UK newsbrands hit record highs on social media

@Telegraph@MailOnline

@guardian @DailyMirror@Independent

@EveningStandard

@thetimes

Analysis of data from December 2014

Headlines

• UK newsbrands drove 445.4 million social media actions* during the year 2014

• Facebook: 224.2 million article likes, 87 million comments, 86 million shares

• 44.1 million Twitter shares• 2.7m LinkedIn shares• 1.4m pins on Pinterest

• 79% increase in monthly social media interactions from January - December 2014

• Facebook is the most important social medium for sharing stories for all UK newsbrands – interactions increased by 19% since January

*Direct activity from newsbrand URL. Excludes likes etc for newsbrand Facebook pages, Twitter following, favourites & re-tweets. Global data.

Global social media interactions* from UK newsbrand articles have grown by 79% during 2014

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

25,659 25,131

29,211 26,079 27,451

32,238

39,549 41,729

48,041

56,757

50,592

46,015

000s social media interactions

Source: Newswhip UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

*Facebook likes, shares & comments; Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest shares

Newbrands have more social media interactions than Buzzfeed

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

25,659

56,757

46,015

41,434 41,251

34,786

5,711 3,195

9,389

13,571

2,945 1,603

000s social media interactions

Newsbrands Buzzfeed Upworthy BBC Huffington Post

Source: Newswhip UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

UK newsbrand article shares experienced steady growth during 2014

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

5,990 5,840

6,748

5,606 5,964

7,036

8,145 8,094 8,641

8,130

7,162

2,812 2,685 3,039

2,622 3,033 3,204

4,559 4,271 4,377

4,722

3,998

000s shares

Facebook Twitter

Source: Newswhip *UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

Facebook and UK newsbrands

Facebook is the most important social media brand for newsbrands

Source: NewswhipUK Newsbrands total interactions Jan-Dec 2014: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

40% 42% 43% 45% 45% 47% 48% 52% 54% 53% 56% 56%

23% 23% 23% 21% 22% 22% 21%19% 18% 19% 15% 15%

25% 24% 22% 22% 21% 20% 19%17% 18% 19% 18% 18%

11% 11% 10% 10% 11% 10% 12% 10% 9% 8% 9% 9%1% 1% 1% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%

Share of UK newsbrand interactions by social media brand

Facebook Likes Facebook Shares Facebook Comments Twitter Shares LinkedIn/Pinterest

Total Facebook interactions for UK newsbrands have doubled since January 2014

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

22,666 22,26425,883

23,032 24,126

28,681

34,56037,071

43,244

51,520

42,592 41,518

000s

Source: NewswhipUK Newsbrands Jan-Dec 2014 : dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

…And UK newsbrand articles’ Facebook likes have also more than doubled in the last year

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

10,340 10,49512,679

11,616 12,468

15,110

19,099

21,724

25,867

30,26828,270

26,189

6,336 5,929 6,456 5,810 5,695 6,534 7,315 7,2518,735

10,6149,016 8,188

000s

Facebook likes Facebook comments

Source: NewswhipUK Newsbrands Jan - Dec 2014 : dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

Guardian119.3m

Daily Mail104.5m

New York Times109.4m

W/tonPost

63.2m

USAToday62.1m

Total Facebook interactions Jan-Dec 2014

Source: Newswhip Jan-Dec 2014

UK has two of the top three biggest English language newspapers on Facebook

UK newsbrands are less reliant on Facebook than US providers

Source: Newswhip Jan-Dec 2014UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

upworthy.com

buzzfeed.com

dailymail.co.uk

huffingtonpost.co.uk

metro.co.uk

mirror.co.uk

express.co.uk

standard.co.uk

independent.co.uk

telegraph.co.uk

thetimes.co.uk

theguardian.com

bbc.co.uk

99.5%

83.5%

75.6%

75.4%

75.2%

73.4%

67.8%

57.3%

53.1%

47.7%

40.7%

39.8%

39.3%

0.5%

16.5%

24.4%

24.6%

24.8%

26.6%

32.2%

42.7%

46.9%

52.3%

59.3%

60.2%

60.7%

Shares only – Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook shares Twitter shares

• Pure players more reliant on very high numbers sharing each article, especially Upworthy

• UK newsbrand success more dependent on larger number of articles being shared

• BUT the most shared UK newsbrands also have highest ratio of shares to articles

• Optimising number of shares, particularly on Facebook is key to social media success

