Your new front page: How newsrooms and publishers will win audiences on social in 2025

News consumption is changing, and so is how news outlets approach its distribution on social. Recent studies by both Pew and Ofcom have shown that more people than ever get their news straight from social media, and it’s a trend that’s only growing.

It’s no longer about just driving traffic to the website through posting links on Facebook and Twitter. There’s a whole evolving eco-system that publishers are adapting to, building their brands with new audiences and users who might not ever make it to the homepage.

To understand how publishers are navigating this new social landscape, we took 50 of the top outlets from across the different platforms, encompassing news, lifestyle, sports, and politics, and looked at the key trends across that group between January and mid-October this year.

This report will offer insight into and examples of the most successful publishers across web, Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok. Where appropriate, we also took examples from outside of those 50, but all of the aggregate numbers focus on the core group.

The toplines

The immediate, obvious takeaway from our research is that Instagram and TikTok have become dominant forces for news publishers. Together they make up more than 80% of the total engagement across the six million posts and articles we looked at for this report.

Part of this is driven by some publishers (notably the likes of Bleacher Report, ESPN, Vogue, and GQ) enjoying huge benefits from the visual-first content on the platforms. That said, it’s also true that even for other publishers, engagement is higher on those platforms. 

Instagram and TikTok dominate

Where Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) once dominated, Instagram and TikTok now shine, highlighting the shift to a more visual, short-form video style of reporting that has steadily gained success.

From a total of 9.5 billion engagements, Instagram and TikTok account for 42% and 40% of total engagement for publishers respectively, while the main accounts on the other networks combined for 18%.

This ratio does vary for different publishers, and you can explore more on the chart opposite.

Engagement by platform for select publishers

Publisher contribution to total engagement

A Pareto principle for publishers

ESPN, Bleacher Report, the Daily Mail, LADbible, and Vogue are responsible for over half the total engagement across these platforms.

These five alone have combined for 5.3 billion engagements across their web and social posts, compared to 4.2 billion for the other 45 publishers on the list. Their common theme is striking visual content that performed well on both TikTok and Instagram, though they did not have much in common when it came to what the successful posts actually entailed.

What’s clear from the get-go, though, is how much the public resonated with content about sports, fashion & lifestyle, and feel-good stories.

A sports slam dunk

The scale of that engagement is also reflected in the raw numbers, where both ESPN and Bleacher Report topped 1.5 billion engagements. The Daily Mail was not far behind with 852 million of its own.

While they might look comparatively small compared to the sports giants, the likes of Fox News, BBC News, Al Jazeera and ABC News are still in the top ten, and generating hundreds of millions of engagements.

The driver of huge engagement here is success on the new video platforms, but publishers such as LADbible show there’s still a lot of engagement to be had on Facebook for those with the right content, and that helped propel the viral publisher into third in our list overall.

Top publishers across all platforms

Web publishers on social media

Although engagement with web content has generally declined since its peak during the pandemic, there is still a lot of engagement to be found for some publishers through their articles. One notable example of this in recent months is the NY Times, which has been on a particular hot streak, and has 7 of the top 10 articles.

Fox News does well in the aggregate, but part of this is through sheer volume, with content from its local affiliates also included under the Fox News umbrella for this ranking. Volume also helps the Daily Mail here, with both having published more than half a million articles — almost 50% more than third-placed CBS News.

Top web publishers

Top web articles

Web content from the New York Times has seen a dramatic rise in engagement in the last few months, which is why most of the articles that have driven its success were published more recently. Other articles in the top ten came from The Economist, the BBC, and CBS News, and all were from earlier in the year, showing that the NYT is the outlier here.

Which publishers see outsized success from links?

While only just cracking the top ten in terms of overall engagement, The Guardian is one legacy publisher that still gets 60% of its engagement from its links being shared around the web, both on X and Facebook.

The outlet’s top article by a considerable distance was about the death of Dame Maggie Smith — the continuation of a trend we have seen before of obituaries and celebrity deaths often generating outsized influence on social platforms.

Other publishers that saw high engagement with their web content relative to other content types on other platforms included USA Today and Business Insider.

The Guardian’s cross-platform engagement

Publishers on Facebook

With all the excitement about new, video-focused platforms, it’s easy to forget about Facebook’s ongoing influence. But it’s still a platform with more than 2 billion daily active users, and the news publishers we looked at for this study have just shy of a billion engagements to content on their main pages alone this year.

On Facebook:

  • LADbible was by far the most engaging of the news publishers we looked at
  • Fox News was the biggest straight news publisher on the platform
  • Newsmax cracked the top five for engagement thanks to its political content

LADbible — going strong on Facebook since records began

There’s one very obvious winner on Facebook in terms of getting engagement, and that’s LADbible with more than 160 million engagements.

The viral publisher has gone from strength to strength in the last few years on Facebook, and not only did it have the most aggregate engagements by a distance, it also had eight of the top ten posts overall. The 161 million engagement number actually wasn’t far off the number of engagements that it achieved on the likes of Instagram and TikTok, so there’s clearly still success to be had with a smart video strategy on Facebook.

