times their print circulation in January. For The Independent, their
combined online following is over 65 times greater than the month’s circulation. However,
many brands fail to take full advantage of the potential online readership. The London
Evening Standard’s combined following is less than half of their circulation, their Twitter
following specifically being 30 times smaller.
These insights are particularly meaningful as readers are increasingly consuming their
news via internet rather than traditional print. Twitter not only offers newspaper brands
the ability to engage and build their community, but it is also a very important source to
guide traffic to newspaper brands’ online sites. This additional traffic translates to more
regular and loyal online readers, which is the foundation to successfully manage the
inevitable shift from print to online as the main source of revenues.

3.0 Brand Behavior
How newspaper brands interact with
their audience
3.1 Share of Voice by Newspaper Brand
A newspaper brand’s total Twitter share of voice is a very insightful metric as it indicates
how many users they can reach and how influential their Twitter voice is.

Share of voice is generally tied to the volume of a brand’s Twitter following. As such, The
Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian are unsurprising leaders in share of voice
within the newspaper industry.
However, while The Guardian has nearly 4 times more Twitter followers, The Telegraph
triggers the greatest amount of Twitter buzz.
The Telegraph’s exceptional share of voice is not due to the paper tweeting particularly
often but is rather the results of a very engaged audience. While The Guardian posts
about 2.7 times as much content as The Telegraph, The Telegraph’s audience is 1.2
times more active.
3.2 Comparing Owned and Earned Activity
Comparing earned audience activity against their owned content reveals how successful
brands are at generating conversation through their content. In the newspaper industry,
the audience is highly engaged and maintains approximately 95% of the overall
conversation surrounding the ten newspaper brands analyzed.

Breaking owned and earned content down by brand, it’s easy to identify which brands are
especially successful at generating chatter from their content. While The Independent is
responsible for 25% of all owned Twitter activity, only about 18% of all audience posts are
related to their brand. This suggests that their audience is relatively less engaged with
their content.
In contrast, while The Telegraph’s share of owned Twitter activity is about 7%, their
audience activity is about 20% of the overall audience buzz, the highest share of all
brands. This indicates that The Telegraph is especially successful in stimulating
audience activity. The same is true for The Daily Mail.
The Guardian maintains an even share of about 16.5% of both owned and earned activity,
the third highest in both categories.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that audience activity comes in two formats:
direct @mentions toward brands and retweets. Typically, @mentions indicate an active

conversation and engagement while retweets are used to simply disseminate a
brand’s content.
Comparing these formats across newspaper brands reveals that The Telegraph not only
triggers the greatest volume of audience activity, but that they also generate the most
@mentions specifically. This implies that The Telegraph’s audience is more actively
discussing and engaging with the newspaper rather than passively tweeting its content.
The Daily Mail, also attracts far more @mentions than retweets, again suggesting that
their audience is more active than that of The Independent, which has the highest ratio of
retweets to @mentions.
3.2.1 Comparing Days of Week
For brands to best meet the needs and preferences of their online community, it’s
important that their social accounts are active at the same time as their audience. When

brands communicate alongside their followers, their tweets find more readers and their
audiences are more likely to respond.
An analysis of the brand and audience’s average daily activity reveals that the industry’s
activity generally matches their audiences. However, as is often the case, brands’
weekend activity declines against a constantly active consumer on the weekend. That
disparity suggests that brands are missing an opportunity to engage with their
audience’s needs and interests come Saturday and Sunday.
Breaking the average daily activity down by brand exposes how successful each
newspaper brand is at providing consistent content with their audience.

NEW
SPA
PER
AVG.
CIRCULAT
ION FOR
JANUARY
2015
THESUN
THEDAILY
MAIL
THEMETRO
THEDAILY
MIROR
THE
GUARDIAN
THE
TELEGRAPH
THETIMES
THELONDON
EVENING
STANDARD
THE
INDEPENDANT
THEDAILY
EXPRESS
MON

