Publishers suffer in spar between social giants

As competition among social media companies heats up, publishers are being taken for granted. In the past two years, social media platforms rolled out a range of products designed to hook publishers. Snapchat Discover, Facebook Instant Articles, Apple News, Twitter Moments, and Google AMP all provide a space to publish content directly within platforms.

Publishers, which have been losing advertising dollars to companies like Google and Facebook for years, are adopting these tools in the hopes of reaching more readers and pulling in revenue. Yet much of the social media action around news publishing, touted as earnest effort and welcomed by publishers, is just a boxing match between social giants vying for users and attention. Can publishers win in a fight that isn’t really about them?