2024

The top publishers on social Media

Using NewsWhip Spike, we’ve done an exhaustive analysis to see which publishers and stories are getting the most engagement across different platforms, including the likes of Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more.

 

 

In the fractured social media environment of 2024, it’s impossible for publishers to rely on web traffic alone. Different strategies abound, from sharing on X, to encouraging audiences to visit links in bio on Instagram, and each audience requires a different strategy. We wanted to do more research into what’s working on each platform by taking a look at the top posts on each platform, and spotlighting a few of the standout accounts who are consistently the top performers. This analysis will span web, Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, looking at accounts from mainstream news and beyond. Let’s dive in.

Top News Posts on Facebook

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Facebook has gone through a notable change in the last few years, as the focus of the platform has moved away from politics, and more towards friends and family content.

Three or four years ago, the bulk of content engagement was coming to US and UK Pages, but now if you dig into the top posts from news outlets, they tend to be focused on sports, and are often from Pages based in India. This was reflected in the top ten news posts, with around half being about India’s cricket team, and only one from a traditionally mainstream news outlet. Meanwhile, LADbible continues to see success with its soft news approach that has triumphed for many years now, which we will dig into more later in this report. In terms of format, all of the top ten posts were videos. Let’s now look at some of the Pages that stood out in terms of aggregate engagement.

Facebook has gone through a notable change in the last few years, as the focus of the platform has moved away from politics, and more towards friends and family content.

Three or four years ago, the bulk of content engagement was coming to US and UK Pages, but now if you dig into the top posts from news outlets, they tend to be focused on sports, and are often from Pages based in India. This was reflected in the top ten news posts, with around half being about India’s cricket team, and only one from a traditionally mainstream news outlet. Meanwhile, LADbible continues to see success with its soft news approach that has triumphed for many years now, which we will dig into more later in this report. In terms of format, all of the top ten posts were videos. Let’s now look at some of the Pages that stood out in terms of aggregate engagement.

LADbible

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LADbible may be the original and reigning king of Facebook, having dominated the platform since we began analyzing it years ago.

Its Facebook Page has seen consistent huge success, so it should come as no surprise that it consistently appears in the highest echelons of our rankings and analysis. Unlike One Football, LADbible is much more focused on video content, and almost 85% of the Page's engagements are driven by videos. The content is a heady blend of the classic mantra of 'surprise and delight', with the most engaging content often featuring either children, animals, or both.      

Occupy Democrats

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While political news is not as prevalent on the platform as it once was, that's not to say it has disappeared completely.
The most salient example of that is Occupy Democrats, a partisan political outfit that reports the news with a left-leaning slant. The example opposite is an accurate representation of what is currently working for the page — putting political news in a photo post and encouraging its audience to engage within the text of the photo itself. It's a more direct strategy than most publishers take, but it seems to be working for the Page, with more than 77 million engagements in the first half of the year, and almost 90% of those being with this kind of photo content.

Top news posts
on X

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While X has long been thought of as the place for breaking news, it's not always news accounts that see the most success on the platform.

It's certainly a place where the news gets discussed, and influential voices including journalists and the likes of Elon Musk himself will add their commentary to breaking news events, but in terms of news accounts themselves the engagements are often lower. There are exceptions to this rule, which we will look at further in our spotlights, but are reflected in the top posts here. Pop Base, Pop Crave, and Dexerto have all carved out audiences on the platform where they're seeing hundreds of thousands of engagements on their pop culture news. Unlike on other platforms, the majority of these engagements still come to photo posts rather than video posts. Let's look at each a little closer.

While X has long been thought of as the place for breaking news, it's not always news accounts that see the most success on the platform.

It's certainly a place where the news gets discussed, and influential voices including journalists and the likes of Elon Musk himself will add their commentary to breaking news events, but in terms of news accounts themselves the engagements are often lower. There are exceptions to this rule, which we will look at further in our spotlights, but are reflected in the top posts here. Pop Base, Pop Crave, and Dexerto have all carved out audiences on the platform where they're seeing hundreds of thousands of engagements on their pop culture news. Unlike on other platforms, the majority of these engagements still come to photo posts rather than video posts. Let's look at each a little closer.