AUDIENCE
11.77
13.75
11.31
14.79
12.76
14.12
13.62
15.65
12.79
15.74

BRAND
12.55
15.54
10.20
14.82
13.33
13.47
13.74
21.25
14.87
17.77

TUES

AUDIENCE
14.99
13.75
16.29
13.35
14.02
16.18
15.49
18.73
13.75
16.41

BRAND
14.48
14.01
15.52
15.93
14.92
15.51
15.44
22.07
15.26
16.85

WED

AUDIENCE
16.64
13.60
14.81
13.40
13.74
13.86
14.18
16.18
13.34
15.42

BRAND
14.84
15.70
15.31
15.77
14.66
14.03
14.83
16.62
13.57
16.02

THUR

AUDIENCE
18.78
14.77
18.67
15.03
15.02
15.15
20.11
18.90
13.86
16.30

BRAND
15.93
16.84
17.98
17.57
15.78
16.67
18.32
21.25
15.20
17.77

FRI

AUDIENCE
12.44
15.55
15.77
15.20
15.97
15.55
14.16
20.55
17.27
15.04

BRAND
15.24
17.57
17.87
16.49
18.15
16.81
17.14
18.80
19.01
16.44

SAT

AUDIENCE
12.01
14.72
13.31
15.53
15.74
13.07
16.23
6.48
15.55
11.63

BRAND
14.18
11.59
14.94
11.04
13.29
12.17
15.06
0.00
12.18
7.76

SUN

AUDIENCE
13.36
13.85
9.84
12.70
12.75
12.08
6.22
3.52
13.44
9.45

BRAND
12.77
8.75
8.17
8.39
9.87
11.33
5.47
0.00
9.90
7.38

While The Telegraph’s activity matches with its audience’s quite well throughout the
week, The Guardian’s activity experiences a sharp disparity with its audience on the
weekend. As Saturday is The Guardian’s audience’s second most active day, it’s clear
that the newspaper is missing a strong opportunity to leverage that interest over
the weekend.

3.2.2 Comparing Hours of the Day
Comparing brands’ average hourly activity against their audiences demonstrates how
effective brands are at communicating in a more granular sense.
Overall, the newspaper industry effectively matches their activity alongside their
audiences. Conversation for both groups peaks between 8am and 1pm, tapering off
throughout the night.
However, focusing on The Telegraph and The Guardian again shows how such activity
patterns differ for certain brands and audiences. While The Guardian mainly interacts
with its audience between approximately 9 am and 1 pm, The Telegraph stays pretty
much active during the whole day. The two graphics show evenly the audiences mirror
the activity levels of the newspaper brands. Still, in order to fully take advantage of the
opportunity Twitter offers in providing additional context and insights to news as they
happen, newspaper brands will need to find ways to schedule content and remain active
outside usual office hours.

3.2.3 Most Successful Day to Tweet
One indication of a tweet’s performance is how often it is retweeted by the audience – the
more often a post is retweeted, the more likely it is that Twitter users will potentially see
it. For these newspaper brands, approximately 97% of the tweets posted are retweeted at
least once.
Analyzing the percentage of low, medium and high performing tweets over time further
exposes weekly patterns in the way audiences engage with brands.
On average, weekend tweets are far more likely to be retweeted more than 50 times.
However, newspaper brands are least active on Saturdays and Sundays. Again, this
underlines the opportunity newspaper brands are missing by cutting back their activity
levels on weekends.

3.3 Conversation Topics
For the most part, newspaper brands and their audiences discuss new events going on in
the world. On Twitter, conversations around the topic “News” are distantly followed by
chatter regarding politics and general entertainment. Lastly, topics related to culture and
arts are being discussed the least frequently.
Evaluating the major topics of conversation across newspaper brands demonstrates how
the interests of each audience differs by publication.
The main focus of discussions around The Independent is clearly “News” followed by
“Entertainment” and “Politics”. For The Telegraph, its audience mainly discusses the
topic “News”, distantly followed by “Politics” and “Money/Finance/Business.” Twitter
activity around The Guardian is more diversified, with “Lifestyle/Environment/Travel”,
“News” and “Politics” as key topics. These insights help brands identify which content
specifically best resonates with their social audiences.

Analyzing the type of responses that each topic elicits shows that the audience is mainly
retweeting content around the topics “Entertainment” and “News.” However, the topics
“Money/Finance/Business” and “Politics” are more actively discussed using @mentions.

Assuming that @mentions indicate a more active engagement, brands can better
understand their performance by breaking down the conversation this way. Indeed, as
The Telegraph is a leader in the “Money/Finance/Business” topic on social, this may help
explain why the publication receives the most @mentions and performs so well on social.
Comparing Broadsheet papers with Tabloid papers makes the diversity of content
focuses even more apparent.

