In a fractured social media landscape, successful publishers are harnessing the power of meeting their audiences where they are, whether that’s established news platforms such as X or emerging ones such as TikTok. On Instagram, from short-from video reporting with Reels, to posts that summarize a news story and often encourage users to click on the “link in bio,” they know it’s an important part of their digital strategy. 

There are several leading news publishers that have achieved success on the platform this year, but looking back at Q2, it’s clear that there are more players in this game than just those of the mainstream media. In this analysis we’ll look at some of the top publishers on Instagram for Q2 2024, and highlight the type of content that is resonating the most with the public. 

BBC

BBC News continues to reign as Instagram’s most followed news publisher. It’s held that title for the last two years, and we’ve previously highlighted the brand’s success in using Instagram Reels for reporting — a strategy that has helped it earn significant engagement, often outperforming other mainstream competitors. That much holds true in Q2, where BBC News earned 38.2 million engagements with its posts overall. 

The type of content gaining interest on BBC’s Instagram might look a bit different than what you would find on the homepage of its website or mobile app. While coverage of hard news and world events will always be part of BBC’s repertoire, it’s the human interest and non-political stories that resonated the most with the public in the last three months. 

The most engaged of these included a Reel about a truck driver who avoided any injuries after crashing over the side of a bridge in the US, and a collection of photos of the Northern Lights that were seen in many cities around the world back in May. Both posts received hundreds of thousands of engagements. 

New York Times

The New York Times has also solidified itself as a leader on Instagram with its reporting, amassing over 25.3 million engagements with its posts in Q2. Although not necessarily surprising, the publisher had a stronger focus on political content than that of the BBC, with two of its top three posts covering presidential news. 

Capturing the most attention was a post about Claudia Sheinbaum winning Mexico’s presidency and making history as the country’s first woman and Jewish person to be elected to the position, which received over 414k engagements. And an image of the total solar eclipse was not far behind, with the coverage from NYT earning 397k engagements. 

Upworthy 

Regardless of news publishers growing their presence on Instagram, it’s still a platform that users rely on for entertainment, and in Q2 it was hard to ignore how easily that type of content can outshine hard news. In a blast from the Facebook past, Upworthy, a website that focuses on positive storytelling, was at the forefront of this. 

Through funny, encouraging, and heartwarming posts, Upworthy managed to land itself in the middle of BBC and NYT in terms of engagement, totaling 26.1 million in Q2. It was also the only news publisher to earn more than one million engagements to a single post, with a Reel about a husband telling his wife that her wig reminds him of Willie Nelson earning nearly 2 million engagements. 

There was a diverse landscape of news on Instagram in Q2, where both mainstream and non-traditional publishers saw success by tailoring their content to the platform’s strengths. With the US election, Paris Olympics, and other events yet to come, we’ll be exploring how news changes, or doesn’t, as 2024 continues.