Pop Base

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Pop Base specifically focuses on pop culture content, and has seen great success on X writing about that niche.

The publisher's top post referenced international news, posting about Thailand legalizing same-sex marriage, which had more than half a million engagements. They also focused on celebrity news, with posts of note including Sabrina Carpenter's 25th birthday party, and Thai actors Both and Newyear getting married in the wake of its legalization. Despite its focus on pop culture, the account does not shy away from harder news topics too, with one of its top pieces of content focusing on pro-Palestine protests of President Biden in New York.  

Dexerto

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Dexerto is a website that was originally focused on esports and video games, but has since expanded into broader themes and internet culture.

Its success on X is driven by a bit of a strange phenomenon, in that its three top posts in the first half of the year were about the death of prominent pop culture figures, including a TikTok grandma, the creator of Dragonball Z Akira Toriyama, and the dog that inspired the Doge meme, Kabosu. Its other content featured streamers and notable personalities from around the world, but nothing was as engaging for the account as its reports on death. This is actually a phenomenon we noted on Facebook a few years ago, as people rush to share their condolences and their own memories of the deceased, so its unsurprising to see it repeated here.  

Pop Crave

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Despite the similarity in name and success, Pop Crave has no ties with the anonymous Pop Base, and is slightly more in the mould of traditional journalism.

This is reflected in its top posts, with the top piece of content overall for the publisher referencing an interview with Arizona Iced Tea founder Don Vultaggio about the economy and why he continues to charge under a dollar for the drink despite inflation. It often features clips or interview segments with celebrities and influencers, with its coverage focusing on the likes of Halsey and Tristan Simmonds, as well as 2024's breakout musical star Chappell Roan.  

Top news posts on Instagram

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Instagram may not be where your mind first goes when you think of news, but there is a huge ecosystem for it on the platform now, with a number of publishers seeing massive engagement.

The top posts came mostly from Upworthy, in what has been a callback to early Facebook engagement success, which we'll look at in a spotlight. It's also notable that the platform has seen a lot of engagement around Gaza, with the likes of Eyes on Palestine posting regular videos and photos from on the ground in Gaza, and seeing hundreds of thousands of engagements with that content. Though not reflected in the very top posts, it's often a place where content that would normally be paywalled, such as what you'd find in the Financial Times and the Economist, can reach a much broader audience than their subscriber base, and those two are consistent high performers on the platform, particularly through data visualizations.  

Instagram may not be where your mind first goes when you think of news, but there is a huge ecosystem for it on the platform now, with a number of publishers seeing massive engagement.

The top posts came mostly from Upworthy, in what has been a callback to early Facebook engagement success, which we'll look at in a spotlight. It's also notable that the platform has seen a lot of engagement around Gaza, with the likes of Eyes on Palestine posting regular videos and photos from on the ground in Gaza, and seeing hundreds of thousands of engagements with that content. Though not reflected in the very top posts, it's often a place where content that would normally be paywalled, such as what you'd find in the Financial Times and the Economist, can reach a much broader audience than their subscriber base, and those two are consistent high performers on the platform, particularly through data visualizations.  
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Upworthy

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As we've said elsewhere, Upworthy's success on the platform is reminiscent of the mid 2010s on Facebook, as news first started to make its way onto the platform.

The content is broadly feel-good posts that get liked and engaged with widely, and offer a mix of videos and photos that are often crowdsourced from elsewhere on the social internet. Examples in the top ten alone came from X and Reddit, being curated and re-shared with positive captions on Upworthy's feed. The most successful of these posts have seen millions of engagements on the platform.  

CNN

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CNN, alongside the likes of the New York Times, which we have written about elsewhere, is among the most engaging mainstream US news accounts on Instagram.