Tabloid papers have a clear focus on “News,” which constitutes over 50% of their
conversation, as well as “Entertainment,” which covers an additional 20% of chatter.
For Broadsheet papers their conversation is also mainly centered around “News,” with
“Politics” and “Lifestyle/Entertainment/Travel” following distantly. However, whereas
topics “Money/Finance/Business” and “Culture/Art” are virtually undiscussed in Tabloid
papers, they comprise a fair amount of Broadsheet papers’ chatter.
Analyzing how the average share of voice for each topic changes over the course of a
week provides an even more granular understanding of newspaper brands’ audiences.
Whereas most topics tend to be discussed less frequently over the weekends,
interestingly Politics reaches its second highest share on Sunday. Conversely,
conversations related to Culture and Arts experience a slight drop in volume
on Wednesdays.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, whereas Money, Finance and Business tends to be discussed
more at the beginning of the week, Sports is more common on Fridays and Saturdays.
While News peaks on Thursday, its conversation is relatively constant throughout
the week.
3.4 Brand Communication
A newspaper’s online personality and image is largely defined by the way it
communicates with its audiences through social media. Examining the format of Twitter
posts can reveal the way these brands communicate information to their readers.
Essentially, their Twitter activity can be divided into three different types: posts, retweets
and replies. Each format requires a varying degree of involvement. For example, replying
to audience Tweets demands more direct effort and personalized messaging than a
retweet or regular post.

Tweeting an average of 176 posts per day, The Guardian shares the most content with its
audience, closely followed by The Independent, which posts 173 times per day. However,
while The Guardian very rarely replies or retweets and its interactions are really limited to
unidirectional posts, The Independent retweets around 98 times per day. With neither The
Guardian nor The Independent actively replying to their audience, The Sun leads in
replies, averaging around 2.88 per day.
Each brand’s unique online behaviors represent their individual social strategies. While
more active and responsive accounts will almost always generate more traffic and
conversation, the ideal balance of communication formats may differ across brands. Still,
understanding a competitor’s approach and how well that strategy resonates with an
audience allows brands to hone in on their own format.
Looking at newspaper accounts’ posts reveals that 99.63% of them include at least one
link leading to an article or picture. This indicates that newspaper brands are actively
taking advantage of the opportunity to redirect their Twitter audience to their own

homepage, providing their audience with further insights and generating traffic on
their websites.

4.0 The Audience
Composition
Knowing who their online readers are, newspaper brands can either target their content
toward a prominent demographic or uncover ways of activating an
underdeveloped audience.
4.1 Gender
For these newspaper brands, an average of around 58% of their audience is male.
Conversations around The Metro, The London Evening Standard and The Guardian is
propelled by a relatively more female audience than is the chatter surrounding The Times,
The Daily Express and The Telegraph.
In this analysis, male Twitter users are more active in engaging with the brands and are
posting more @mentions than female Twitter users on average. These men are mainly

interested in contents discussing politics and news. For female Twitter users, politics
was not a main topic.
Breaking down topics by gender, “Charlie Hebdo” and “Muslims” were among the most
common for women. Muslims were seen as a mainly negative topic, whereas Charlie
Hebdo conversations included both very positive and very negative connotations – the
negative ones higher in volume. Men seemed to be especially unsatisfied with the NHS
whereas the BBC was a mainly positive topic.

4.2 Profession
Artists, Journalists, Students and Executives are among the professions that engage the
most with newspaper brands on Twitter.
While The Metro communicates with the highest percentage of Artists, The Evening
Standard, The Times and The Daily Mail all lean toward Executives. Additionally, The
Times and The Daily Express favor Journalists more than other newspaper brands. The
most actively engaged profession, Journalists are an important audience for
newspaper brands.
Whereas Students, who typically retweet rather than using @mentions, constitute the
strongest focus for The Independent, they contribute to only a small percentage of The
Evening Standard and The Times conversation. Also, The Guardian maintains a strong
focus on Teachers/Lecturers whereas The Daily Mirror leans toward Politicians.
Comparing engagement toward brands with paywalled content (The Sun and The Times)
against brands that offer free content reveals how receptive certain groups are to paid

content. Namely, Journalists, Executives and Sales/Marketing/PR professionals favor
paywalled sites while Scientists/Researchers, Teachers/Lecturers and Artists lean
toward free content. Interestingly Students and Politicians have no clear bias.
Separating engagement across newspaper types shows the which content certain
professions prefer. Evidently, Scientists/Researchers, Students and Teachers/Lecturers
mainly engage with Broadsheet papers whereas the other professions prefer Tabloid
brands or are rather indifferent.
4.3 Interests
Segmenting newspaper conversations into interest groups provides further insight on
these brands’ public image and the audiences they attract.
Collectively, the leading interests of Twitter users talking about newspaper brands online
include sports, books, family & parenting and music.

