Plymouth Daily Joins Facebook

A local newspaper in the south west of England has created its own pages on a number of social networking websites in order to reach new readers.

The web editor at the Plymouth Herald has set up entries for the daily publication on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Friendster in a bid to attract younger people who are not part of its traditional print readership.

Neil Shaw told holdthefrontpage.co.uk that the pages, which feature the newspaper’s front page and the day’s top stories, have been visited by more than 600 users since their creation.

“We have not promoted the sites through our paper or through our own website, relying solely on the sites themselves to generate their own interest - so the users we have found there are likely to be brand new to us,” said Shaw.

The Herald’s Facebook group currently has 65 members, while its MySpace profile has so far attracted 311 friends.

Shaw added that the experimental move has enabled the Herald to interact with some of these new readers.

“We've had a few people come forward with details about bands and other entertainment news and a couple of requests from younger users about content they would like to see, so it's also been interesting from that point of view.”