Its top content is less reactive than you might expect. Where elsewhere on the internet (as we'll get to later when we talk about TikTok), cable news clips are often repackaged and repurposed in response to an event, CNN has seen success using its Instagram account as promotional material for its shows. Two of its top three posts promoted future CNN programing, including a Navalny documentary and an episode about tsunamis that featured on Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber. Where coverage was reactive, CNN's live reporting pushed people to the link in bio content that Instagram users have become accustomed to, and this often received hundreds of thousands of engagements.  
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AJ+

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AJ+, alongside the likes of Eyes on Palestine, have seen a lot of engagement with their posts about Gaza.

All of the publisher's top coverage was around this theme, either focusing on coverage from on the ground, or talking about its own journalism in covering the event. AJ+'s photojournalist Bisan Owda won a Peabody award for her reporting from Gaza, and this also featured in the coverage, as people praised her work.  

Top TikTok news posts

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TikTok is full of influencers, both macro and micro, but it's also full of news.

The video-sharing app drives huge levels of engagement, and publishers have been taking advantage of that with the high growth on the platform and the ability to reach a younger audience than on many other networks. Cable news in particular has seen success in repackaging its content for vertical video, but that's by no means the only success story, with the Daily Mail achieving especially massive engagement on TikTok.  

TikTok is full of influencers, both macro and micro, but it's also full of news.

The video-sharing app drives huge levels of engagement, and publishers have been taking advantage of that with the high growth on the platform and the ability to reach a younger audience than on many other networks. Cable news in particular has seen success in repackaging its content for vertical video, but that's by no means the only success story, with the Daily Mail achieving especially massive engagement on TikTok.  
@dailymail BREAKING NEWS: Maryland's Key Bridge collapses after being struck by a container ship as astonishing footage shows the 1.6-mile long structure crashing into river There were no immediate reports of any casualties but there did appear to be traffic on the bridge at the time of the catastrophe. #breakingnews #maryland #bridge #collapse #shocking #ship #river #baltimore ♬ original sound - Daily Mail

Daily Mail

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The Daily Mail has long been a huge player on Facebook, consistently dominating our publisher rankings for web content on the platform.

In the last couple of years, the British newspaper has truly taken over TikTok, with some of its videos seeing millions of engagements. The videos have covered a wide variety of news, including everything from chaos in the Taiwanese parliament, to video footage from Maryland's bridge collapse, to Super Bowl ticket prices, and that's just in the top five posts. The outlet is seeing huge levels of engagement, and reaching a younger audience as a result, helping to drive brand awareness and build an audience beyond its newspaper reporting.

ABC News

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ABC News is perhaps the most successful of the big US cable publishers on TikTok in H1 2024.

There have been notable success stories from local stations where clips get shared around to a broader audience, but at least in terms of the national channels, it's ABC News that stood out. Local footage of a Missouri State trooper moving a hay bale off the road was the news outlets standout piece of content, in a video that received almost 2 million engagements. Its success wasn't limited to viral soft news clips though, with one of the other top videos from ABC News featuring singer Jelly Roll testifying in front of Congress to urge them to pass fentanyl legislation.  
@abcnews Dashcam footage captured a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper showing off his strength as he pushed a hay bale off a road. #legday #strength #fitness #missouri #highwaypatrol #dashcam ♬ original sound - ABC News
@itvnews A woman in Wales was lifted into the air by shop shutters #itvnews #wales #shop ♬ original sound - itvnews

ITV News

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While not as successful as The Daily Mail on the platform, ITV News is another example of the UK's influence across social networks when it comes to the news.

There was not a lot dissimilar to the previous two in terms of content, with a mix of repackaged news footage generally what worked for the publisher. Its top post does give us an interesting note on form on TikTok though. ITV News' top post featured grainy footage of a woman in Wales being caught in and lifted up by shop shutters, showing that not everything has to be slick, cable-news content. If something is funny or moving enough, and reaches the right audience, it is likely to see success on TikTok.

