CNN's research says 27% of us share 87% of news links

CNN has been researching how news articles are shared through social media, identifying different motivations for sharing and the increased benefit for advertisers who feature on recommended news pages.

The delightfully named 'Pownar' research (which might sound like one of Batman's weapons, but actually stands for 'power of news and recommendation') was conducted over two months with 2,300 consumers using tracking and surveying. It also used eyetracking and biometrics to measure readers' engagement with stories. 

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The most influential news-sharers, and the group which shared 87% of the stories in the survey, only accounted for 27% of all the users - tallying with previous definitions of a minority of highly active web web users that contribute a majority of content online.

The big social networks - Facebook Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, accounted for 43% of all links shared, email 30%, SMS 15% and instant messenger 12%.

Researchers identified three primary motivations for sharing, which differed around the world. In Europe and North America, users had more altruistic reasons for sharing stories that would be useful to friends or family, European users tend to share more work-related stories and Asia-Pacific readers were more likely to 'status' broadcast - share things that underline or reinforce their own knowledge and identity.

The majority of shared content, around 65%, was major current news stories, 19% was breaking news and 16% was made up of watercooler funnies or quirky news. The most commonly recommended content was national and international news around human-interest stories and money, as well as science and technology news and "visually spectacular" stories. Researchers described the act of sharing as one with "an underlying message of the sharer imparting knowledge".
 
CNN's senior vice president of research, Didier Mormesse, said the objective was to identify if how significant recommended stories are to advertisers. "Though recommended news seems highly unpredictable, we've have identified a number of key drivers and key motivations, so we do have some ways of understanding what people share and why they share," he said. "There's more engagement in emotional terms with content and advertising in the recommended scenario, as opposed to randomly consumed content advertising, and brands that are around recommended stories also benefit from stronger recognition and recall."

This is the second piece of research by CNN in this area after the 'grapevine' report published last month, which explored how news spreads through word of mouth.