Offbeat and Upbeat Publishers on FB
What do you know about Nigeria… besides the fact that it’s a country in Africa? Now, be honest. Not much, right? Me neither. So how come a news publisher in Nigeria is one of the top English language publishers on Facebook, according to an analysis provided by the NewsWhip firm?
Not only that but the site scored higher in the number of stories per 10,000 than more well known sites like CBSNews, The Guardian, the BBC, New York Post and Forbes. A search on Wikipedia doesn’t help explain it either. It has a population of 203 Million and English is the official language of the country, but it also has 250 ethnic groups with 500 different languages.
Or how about this. Two other very successful publishers on Facebook are from another country — in this case, India. News18.com scored ‘most engaged web content’ with a gross but understandably popular story about a woman who allegedly leaked brain fluid after a Covid-19 test. Mumbaiindians.com scored as one of the top Facebook Pages of the fourth quarter of last year. This also may be understandable when you consider its huge population. India also has the second largest population of English speaking people in the world — although in India it is sometimes referred to as Hinglish.
The report by Newswhip shows that, not surprisingly, the elections in America along with Donald Trump and the Pandemic were the big drivers on Facebook in the final quarter. (I’ve posted a separate story about this.) But it’s the other little ‘tidbits’ about the ‘offbeat’ and ‘upbeat’ publishers that are fun to see.
Posts about animals always score well. The most “shared” post was of Maltese dogs dressed in Panda costumers from WoofWoof while the post getting the most “sad” reactions was about a dog trapped in a well from The Dodo which scored both the most ‘likes’ and the most ‘loves.’
Then there are the humor sites like 9Gag which, not surprisingly, scored the most “hahas,’ or the satirical sites like Sadcasm and the oddity sites like Crafty Panda.
And, of course, there are the sports sites likes BleacherReportFootball and SportBibleAustralia — although I have to say that little Australia scoring well says something about their sports fanaticism. It also says something about Facebook’s worldwide reach that the Australian site scored so well and that the top Facebook posting by reaction was that of Portuguese soccer player Cristiana Ronaldo.
But it’s the more unusual sites or the sites one hasn’t heard about that makes looking at the NewsWhip analytics so interesting. Sites like Blavity.
Blavity scored in the “Wow” category with a posting about a baby girl’s “performance.” This is one of several sites and sources that appeared in the Newswhip analysis and which I had not known about.
Then there’s MyModernMet which is an online art community designed “to create one big city that celebrates creativity. Our mission is to promote a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity — from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.”
All of it adds to our understanding of the world around us. That may sound like a ‘high falutin’ or pompous statement but not if you explore the various publishers. For example, the Nigerian site I mentioned at the start talks about Naija News. I didn’t know what that was. So I looked it up. And I found we all could learn to have a little feeling of Naija in all our countries.