News on LinkedIn

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Thanks to our partnership with LinkedIn, we're able to analyze public company profiles on LinkedIn, and of course some of those companies are media outlets.

LinkedIn presents very different challenges and opportunities to the other platforms we've looked at above, as the social network is still oriented primarily around careers, networking, and the job market.

We're going to look at three publishers in our spotlights, each of which approach things in different ways, from the BBC's sharing of mainstream news to others that clearly have a more LinkedIn-centric strategy.

 

Thanks to our partnership with LinkedIn, we're able to analyze public company profiles on LinkedIn, and of course some of those companies are media outlets.

LinkedIn presents very different challenges and opportunities to the other platforms we've looked at above, as the social network is still oriented primarily around careers, networking, and the job market.

We're going to look at three publishers in our spotlights, each of which approach things in different ways, from the BBC's sharing of mainstream news to others that clearly have a more LinkedIn-centric strategy.

 

Indian Startup News

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Indian Startup News is exactly the kind of publisher that lends itself to LinkedIn, focusing very specifically on a niche topic that's relevant to the workforce.

This niche saw the outlet achieve significant success, with content that does exactly what its name suggests — shining a spotlight on startup news from India.

Its top content was a mix of video and photo, and several of the top posts saw tens of thousands of engagements. Featured companies included exercise company Aroleap, and self-driving company Swaayatt Robots. Understandably, the tech industry was frequently at the forefront of the account's posts.

Forbes

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Forbes is a big name in journalism, but their recipe for success on LinkedIn appears to be a very simple one.

Photo posts with quotes from business leaders and thinkers, and that's that. It's simple but effective, with some garnering as many as 20,000 reactions in response.

While it's not showcasing the magazine's reporting, it is working to successfully build an audience. Top quotes came from Gini Rometti, former CEO of IBM, and television host Conan O'Brien.

Some links were promoted on the publisher's account, including one about JetBlue's new CEO, but the vast majority of the top posts were in this quote block format.

BBC News

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The BBC broke the mold of business-led news and saw success with more mainstream news reporting.

This didn't deter the brand from seeing considerable success on the platform, however, with posts regularly seeing tens of thousands of engagements on LinkedIn.

Top content included a look at Mexico's new president, a teenager with Down's syndrome receiving a Guinness World Record, and the Northern Lights appearing in the United Kingdom.

Top web news articles

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Returning to more traditional news content, we're going to look at the top links across Facebook and X.

Despite less of a focus on news and politics, and a move away from pure link posts towards photo and video, there are still links that receive hundreds of thousands of engagements across the social networks. There was no real pattern to the top content in terms of what was being reported, with a mix of news seeing high engagement. Some of it, like Princess Kate of the UK's cancer treatment announcement, was serious, while Jason Kelce's behavior at the Super Bowl was much more focused fun. If there was one theme, it's that the top articles still draw emotion from their audience, whether that be empathy, humor, or sadness.    

Top news publishers

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The top publishers across social tend to still be quite mainstream.

The Daily Mail continues its success, while the likes of Fox News, The Daily Mirror, and others also received more than ten million engagements to their web links on Facebook and X in the first half of 2024.

Key takeaways

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  • Facebook has become a platform where sports and soft news content thrive, with videos often being the top performing format for publishers to utilize.
  • While X still drives discussions on news and world events, publishers focused on pop culture news have seen more success this year than that of mainstream news accounts.
  • An ecosystem of news exists on Instagram now, with mainstream publishers able to reach a broader audience without a paywall, to feel-good content and non-traditional publishers driving huge amounts of engagement on the platform.
  • The Daily Mail continues to dominate TikTok with its short-from video reporting, but cable news outlets (in the US and UK) have attracted their own audiences and achieved success this year by repackaging their content for vertical video.
  • Web news articles on Facebook and X still see thousands of engagements, with stories that draw on emotion being the most consistent drivers of engagement for publishers.
  • News publishers are seeing success on LinkedIn by approaching content differently, from highlighting niche work topics to simply posting motivational quotes.

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