“We actually created that huge traffic jump in June producing fewer stories, not more. On the day-to-day operational side, the team has made dozens of changes that add up to the newsroom working better and more efficiently. Seemingly mundane things make a huge difference – things such as better planning, more creative story conferences, and using audience data to decide what to stop doing.”Jason Seiken

1,152 2,086

2,701

5,916

11,651 12,663

10,599

Total Facebook interactions 000’s Mirror.co.uk

November crowned an amazing year of growth for the Mirror

“They shot up the ranks right to number nine overall […] increasing their total interactions by almost 4m in a single month.The Mirror are the first ‘legacy’ media outlet that we’ve seen break into the top ten in a long time.”Newswhip blog

“At the digital first Mirror.co.uk, the four main weekday peak times, with devices, are as follows:

7am - Mobile

Midday - Desktop

4.30pm - Desktop and Mobile

8pm - Mobile and Tablet

To respond to these surges in expectant visitors, the Mirror’s newsroom has big refreshes of content at each of these times. Posting new stories on Facebook at these times is part of that strategy.”Newswhip sharing guide

Source: Newswhip Jan-Dec 2014

Exceptional growth for the Mirror saw it become the biggest UK newsbrand in Facebook in November

UK newsbrands prompt more Facebook interactions than the BBC, led by Guardian, MailOnline and the Mirror

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

22,666 22,264

25,88323,032 24,126

28,681

34,56037,071

43,244

51,520

42,593 41,518

6,596 5,659 4,947 4,661 5,6454,292 5,134 5,844

8,657

11,9199,725 9,662

000s shares, likes & comments

Newsbrands bbc.co.uk theguardian.com dailymail.co.uk mirror.co.uk

Source: Newswhip Jan-Dec 2014UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

Some top Facebook stories

October 2014, The Guardian 118,327 interactions, 23,627 shares

November 2014, telegraph.co.uk 233,018 interactions, 33,586 shares

November 2014, independent.co.uk 134,657 interactions, 19,181 shares

October 2014, mirror.co.uk 246,780 interactions, 30,953 shares

December 2014, The Guardian 258,551 interactions 72,640 shares

December 2014, dailymail.co.uk 477,446 interactions, 86,805 shares

It’s not just trivia, lists and snippets

• Biggest UK newsbrand stories, Facebook December 2014:• 25 UK and world news, current affairs and comment• 4 sport• 3 showbiz• 2 video/gallery links• 2 science• and just 1 list/quiz

The most shared story was from theguardian.com…

It’s not just trivia, lists and snippets…

• These stories created incredibly high numbers of Facebook interactions in the last 3 months of 2014…

December 2014, theguardian.com 85,798 Facebook interactions

October 2014, telegraph.co.uk 225,089 Facebook interactions

It’s not just trivia, lists and snippets

• Story length is no barrier to sharing

• Analysis of top 10 most shared stories for 5 big publishers on Facebook showed that long form, high quality writing and interesting editorials make up the bulk of the big hits (except BBC)

• The Guardian’s top stories averaged 1,740 words and included a six-part multimedia feature on NSA revelations, totalling 4,000+ words

Source: Newswhip blog December 2013

Twitter

UK newsbrand Twitter shares similar to BBC

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

2,812 2,685 3,039

2,622

3,033 3,204

4,559 4,271 4,377

4,796 4,722

3,964

2,704 2,490

2,729

2,876

3,607 3,221

3,582 3,498

3,960 4,212

3,960

3,752

756 846 855 864 782 779 1,020

865 880 924 861 820

98 113 115 97 108 118 157 132 152 142 118 99

000s shares

UK newsbrands BBC Buzzfeed Huffington Post

UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

Some top Twitter shares

November 2014, telegraph.co.uk 3,450 shares

October 2014, independent.co.uk 3,996 shares

November 2014, dailymail.co.uk 4,803 shares

October 2014, theguardian.com2,307 shares

December 2014, The Guardian 4,935 shares

December 2014, independent.co.uk 16,064 shares

Top 10 most shared UK newsbrand stories each month on Twitter are almost all in top 35 of Facebook shares – usually with higher interactions on Facebook

But top Facebook stories are not always big on Twitter:

• timing of story?• demographics?• Twitter more biased towards quality sector and serious news

Source: Newswhip Jan-Dec 2014

What’s the best time to post a story on Facebook?