Of the top news publishers, Fox News had the most engagement, with ABC News and Newsmax not far behind.

ESPN was the most successful of the sports publishers, but its engagement was significantly less than on other platforms, with only 3% of its total engagement coming from Facebook.

The top publishers on Facebook

Publishers pull at emotions on Facebook

For LADbible, the most engaging posts are mostly native videos, with a focus on cuteness or innovation. Examples included a lot of pets, but also a toilet of the future. Emojis feature heavily in their post descriptions, often functioning as punctuation to emphasize cuteness or emotion.

The top Fox News posts tended to be photos, despite the publisher’s access to its own cable news channel as source material, which we’ll see later they successfully used on TikTok. These are often overlaid with text or a quote, as in the example featuring San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy below.

LADbible

Fox News

Format types of the top 1,000 posts on Facebook

Video is everywhere

Of the top 1,000 posts on Facebook, video makes up almost 60% of the total, with photos accounting for most of the rest.

Together, they made up more than 90% of the most engaging content on the platform for these publishers, with link posts responsible for a tiny fraction of the most engaging content.

This tracks with a trend that we were seeing even before the rise of TikTok and social video more broadly, but that trend seems to have accelerated since we last looked at the post format breakdown.

Publishers on X

Back when it was Twitter, X made its name as the platform of breaking news and politics. That remains true even in 2024, with the vast majority of the top ten publishers on the platform falling into one of those two niches. That said, Bleacher Report did represent sports fairly heavily, and was comfortably the most engaged on X of the publishers we looked at.

Themes from the top posts on X include:

  • News and politics dominate the top posts on X
  • Of those news and politics sites, Fox News, the New York Post, and Al Jazeera are the most prevalent
  • The Associated Press relatively over-performs on the platform, with 20% of its engagement coming from X posts

Top publishers on X

Engagement by platform for select publishers

News and politics at the forefront on X

As the chart above shows, political analysis and breaking news drove success on X for the likes of the AP, The Economist, and The New York Post. That’s reflected in some of their top posts below.

The Associated Press looked at the IRS’s recovery of unpaid taxes, while the Post talked about the pros and cons of Taylor Swift’s endorsements.

An interesting aspect of The Economist’s coverage was that many of the publisher’s most engaged posts were about the ongoing situation in Pakistan after the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. In fact, every one of the top ten posts from The Economist was about Imran Khan’s conviction and the subsequent fallout.

AP

New York Post

The Economist

It’s Pop Base’s crown

Pop Base wasn’t on the list of publishers we looked at across all platforms, but the level of engagement it drives on X makes it worthy of a mention.

The account has more than 268 million engagements with its posts this year, ranging from the cultural to the political, and it has emerged as one of the true driving forces among publishers in 2024.

Engagements with Pop Base's posts on X

Publishers on Instagram

Instagram has emerged as a frontrunner in the news world in the last few years, with our publisher group consistently getting billions of engagements per year on the platform.

Through leaning into highly visual content that fits the platform well, more niche and focused publishers have succeeded in building significant audiences there.

It’s not just fashion and sports, news is now also firmly at home on Instagram, with the likes of the New York Times generating almost 60% of its total engagement there.

Themes from Instagram include:

  • Sports publishers generating billions of engagements on the platform
  • Vogue landing in the top three for exclusive celebrity news
  • Instagram being the powerhouse driving success for many mainstream news publishers

Top publishers on Instagram

Bleacher Report’s billion-plus blow-out

Once again, Bleacher Report claimed the top spot among publishers, but the level of its success on Instagram is markedly higher compared to what we saw on X, with the publisher earning over 1 billion engagements to its content on the platform.

The success of sports publishers on Instagram is impossible to ignore, but lifestyle, entertainment, and several mainstream news publishers are also winning public attention, with the likes of Vogue, E!, and BBC all earning hundreds of millions of engagements this year — numbers that remain orders of magnitude higher than they are on other platforms.

Sports publishers capture iconic moments in time

Even though Bleacher Report was also the most successful publisher on X, its 1.05 billion engagements on Instagram account for 67% of its total public interest across all platforms, underscoring again the large appetite for sports content on the photo-sharing platform.

The top posts from both ESPN and Bleacher Report often featured NBA or NFL players, and interestingly enough, both had top posts that were co-authored with another account. 

Bleacher Report

ESPN

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Glitz and glamour from fashion-forward accounts

Fashion and celebrity news accounts captured interest with exactly the type of content you’d expect — trends and celebrity gossip. Vogue tended to highlight major celeb moments, such as Sofia Richie Grainge’s pregnancy, and exclusive glimpses into high-profile events and weddings, while People and E! used Reels to show red carpet moments.

Vogue

 
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A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine)

People

 
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A post shared by People Magazine (@people)

E! News

 
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A post shared by E! News (@enews)

Serious news has a big role to play on Instagram

Amid all the lighter news fare, news publishers on Instagram still perform well — and many mainstream ones achieve their highest engagement here.

The BBC led the way for publishers reporting hard news on the platform, and it continues to see success with its short-form video content about global events. On the other hand, Fox News’ coverage of Trump was responsible for several of its top posts this year, with his McDonald’s visit earning over 208k engagements.

