Facebook has become the first point of call for news consumers, favouring news brought to them on the social platform instead of searching Google to find it themselves.
Facebook is now the top traffic driver for online media sites, overtaking search engine, Google, according to the report, The State of Tags in Digital Media, released by audience analytics firm, Parse.ly.
Parse.ly looks at data from hundreds of top news sites around the world, including Reuters, Mashable, The Daily Telegraph and Business Insider. According to the report, 20% of all traffic directed to news Web sites at the beginning of last year came from Facebook and 35% from Google. In June, Facebook surpassed Google as the top referral site and now sits at over 40%.
This spike in Facebook news traffic referral over the course of this year comes after the social platform introduced Instant Articles in May. The feature publishes articles from selected news organisations directly into Facebook users' News Feeds.
The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC and The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild all make use of Instant Articles.
"For publishers, the Facebook initiative represents the latest in a series of existential balancing acts. The social network, which has more than 1.4 billion active users worldwide, captures more attention of mobile users - and prompts more visits to news sites - than virtually any other service," reported the New York Times when it started using the feature.
In November last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: "Our goal is to build the perfect personalised newspaper for every person in the world...We're trying to personalise it and show you the stuff that's going to be most interesting to you."
Last week, it was observed that Facebook is redesigning its Notes section to look more like blogging platform, Medium. This will make long-form content, created by Facebook users, easier to read.
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