How Der Spiegel leads social media engagement on Instagram in Germany

In this installment of our series spotlighting top publishers across web and social media, we’re shifting our focus to Germany. Previously, we analyzed 50 of the top publishers across a variety of news types, and did a similar deep dive into 10 UK publishers. Now we’re bringing the same approach to Germany’s publisher landscape.

For this research, we took content from 10 of the top German publishers, including, Bild, RTL, Zeit, Focus, Welt, Faz, Stern, Der Spiegel, ZDF, and Deutsche Welle, and measured their engagement across Facebook, X, Instagram, and web articles. Here’s what we learned.

Bild reigns as top web publisher

In our first report, we highlighted how engagement with web content has generally declined over the last few years, but in Germany it’s still going relatively strong as an engagement source — led by the dominant force of Bild. 

Known for its mix of gossip, political analysis, and sensationalized reporting, Bild has sat at the top of all our German web rankings in the past, and it leads our field again here having earned over 13.7 million engagements. Its top three articles were all sports related, with the Paris Olympics (27.9k), Euros (28.1k), and a controversy in the women’s World Darts Championship all landing in the headlines (35.9k).

Engagement with web articles

Focus followed not too far behind Bild, and was the only other publisher we looked at for this study to accumulate over 10 million engagements. However, the articles that drove success for Focus were different from what worked for Bild, with its content centering more around everyday life in Germany and current affairs. 

The climate, and vehicle and driving policies were at the forefront of coverage. An article about an extreme heat wave reaching Germany (29.6k), and one about electric vehicles failing consumption tests were among Focus’s most engaged articles this year (27.2k).

We can’t ignore that other publishers still earned millions of engagements with their web content, but many have shifted their strategies to focus more on social media, and we’re seeing that pay off in a big way, especially on Instagram. 

Der Spiegel’s storytelling breaks through on Instagram

Instagram is where these publishers collectively achieved the highest levels of engagement across social platforms, totaling 75.9 million engagements compared to 55.1 million with web articles — notably a much closer comparison than we saw in the UK analysis or our 50-publisher research.

Several outlets broke the 10 million engagement mark on Instagram, including Bild, Zeit, Welt, and Faz, but it was Der Spiegel that saw the most success among this group, earning 15.4 million engagements.

The publisher spotlighted human-interest stories and reported on socially relevant topics in a way that clearly resonated with its audience. The most engaged posts include a Reel about a young man’s quirky hobby of reporting traffic offenders who ignore road regulations, and a carousel about an essay examining violence as a “men’s problem” rather than a societal issue.

Welt wins with political news on X

Engagement was lower for these publishers on X than on other platforms, but political content continues to hold relevance among users, and Welt is the standout example of that. 

The publisher reported mostly on national news, with several posts about contentious political topics driving its engagement. This included a story about German citizens calling for radical changes to asylum policies, and a critique of the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz’s deportation initiative.

Focus also saw success on the platform, with content about immigration and refugees capturing interest, emphasizing the importance of this topic with the German public agnostic of with which publisher they’re engaging.

Entertainment and feel-good stories prevail on Facebook

Despite the shiny new toys of Instagram and TikTok, Facebook remains an important platform for publishers, and all 10 we looked at have a consistent presence there. This means that there’s a wide variety of content that can perform well. 

In terms of who generated the most engagement, it was Focus and Bild that once again led the pack. Focus’ top post joked about what meat alternatives should be called if they don’t actually contain meat, and Bild paid tribute to Harry Potter actors Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, and Maggie Smith.

Welt also had one of the most engaged posts on Facebook of all the publishers, and that was due to an 82-year-old man who completed the Berlin marathon. This mix of posts highlights Facebook’s ability to support a mix of lighthearted, emotional, and feel-good content that continues to resonate with audiences on the platform.

Key takeaways for German publishers 

This analysis highlights some key trends in the digital media landscape in Germany:

• Despite general declines, web content continues to perform surprisingly well for German publishers
• X stands out as the platform for political discourse, with publishers effectively driving engagement through controversial national topics
• Facebook remains the platform where relatable and lighthearted content thrives
• Although we didn’t include TikTok in this analysis because not every publisher is utilizing it consistently, Deutsche Welle was particularly successful on the platform compared to others that did use it

For more on this topic, you can find our full, global analysis of 50 publishers in our report here.