Everyone is lauding the Olympic athletes for their feats in Rio, but we decided to take a look at the authors who brought home the gold with their Olympics reporting.
The Rio Summer Olympics have come to a close. There have been amazing stories both in and outside of the games. While everyone knows that Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky dominated swimming, that Usain Bolt made history, and that Ryan Lochte created a national scandal, we thought it was worth heralding some of the authors behind these fantastic stories.
Looking at NewsWhip Spike and Analytics, we compiled the English-language authors that drove the biggest engagement on Facebook for their Olympics reporting.
We took data from the Rio Olympics 2016’s start to close, spanning August 4th to August 22nd, 2016. Articles had to be attributed to an author to be considered, and had to include at least one keyword around the Olympics.
The Top Authors of the Rio Olympics
In our July analysis of top publishers on Facebook, India Times was the fourth most engaging publisher for the month. India Times’ success can be attributed to both their large number of articles and their use of Instant Articles, which can be easier and faster to read for the younger audience on mobile.
India is one of Facebook’s fastest-growing markets globally, with 142 million users as of March 2016. So perhaps it’s not a surprise that two of the top authors were from India Times.
Joshua Arpit Nath drove over 716,000 engagements on Facebook for his Olympics reporting, while Somak Adhikari saw over 638,000 engagements for the time frame we analyzed.
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This was the most engaging article from Somak Adhikari, driving over 128,000 total Facebook engagements.
We see authors from mostly general news sites taking up the majority of the top ten author list. The positivity news site LittleThings makes the list, along with NPR and the Tab. To illustrate just how well nationalism did, Asif Hossain made number eleven for his stories on the official site for the Canadian Olympic team.
Reporting Focused on Different Aspects
Like we noted in the table above, each of the authors in the top ten reported in different ways around the Rio Summer Olympics.
Joshua Arpit Nath and Somak Adhikari primarily wrote about Indian athletes, though there were a few general Olympics articles from Joshua Arpit Nath about Michael Phelps and other superstar athletes.
A surprising three of the top ten authors didn’t post primarily about the games, but instead about social issues connected to the Olympics, human interest pieces, and other non-game related content.
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This was the top article during the Olympics period attributed to an author. The link drove over 354,000 Facebook engagements for its story on international chefs donating leftover food from the Olympic village to the poor.
Other authors focused on Olympics superstars. Scott Stump, Chris Chase, Bill Chappell, and Rachel Lutz wrote about the buzziest sports and athletes: Michael Phelps, Simone Manuel, Simone Biles, gymnastics, swimming, etc.
As we saw with Facebook’s latest algorithm changes, organic, peer-to-peer sharing is more important than ever. Content that appeals to its target audience is more likely to be shared and engaged with.
Because of this, authors are likely to see success if they pay attention to the type of articles that their audience is hungry for.
What Were the Most Engaging Articles?
Aside from the top authors, we looked at which stories attributed to authors had the biggest number of Facebook engagements. What were the ten top articles attributed to journalists?
Looking at these top engaging stories, we see that none of these stories are directly about the Olympic games, except perhaps Simone Manuel’s medal ceremony.
The two top stories weren’t about the Olympic games themselves. Instead, the top story was about a chef donating unused food from the Olympic village to the poor, and the second was about a Syrian refugee Olympian that saved 20 people by pushing their boat to safety.
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This story about Yursa Mardini saving 20 lives drove nearly 300,000 Facebook engagements since publication.
These beyond-the-game stories were responsible for both Feliks Garcia and our 11th top author, Heather Saul’s, most engaging content from the Olympics. Feliks’ second top story was about Olympic athletes being told to keep their mouths closed while swimming in dirty water.
Funnier human interest stories made the cut as well, such as this story from Roisin Lanigan about reporting on male athletes the same way female athletes are written about. The story drove over 340,000 engagements on Facebook.
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The Olympics is such a big production globally, that it makes sense that stories outside and beyond the game can drive remarkable engagement. Even prior Olympics can make for engaging stories, such as this story about the 1968 Summer Olympics and the relatively obscure until now, Peter Norman.
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Disgraced at the time for his actions at the 1968 Olympics, Peter Norman was posthumously made a hero by the Australian government. This story drove over 228,000 Facebook engagements.
Nostalgia is often an engaging tactic. Throwbacks can make people sentimental for times past. More than that, like with Barbara Diamond’s story, newly uncovered insights into historic events can breathe fresh life into old stories.
Animals are another popular topic it seems, no matter the vertical. Two of the top ten stories were about Adelinde Cornelissen, a Dutch dressage rider, who chose to stop mid-routine because her horse was recovering from illness.
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There are two conclusions we can draw from this. One, monumental events such as the Olympics provide a plethora of topics to focus on. Two, authors can build a niche audience for themselves by focusing on certain aspects of events.
Why do Top Authors Matter?
Why should we care about the top authors? Well, for publishers, the value of organic sharing on social is more important than ever. With Facebook’s numerous changes putting an emphasis on peer-to-peer sharing, authors that have sway are important to getting stories out there.
For publishers like the Odyssey and INSIDER, authors being social distributors is a big part of their strategy.
According to Leigh Silver, Odyssey’s audience development director, “Odyssey didn’t grow because we had a huge following on Facebook or Twitter, we actually grew because we leveraged the personal accounts of all our creators to generate a more authentic, engaged community.”
Silver noted that, “What’s interesting about that is that the people who come to a story on our site are there because they know that writer, or that writer is in their social network.”
Curious as to who’s writing your favorite stories? Or the sort of content your target audience is cheering for? Check out NewsWhip Spike.
A look at top sports authors of the last three days. We can click any of the authors to see more of their stories from this timeframe and the stories’ engagement.
In Spike, authors are the writers and newsrooms who create the most viral content. You can zero in on top authors for any area of interest – across topic, location, source, and search filters.
You can filter down to see the top performing authors at any publishers, say CNN, and rank authors by total engagements. Or, as in the case of the Olympics, we can find the top authors for a keyword or topic.
As peer-to-peer sharing rises in prominence, identifying the authors who write engaging content will only become more vital.
