How social networkers use news

"It's all about me" - a statement of the blindingly obvious about how people use social networking sites, but no less significant for it.

Last week, the BBC gathered together a group of twenty 19- to 39-year-old Londoners who described themselves as light or heavy social media users to ask them how they used social media for news. And the answer was very clear: in twenty different ways.

Each member of the group had a very clear understanding of what they wanted from Facebook (that was the network they all used - Twitter barely got a mention).

They had a sophisticated appreciation of the image they projected of themselves through their Facebook activity - some joining groups and sharing stories because they wanted their friends to know what they were into. And most used it for both personal and professional reasons, comfortably straddling that potentially difficult divide.

They used it on both their mobiles and their PCs, but to do different things. Mobile usage is about need, quickly keeping across what is happening and sending out their own updates. On PCs, the use of social networks is about choice and pleasure: reading in-depth, watching video, and surfing to find new and interesting content. 

Our group used social networks as a major leisure activity - for fun, for chatting to their friends, and for 'doing stuff' and finding out about things they were interested in:

"It's to relax and chat with my friends."

"It's a personalised space - it's all about me."

None of this is rocket science. But when they started talking about news on social networks it got interesting. 

The first theme that emerged was that they all saw comment and discussion as a key component of enjoying news on Facebook. They shared and posted stories they were interested in, sure, but also so they could make a point or start a conversation. 

But the vast majority really only wanted to have that conversation within their own group of friends, partly because that was where they felt comfortable. 

Partly, though - and this was a real Homer Simpson 'D'oh' moment - because if they commented elsewhere, on a group or page, they would be inundated with notifications in their email inboxes of responses to their comment from people they didn't know. And why on earth would they want that!

A second theme was that they were 'only interested in the news they were interested in' - not what they thought they ought to be interested in, or what news organisations thought they should be interested in. Would they join a general news group that provided a wide diet of content? Unlikely. Would they join a specialised or thematic group offering education or entertainment or business news? Quite possibly. Would they join a programme page - like BBC Breakfast? Maybe.

There was a very mixed view too on what kind of news should be posted by news organisations on Facebook. Some felt only lighter stories were appropriate; others were happy to see more serious content. Most, though, accepted that it was probably a good idea for media organisations to 'put it all out there' and let people pick and choose for themselves.

Having said that, nobody really believed what they read on Facebook, even if it had mainstream media branding all over it. If they wanted to know about a particular story, they would go directly to a mainstream media website either first, or as a result of having read something about it on Facebook. 

So there didn't seem to be much differentiation in the minds of our group in terms of the kind or quality of the content available on Facebook - it was all just 'stuff'. Many of them, despite spending several hours a day on it, didn't even properly understand some of the core functionality on offer. 

This is perhaps unsurprising as it mirrors how people use all forms of technology. You develop certain habits and until someone points out a shortcut or improvement you plod on as before. 

And so it is with Facebook. As we all know, the site has gone through a number of major changes, but the introduction of Facebook pages (a hybrid of the profile and the group) appears to have passed many by. 

So when we showed the participants BBC Facebook pages, they saw them as a discrete space on Facebook which they would have to choose to go and visit (seemingly confusing them with Facebook groups) and they all said 'why would I do that when I could just go to the BBC website'.

What some didn't know was that by clicking 'like' on a Facebook page (left) they would receive updates in their main News Feed. This confusion underlined the need for news organisations to be clearer about the benefits of 'liking' a page when they trail their presence on Facebook.

So what of Twitter - beloved of the media classes? Most people in the group didn't use it or didn't really understand what it was for. Those that did appreciated it for its short, punchy nature that 'gives me the key stuff and saves me time'.

This was just one group of people from one city, on one evening - but it gave us pause for thought.

This post was co-written by Claire Wardle and Matthew Eltringham.