We’ve officially added TikTok to the Timeline widget, rounding out the list of platforms that are now available. This now completes the “God’s-eye view” of media coverage that the ability to see what’s driving engagement across all the different platforms at the same time.
To illustrate that, let’s zoom in on TikTok and take a look at one of the publishers that is performing well on TikTok, and chart their journey in 2025 so far.
The graph above shows the output (bars) and engagement levels (line) with TikTok posts from NBC News this year.
The first thing to note is that number of posts does not always equal the highest level of engagement. As you might expect, engagement peaked around the big news event of the year so far—Donald Trump’s inauguration, hitting highs of almost 30 million engagements per week.
We can also dig in further to see what posts drove the most success overall. While Trump did feature prominently, there were also posts about a holocaust survivor, the TikTok ban , and a Brazilian beatboxing nun, so it was by no means a one-size-fits-all approach.
TikTok remains a space and platform where people might not be actively seeking out the news, but do often stumble across it. This makes it crucial for news practitioners to understand viral moments and what’s working for others on the platform.
All this, from topical analysis to performance benchmarking, is now available on NewsWhip’s Timeline feature, which you can read more about here.