6 am to 12pm 12pm to 2pm 2pm to 4pm 4pm to 6pm 6pm to 8pm 8pm to 10pm 10pm to 6am

9 9

15

17

20

17

13

Source: Newswhip blog. Times are GMT. Based on data from MailOnline, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Upworthy, The New York Times, Elite Daily, MTV and Fox News

The most shared stories were published between 4pm and 10pm.

% of Top 100 stories shared at this time

How many follow UK newsbrands

Follow newspaper brand

Follow newspaper sub-brand

Follow newspaper journalist

Any of these

35%

17%

49%

59%

% Twitter users

Source: You Gov January 2014

Base: All UK Twitter Users (1266)

Opinion I want to know what people think Twitter is a way of discovering different points of opinion and commentary on news stories. More personal opinions of celebrities/writers.

Interaction with the news on Twitter

Twitter adds four core benefits as a news platform for users…

Source: #NewsOnTheTweet 2014

CommunityAn opportunity to connect with like-minded content and peopleThrough their sub-section handles and the overarching strength of newsbrand identities newsbrands offer users the opportunity to discover more content that is relevant to them and engage with other people through these communities.

Opinion Honest and expert opinions and debate Newsbrands offer expert opinion pieces and the individual journalists offer honest and frank opinions as well as engaging with followers.

Interaction with the news on Twitter

Newsbrands underpin these 4 key benefits

Source: #NewsOnTheTweet 2014

Newspaper brands provide an authoritative viewpoint and offer verified news in a user generated content world.

Twitter helps newspaper brands to become part of

breaking news in people’s minds through

instant updates

Newspaper brands provide detailed analysis behind 140

character Tweets

Twitter provides opportunities for users to engage with newspaper

brands that they wouldn’t normally read in other formats.

Newspaper brands offer content and recognisable

brands that can bring people together through

shared interests

Twitter enables newspaper readers to connect with

newsbrands and content in a more direct dialogue

The whole is stronger than the sum of the parts

http://www.newsworks.org.uk/newsonthetweet

For further information see:

Newsbrands are also big content providers for LinkedIn and Pinterest

Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14

120109

196

199

203215

284266

280

328 332

264

6172

94

226

89

137 145

120141

112 120

144

000s interactions

LinkedIn Pinterest

UK Newsbrands: dailymail.co.uk, theguardian.com, independent.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, express.co.uk, standard.co.uk, metro.co.uk (from March 2014), thetimes.co.uk (May 2014), dailystar.co.uk (May 2014)

@Telegraph

@MailOnline

@guardian @DailyMirror@thetimes

307,670 likes

335,199 followers*

*excluding sub-brands and journalists

@standardnews

328,248 likes

163,510 followers*

4,170,596 likes

3,132,990 followers*

1,333,286 likes

292,079 followers*

@Independent

2,875,095 likes

989,947 followers*

2,399,692 likes

829,206 followers* 2,049,169 likes

792,113 followers*

@TheSunNewspaper

1,745,728 likes

678,301 followers*

Summary and implications

• UK newsbrands are highly influential social media activators, driving 445.4 million social media actions during the year 2014

• Massive shared audiences on a daily basis

• Facebook sharing is increasing audiences to UK newsbrands and is vital to social media velocity

• Wide range of stories to tap into for advertisers

methodology

What Are NewsWhip’s Social Rankings?

Each month, NewsWhip publishes lists of the top social publishers of the previous month, covering Twitter, Facebook and sometimes LinkedIn and Pinterest.The rankings are based on the number of shares, tweets, comments and other interactions accrued to content published by each site in the relevant month.

What content is covered?

For Facebook, NewsWhip combines the total number of likes, shares and comments on content published during that month alone.For Facebook, if someone on a site uses an on-site share button to share an article to their timeline, that action counts as one share. If someone copy-pastes the link directly to Facebook, that share will count in the exact same way.The rankings have nothing to do with the number of people who ‘like’ a publication’s Facebook page that month, although that may have some effect on how engaged the audience is with the content. A publisher with many “likes” has better audience access and may have access needed to drive more activity around their content.

For Twitter, NewsWhip counts the total number of tweets that include links to each publisher’s articles (that includes re-tweets) from that month. Twitter favourites are not currently included.

For all sites, the figures relate solely to content published during the month in question alone. Older content that continued going viral, or archived material posted without a new URL is not taken into account.  Where does the data come from?All the data comes from Spike, which monitors about 50,000 publications in 12 languages, categorising content from each one by country, topic and publisher, and gathering data on topics, authors, and videos associated with each story. Spike tracks the speed at which each story spreads on Facebook and Twitter.