While The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror maintain a high proportion of Twitter
users interested in family & parenting, The Evening Standard maintain the lowest. In
sports, The Sun, The Metro UK and The Daily Mirror have a stronger proportion of
conversation than The Guardian or The Times, both of which are favored by those
interested in books. The Metro, The Sun and The Independent audiences favor music
more than other newspaper brands.
On average, Twitter users interested in family & parenting are more engage with
newspaper brands more often than those interested in sports, books or music.
Interestingly, users interested in sports are significantly more likely to retweet newspaper
content than any other interest group.
Understanding how conversation is divided by interest group or profession and how each
interest group communicates, newspaper brands are better equipped to plan content
strategies that can effectively resonate with their audiences. Furthermore, they can
compare their tendencies and biases against competitors to better understand their
position within the larger market.

5.0 Key Insights for
Newspaper Brands
• The newspaper industry (61%) maintains a larger share of voice on Twitter than
Television (20%) and Radio (19%) industries.
• Newspapers with the highest circulation are not the leaders in Twitter followers. As
younger audiences increasingly turn to online news, that may be a concern for brands
favoring physical print.
• On Twitter, audience activity consists of about 60% @mentions, a sign of more active
conversations, and 40% retweets, which represents a more passive way of
disseminating content.
• While the activity of newspaper brands generally matches that of its audience during
the week, brands do not effectively communicate alongside their audience on the
weekends. Tweets on the weekend are relatively more likely to be tweeted over 50
times.
• News is the main topic for these brands, distantly followed by Entertainment and
Lifestyle. Culture and Art is the least discussed topic.
• The Audience is more likely to retweet topics around Entertainment and News,
whereas Money/Finance/Business and Politics are more actively discussed using
@mentions.
• While News is a consistently popular topic throughout the week, other topics tend to
peak at varying days: Politics on Tuesday and Sunday, Money/Finance/Business on
Monday and Tuesday, and Sports on Friday and Saturday.
• Newspapers generally communicate with their audience by sharing original content,
with 82% of Twitter activity consisting of posts. Retweets (17.6%) are far more
common than replies (0.4%), indicating brands’ tendency for unidirectional
communication.
• The newspaper brands’ audiences are mainly male (58%), with typical professions
including artists, journalists, students and executives and leading interests including
sports, family & parenting, music and books.

5.1 Summary & Key Insights for The Independent
With a high amount of total Twitter buzz and the best ranking in the social media index,
The Independent is a clear leader in its industry. However, relative to its highly active
social accounts, its audience is somewhat quiet. The low level of audience activity may
be a result of the brand’s propensity to retweet its audience, which generally receives less
engagement than regular posts. In fact, retweets consist of 36% of The Independent’s
content, which is far higher than the 18% industry average.
The Independent’s audience mainly discusses the newspaper through retweets. That
behavior may be a result of the conversation’s focus on News and Entertainment topics,
which are less often discussed with @mentions than other topics. Also, The
Independent’s Twitter audience includes more female users, who tend to directly address
newspapers using @mentions less often. Furthermore, the greatest interest among The
Independent’s audience is sports, another group that is more likely to retweet than use an
@mention to discuss newspaper content.
The Independent may consider reallocating its focus from retweeting audience content
toward producing more of its own. With an audience that is strongly inclined to retweet
rather than @mention their brand, The Independent could dramatically raise their total
Twitter buzz by adjusting the balance of retweets and original tweets even slightly toward
the latter.
5.2 Summary & Key Insights for The Telegraph
Although it is ranked 6th in social media index activity and 4th for Twitter followers, The
Telegraph triggers a disproportionately high amount of audience activity, making the
brand a close runner up for highest share of voice.
The newspaper’s content strategy may contribute to their performance – 88% of their
activity consists of original posts, whereas the industry average is around 82%. The
Telegraph’s content is consistent, mirroring their audience’s activity far better than most
brands. Apart from News, the main topics discussed regarding The Telegraph are Politics
and Money/Finance/Business. Users with those interests are more likely to use
@mentions; 80% of their Money/Finance/Business discussions are in fact @mentions.
The Telegraph’s audience leans toward Journalists and males, which may further explain
their exceptionally active audience.

6.0 Thank You
We hope this report provides your business with some helpful insights on the capabilities
and considerations surrounding UK newspaper brands in social media. Please get in
touch if you have any questions on how businesses can further leverage online
communication to inform, optimize and facilitate their organization’s operations.
About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is one of the world’s leading social intelligence companies. Its social media
listening and analytics technology platform gathers millions of online conversations
every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering brands and
agencies to make smarter, data-driven business decisions.
Acquiring social influencer analytics firm PeerIndex in December 2014, Brandwatch
continues on its aggressive business trajectory following on its most recent round of
venture funding to the tune of $22 million. The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1000
brands and agencies, including Cisco, Whole Foods, Whirlpool, British Airways, Papa
John’s, and Dell.
Brandwatch. Now you know.

Social Insights on the UK Newspaper Industry

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