Is Instagram A Platform For Hard-Hitting Journalism?

Instagram’s format places certain constraints on story-telling, but it’s tiled layout can make a series of posts more compelling.
A photo posted by Reveal (@revealnews) on Aug 23, 2016 at 12:09pm PDT
Publishing companies have experimented with a number of social media strategies over the past 10 years, as the industry has moved, somewhat awkwardly, into the digital world. One of the more recent shifts to social-first publishing was Facebook Instant Articles, which lets media companies host their articles on the social media site. The idea is to make the articles easier to access, and users on the Facebook app can click on a link and get almost instant access without having to leave the app. Facebook benefits by collecting advertising dollars that come with the content. Many top publishers, including The New York Times, signed up.

Publishers are also quickly getting to grips with Snapchat, and several big names have already set up Discover channels on the app, which lets them create professional looking content using features unavailable to the normal Snapchat user.

Facebook Live, Periscope, and other live chat services have also become popular among media companies in recent times. Every publisher is scrambling to find a way to recapture audiences fragmented by the emergence of the internet, and experiment’s like Reveal’s are a crucial part of the industry’s continuing attempts to evolve.