Facebook Storytelling Successes
The picture is from a story which scored one of the highest levels of engagement on Facebook in the last year. The site, 9Gag, is one of some two dozen lesser-known Facebook publishers scoring well against some of the news monsters, according to research compiled by the analytics firm Newswhip.
The battle for the money and minds of Facebook users pits political news machines Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, and CBS against each other. But the battle for the hearts and souls of those users is being fought among a smaller, less well-known group of publishers.
Actually, 9Gag along with LadBible and UniLad are ‘alternative’ publishers many people may know about and which are consistently popular. Following them will tell you something about what people find enjoyable. But it’s these ‘other’ publishers that offer some interesting insights. And those are the ones that interest me.
For example, a little-known website in Kenya, Africa, had one of the highest engagement rates of any English-language Facebook publisher in the world. The story was about a Billionaire who said “knowing Jesus is more important than money.” The story has since gone viral and been picked up by websites around the world.
Or, how about this one published by HealthyFoodHouse, about a nearly extinct pink dolphin that gave birth to a pink calf. It scored nearly 2.8 Million ‘engagements’ on Facebook, according to the Newswhip analytics research.
All three of those stories scored high in both ‘engagement’ but also in ‘shares.’ Far and away though the number one story of 2019, according to NewsWhip’s analysis was a story on Vimeo headlined: The Biggest Undercover Dairy Investigation in History — Fair Oaks and Coca Cola. It scored 5,562,987 ‘engagements’ along with 1,110,248 shares along with 1,957,350 comments. The investigation was actually done by a group called Animal Recovery Mission which posted the story to Vimeo.
(Warning: I have put in a hyperlink to the story, but some people may find it disturbing to read and watch.)
(Disclaimer: By this point, you will have noticed that I put ‘engagements’ in quotes. That is because NewsWhip defines engagements as the total of likes, shares and comments. So, in the undercover dairy investigation, the total ‘likes’ would have been 2,459,385. I question whether ‘likes’ really are indicative of engagement but that’s another story for another article.)
As you would expect, the vast majority of articles getting high engagement on Facebook are news stories. As a journalist that is reassuring. Even more reassuring is the fact that the ‘fake news’ articles posted by such sites as Breitbart and the Daily Wire did not get such high engagements. As interesting as the news articles that got high engagement is, it is equally interesting to see what the ‘non-news’ or ‘semi-news’ stories were each month. So, here is my list
The top news story of the month was the fire that virtually destroyed Notre Dame. Six of the top 15 articles were about that. The BBC’s story topped the list with nearly 2.8 Million engagements. There were five other stories that wouldn’t qualify as news, but which still got a lot of traction, scoring in NewsWhip’s top 15.
The top story in what one might call “the non-news category” was a piece on Trendings.net titled “Bring back Home Economics classes because our Kids Lack Basic Life Skills.” It scored nearly two million engagements. Then there was the story about a couple who celebrated 83 years of marriage with him aged 102 and her aged 100. What was particularly odd, and interesting, was that this story actually appeared on two publishers’ sites — Better Homes and Gardens and Southern Living. Same story, same writer. So I just learned they are jointly owned.
As every broadcaster knows, May is a key ratings month. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise that only three ‘traditional’ news publishers made the Top 15 list — the BBC, New York Times and KDVR-TV in Denver, Colorado, and it scored not with a news story but a feature about a 101-year-old WWII veteran who flew 1,500 miles to commission his grandson at the Air Force Academy.
This was the month in which the Kenya publisher scored with its story about the billionaire and the Healthy Food House scored with its story about the pink dolphin birth. The other big stories were: A test that only people with obsessive compulsive disorder can pass, on En.TheLaughBible.net. A bar that leaves notes on the cars of people who decide not to drink and drive, on SimpleMost.com. And a story about an 11-year-old girl who scored higher on the Mensa IQ test than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
This also was a double-hitter month with the story on Vimeo about the dairy investigation that scored so well and the one about the English policemen with a sense of humor on 9Gag. The traditional media made a comeback this month with several scoring high engagement articles, including CBSNews which scored two hits — the story about the House passing the funding for 9/11 victims after Jon Stewart’s emotional testimony and a historic piece about the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote. The Washington Post story about the tragic death of the father and daughter in the river at the border also engaged a lot of people.
The non-traditional publishers that scored well were Herbs-Info.com with its piece titled “Pick Up Your Fckng Trash” and KindaKind.com with its post “Kidness is Badass.”
The traditional media continued its strong showing this month, albeit with some not so traditional stories. The Independent newspaper in Britain got two million engagements, and the top spot, with a piece about Holland covering bus stops with plants to help honeybees. The Dodo which, like 9Gag, has become a popular Facebook publisher, scored with a piece about people skipping fireworks to help scared shelter dogs. Two articles that were like editorials also scored in the Top 15 category. Grist.org scored with a story urging governments to “stop building a spaceship to Mars and plant some damn trees.” Fatherly.com scored with its editorial chastising the media and urging them to “Stop Calling Epstein’s Victims ‘Underage Women.’ They’re Children.”
(NOTE: As of this writing, the figures for August had not come in. I will add those stories to this posting when they do.)
The bottomline — what does all this tell you? A couple of thoughts come to mind.
The popularity of the Vimeo story is good news for investigative journalists, although there is a caveat in that good news. The piece was done by a private group albeit one could argue that they used journalistic standards. For journalists this may portend the future and the fragmentation of news sources in a meta-data, meta-news world.
The other point to be made is that there appears to be a greater number of lighter stories, or what we would call “feel good” stories as well as stories that are just weird and wonderful. That is borne out by an analysis provided by Newswhip itself. More on their analysis in a later posting. Those kinds of stories though appear to vary depending on the news of the day. The news about the destruction of Notre Dame dominated the news that month and so there were fewer light stories. The political news became bitter in one month and there appeared to be more lighter stories scoring higher that month.
Those winning stories are also wacky and wonderful stories — engaging stories which brings me to my final point. I have told people who worked with me as well as students who took my journalism classes that the ‘best’ stories are always ‘people stories.’ Telling stories FOR people THROUGH people is the most effective way to connect TO people.