BBC News

 
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A post shared by BBC News (@bbcnews)

Al Jazeera

Fox News

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A post shared by Fox News (@foxnews)

Metro

 
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A post shared by Metro UK (@metro.co.uk)

Publishers on TikTok

TikTok is the new kid on the block. While among some it’s still fighting a reputation as being for children, or the home of viral dances, it’s quietly established itself as one of the go-to destinations for news.

To that end, almost 20% of people now say they get news regularly on TikTok according to Pew, and 52% of the platform’s users say they regularly get news there

Takeaways on TikTok include:

  • The Daily Mail remains one of the biggest players on the platform, with its top video hitting 9 million engagements
  • US cable news outlets are gaining traction on TikTok through repurposing video and news segments
  • Local news also sees outsized success on the platform with both local and broader coverage

Top publishers on TikTok

Similar to Instagram, sports content is also thriving on TikTok. ESPN leads the pack, having earned over 1 billion engagements with its videos, and is the only publisher besides Bleacher Report to reach this milestone on one single platform.

The Daily Mail, which has dominated TikTok for the last couple of years, doesn’t fall too far behind, and some 88% of the publisher’s engagement is driven by the video-sharing platform, despite their reputation and continued success as a traditional print outlet.

TikTok top publishers

Daily Mail

@dailymail Videos taken in Israel show multiple points of view as Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Tel Aviv. 🎥 Reuters #news #breakingnews #war #middleeast #attack #israel #iran ♬ original sound - Daily Mail

Daily Mail expands its remit

The Daily Mail consistently sees millions of engagements with its videos on TikTok covering a variety of news.

From video footage of world conflicts, to updates in the Menendez Brothers resentencing, the outlet has generated over 744 million engagements this year, comfortably making it the most successful news publisher on the platform.  

Engagements with the Daily Mail's top TikTok

Cable news wins by repurposing content

While publishers with a more international focus have seen greater success on Instagram, it’s cable news outlets that have risen to the top on TikTok. CBS, MSNBC, and ABC have all captured public attention with their US focused content, highlighting everything from the presidential election, to more humorous stories involving everyday people.

TikTok offers these publishers a way to connect with younger audiences who may not consume traditional cable news but still want to stay informed, and that much is reflected in the high engagement to their posts.

CBS News

@cbsnews A district judge in Michigan was shocked when a man with a suspended driver's license joined a court Zoom call while driving a car. At one point the judge says, "I don't even know why he would do that." #annarbor #michigan ♬ original sound - cbsnews

MSNBC

@msnbc Former President Barack Obama roasts Trump during his DNC speech. "Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala," he says. #obama #dnc #democrats #trump #roast #weird #obsession #election #democraticnationalconvention #barackobama #presidentobama #harris #vote ♬ original sound - MSNBC

Local news joins the party

It’s not just national level cable channels that see success by repurposing their videos on TikTok — the same is true of local news outlets too.

The video opposite from a Chicago ABC News affiliate has more than a million engagements, and the account has over 32 million engagements in total this year.

Not all of these come from local news stories, however, with the most engaged piece of content showing German speed cameras capturing an image of a man dressed as the Cookie Monster.

Engagements with ABC 7 Chicago's TikTok videos

ABC 7 Chicago

@abc7chicago The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a food safety alert Tuesday regarding an E. coli outbreak that it says is linked with McDonald's Quarter Pounders. #news #mcdonalds #ecoli ♬ original sound - abc7chicago

Dylan Page

@dylan.pageNahhh I already know the top comment 😭🙏💀 ♬ original sound - Dylan Page

News influencers on TikTok

We’d be remiss not to talk about one of the big phenomena coming out of TikTok — the rise of news influencers.

These influencers often operate in a meta layer on top of the news, offering commentary and engagement about events from around the world, like a 2024 cable news guest with complete editorial independence.

Examples include Dylan Page, who offers regular updates on his channel of world news, with millions of engagements this year.

Average engagement per video for Dylan Page

Key takeaways for 2025

  • Success on video platforms: Instagram and TikTok have dominated when it comes to social engagement with news publishers, making visual, short-form video content an essential part of their strategy, which will only continue into 2025.

     

  • Dominant players: ESPN, Bleacher Report, Daily Mail, LADbible, and Vogue together account for more than half of the total engagement across all platforms, all of which have seen success with visual content.

     

  • Platform-specific success: Different publishers thrive on specific platforms, with sports and entertainment content seeing success on Instagram, while politics and breaking news prevails on X.

     

  • Cable and local news thrive on TikTok: Cable news outlets and local stories are capturing interest with younger audiences who look to social media for their news consumption.

     

  • Ongoing Facebook influence: Despite new video platforms, Facebook remains as a high engagement driver, particularly for viral videos.

  • The importance of measurement: These trends are constantly in flux, and to be successful in social publishing, you need to be able to understand and react to them in real time. You can get a sense of it from your own feeds, but a 10,000-foot view of the platforms and the most successful publishers is needed to stay ahead of the curve.