Social media is now used by several companies and agencies throughout the world as a means of communicating quickly and effectively to their respective target markets, as well to spread news on various issues on a local and global scale.
It has become very easy to share information using
Twitter's 140-character limit per tweet.
Crafted concisely and to the point, a tweet can reach a million users in just under one second.
Media companies should, however, be careful about posting news on the social media platform because there are instances wherein usernames are mixed with real-time news, thereby putting the wrong people on the spotlight.
They key to getting the right information is knowing who the right people or user accounts are.
To be extra sure, look for the
Verified Account symbol beside the usernames.
Here are some of the top news accounts covering both US and global markets you might be interested in following on Twitter. Some have yet to have a Verified symbol to their names, but the Hashtags team has checked them out and they're authentic.
Note: Follower counts below are as of October 20, 2012.
Most Followed News Accounts
1.
PTVNews (Pakistan)
@PTV_News has 1,981 followers
2.
Asia Pacific News @AsiaPacNews has 2,722 followers
3.
NZNews (New Zealand)
@NewZealandNews_ has 4,784 followers
4.
RFA Vietnamese (Vietnam)
@VietnamNews has 5,486 followers
5.
ITN News @itn_news has 5,841 followers
6.
FOX16 News @FOX16news has 7,438 followers
7.
SABC News Updates (Africa)
@SABCnewsNow has 7,647 followers
8.
South Korea Daily @SouthKoreaDaily has 10,730 followers
9.
Yonhap News Agency (South Korea)
@YonhapNews has 14,304 followers
10.
WBIR Channel 10 (Tennessee)
@wbir has 19,825 followers
11.
Brisbane Times (Australia)
@brisbanetimes has 20,828 followers
12.
Daily Mirror @DailyMirror has 25,497 followers
13.
UAE News @UAENews has 31,315 followers
14.
SBS News (Australia)
@SBSNews has 32,621 followers
15.
Palestine News @palestine has 34,565 followers
16.
EWTN Global Catholic Network (Alabama)
@EWTN has 35,655 followers
17.
NBC News World News @NBCNewsWorld has 37,312 followers
18.
Euronews @euronews has 41,336 followers
19.
New York Times Live @NYTLive has 53,155 followers
20.
ABC7 News Bay Area @abc7newsBayArea has 55,246 followers
21.
Voice of America News @VOA_News has 60,471 followers
22.
Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
@ChannelNewsAsia has 82,809 followers
23.
New York Daily News @nydailynews has 88,831 followers
24.
RTE News @rtenews has 88,981 followers
25.
ABC World News @ABCWorldNews has 124,647 followers
26.
Daily Telegraph News (UK)
@TelegraphNews has 143,999 followers
27.
CBC Top Stories (Canada)
@CBCNews has 146,915 followers
28.
CNET News (US)
@CNETNews has 182,857 followers
29.
Hindustan Times (India)
@htTweets has 307,485 followers
30.
MSNBC @msnbc has 309,097 followers
31.
NBC News @NBCNews has 372,262 followers
32.
ABS-CBN News Channel (Philippines)
@ANCALERT has 594,607 followers
33.
NHK News (Japan)
@nhk_news has 601,786 followers
34.
ABS-CBN News (Philippines)
@ABSCBNNews has 606,365 followers
35.
Bloomberg News @BloombergNews has 681,744 followers
36.
VIVAnews (Indonesia)
@VIVAnews has 794,258 followers
37.
Us Weekly @usweekly has 820,547 followers
Accounts With Over 1 Million Followers
38.
BBC News @BBCNews in the United Kingdom has 1,044,442 followers
39.
GMA News (Philippines)
@gmanews has 1,085,371 followers
40.
E! News (US)
@ENews has 1,181,930 million followers
41.
NPR News @nprnews has 1,272,911 followers
42.
Al Jazeera English (Doha, Qatar)
@AJEnglish has 1,315,592 followers
43.
Fox News (US)
@FoxNews has 2,056,302 followers
44.
Reuters Top News @Reuters has 2,141,466 followers
45.
CBS News @CBSNews has 2,181,764 followers
46.
BBC News World @BBCWorld has 2,673,354 followers
47.
Breaking News @BreakingNews has 4,716,398 followers
48.
E! Online @eonline has 4,958,016 followers
49.
The New York Times @nytimes has 6,328,408 followers
50.
CNN Breaking News (US)
@cnnbrk has 9,028,081 followers
These news accounts have been made available on Twitter for people to constantly follow the latest updates and developments in different parts of the globe.
Since the media aims to garner as wide an audience as possible, the use of social media sites like Twitter has made it very convenient and easy to place news and information. People can access the handle anytime using mobile devices or personal computers and get the news in an instant.
Social media platforms like Twitter has shown to be very effective in substituting traditional materials like television, radio and newspapers. Aside from being free, people can get the information from different channels all across the globe.
There are a lot more of verified news accounts on Twitter. Do you know of an account that should be on this list? We'd love to know about them in the comments!
