Sharing News Via Email, Facebook, Twitter and Word-of-Mouth

In a recent article, Poynter questioned the future of email as a method of sharing news and looked at the declining number of users clicking the email option when wanting to share a viral video or interesting article with friends. BuzzFeed in particular noticed a 60 percent drop off this year alone, as it has noticed less traffic to its sites College Humor and TMZ coming from email services.

A New York Times study found that Millenials are turning to the "share on Facebook or Twitter" buttons just as often as they are going through the various steps to chose specific email addresses to which they want to send the stories or videos. On the other hand, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still prefer word of mouth and email sharing over social media sites. Check out this infographic, "Where Did All The Email Sharing Go?" and this one titled "Boomers are more likely to share by word-of-mouth; email key for Gen X."

The Poynter article describes it as a move from email to social sharing, which could be attributed to the fact that people's internet lives are increasingly becoming about broadcasting themselves, their interests, and their ideas to as many people as possible. The most effective way to do so is undoubtedly via social media.

Certain things online are more conducive to email sharing, such as financial statements, bills, hotel and flight reservations and purchases. Others, like topical news stories, videos and memes are suitable for public sharing, and are often posted on people's Facebook walls and Twitter feeds.

Think about all of the things you find online and want to share with people. How do you share them? Do you post them on their Facebook pages for all of your and their friends to see? Do you tweet them out using the handles of the celebrity/athlete/politician/etc who is the subject of the story? Do you email them to only a select few?

Why do you chose certain media to share different types of stories?