Welcome to this week’s editorial, It was with interest that we read a recent editorial elsewhere that talked of the new Face Book algorithm that will see more and more friends and family news come into your daily feed. This means that there will be less and less intrusion by posts that don’t tick the boxes of being community engagement and “worthy news”. Non family/friend posts will have to be MORE ENGAGING with visible reaction in likes and shares. What does this say for the businesses you follow, the shops, Council, local radio, emergency services and local media such as the Beagle? Well, we are all going to have to lift our game and post interesting engaging stories otherwise they just won’t appear in your news feed. The Beagle has been doing this for some time; posting whole articles rather than offering “Click Bait” to draw you away to the Beagle website. For those who depend on Click Bait (catchy headlines without details to draw you to wanting to know more) to drive readers to their websites, mostly behind paywalls such as the SMH, The Age etc. these will be new days as they are confronted head on by Face Book’s attempt to get rid of Fake News and Click Bait in particular Newspapers, as we once knew them are changing rapidly. As an example it has been interesting to see the change of focus of those looking for work, moving away from newspapers and now drifting more so to either social media or to the very effective Job websites such as seek.com.au . This must hit hard at the once monopolised income streams that newspapers once held. Positions available via Facebook pages have become incredibly effective in introducing local prospective applicants to local businesses. No doubt the Employment section of mainstream newspapers will eventually drop out altogether, as will the Classifieds as people embrace the social media Buy, Swap and Sell sites looking for trades, professionals and recommendations. There are now more Millennials than Baby Boomers and they come with their own expectations and they also bring new demands and social paradigms. Death Notices are now replaced by a Tweet or Facebook post. News now has to be immediate and available across all devices. Millennials and GenXers have no interest in reading yesterday’s news. The notion of going to a shop to buy a paper is one that remains, for the moment, with an older generation and young ones are just not engaging in the "news". 2018 will be an interesting year as we see further changes in the mass media structures as they reorganise themselves, pulling apart their empires with an example being the division of Domain from its parent company to be refloated. Hopefully that shakeup won't lead to further cuts in journalist numbers in regional areas as it is regional Australia that relies the most on traditional news feed via radio and print. The delivery of news via social media will also be disrupted and as such organisations like Eurobodalla Council will needs to begin to “Boost” by payment in order to ensure their posts are distributed. For Facebook their new model is “pay to boost” or suffer the consequences of poorer distribution, less engagement and therefore less inclusiveness of community or clients. These are interesting times indeed. Until next, lei
