Regional newspapers have been urged to hire and promote more young journalists to improve their social media output.

Representatives from national media outlets Sky News, BuzzFeed and Unilad have offered the advice to regional publishers at the NCTJ journalism skills conference.

During a debate on making the most from social media yesterday afternoon at Sky headquarters, in London, the issue of how local newspapers are using such platforms was raised.

The panel – Sky News head of digital Mark Alford, Jane Bradley, investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News, Ben Hayward, editorial manager at Unilad and Sky social media producer Stuart Duggan – were asked for their view on how they saw social media use in the regional press compared to their own organisations.

Jane, pictured above, responded: “I began my career in local news and, at the time, they were really crap at using social media and they hardly had any young people in the newsroom.

“If you want to be good at using social media in local news, you need to hire and promote young people. I’m one of the old ones [at BuzzFeed] and I’m 29.”

However Jane went on to praise the work currently being undertaken by the regional newspapers on social media.

She said: “The MEN is incredible on social media and at The Chronicle, in Newcastle. The Northern Echo is also good at it. It needs to be more widespread.”

Ben added: “[Regional newspapers] are definitely improving and we get a lot of news from local social media.

“If a story’s performing well at local level, it’s going to perform on national level as well.”