Now that social media platforms are more than just integrated with the news and media industry, but have drastically shifted the manner in which news travels and is even created, publishers have had to adjust their strategies. But media and publishing brands need to keep in mind that consumers use each social platform for different reasons. 

"A key takeaway from this research is that social media is playing an increasing role in Americans? news habits, but that different social networking sites are used for different purposes when it comes to news," said Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at Pew Research Center. "The share of users getting news on both Facebook and Twitter increased from around half in 2013 to almost two-thirds in 2015, even as the number of U.S. adults using each platform has remained about level. 

"Differences emerge though, in how consumers rely on each platform for news," she said. "Twitter news users, for example, are more likely to get breaking news on Twitter than Facebook news users are on Facebook."

According to Pew, the majority of users on Facebook and Twitter are using these apps for more than just keeping updated with family and friends, but more for staying up on current events. Consumers that claimed they use these social platforms for news sources made up of 63 percent of research. 

This has significantly increased from 2013, when only 52 percent of Twitter users and 47 percent of Facebook users claimed to use these sites for news purposes. 

However, these two platforms are used for vastly different purposes when it comes to news consumption, due to the various features of the respective sites. Pew?s research shows that consumers use Twitter for breaking news, to stay updated on the action in real time, but this is not the case for Facebook. 

Almost 60 percent of Twitter news users follow breaking news, but for Facebook the amount drops to 31 percent. Twitter?s platform lends itself for users to do this through its format of short quick text posts, which allows users to quickly post or read what is happening to stay informed up to the minute. 

Facebook has become a hub for sharing articles, videos and other various content due to its preview format. Users can quickly grasp what the story is about through its icon image and short story summary. 

The subject matter varies as well for each platform. Users on Twitter are more likely to post or see content related to sports, business, international affairs and politics.   

For women on Facebook, they are more likely to see posts regarding health, entertainment and local communities, while on Twitter they tend to see content on weather, entertainment, crime and health again. 

This increase in social news consumption has grown spanning all demographics. Users under 35 are the leaders in news leveraging on social media, growing from 55 percent to 67 percent, while consumers over 35 have grown similarly, starting at 47 moving up to 59 percent of users getting news from Facebook and Twitter. 

"This increase comes at a time when the companies themselves have placed increased emphasis on news," Ms. Mitchell said. "Consider Facebook?s Instant Articles and Twitter?s Periscope and Project Lightning, many news providers have also placed heavier emphasis on their presence in social media, who have signed up for news experiments on Facebook, Twitter, and beyond, Witness, for instance, Snapchat?s Discover tool, and when users may be broadening the way they use these sites. 

"So the relationship has several layers moving in multiple directions, which we are still exploring," she said. "Whatever the balance of those drivers is, the larger take away is the degree to which social media is more and more a part of Americans news streams."