Very interesting column this morning from Poynter on this topic. One of the big takeaways: hard news is a big item for engagement.

A glimpse at Facebook’s distribution

Newswhip, a service that monitors social media for publishers and marketers, just released a report with data it has collected since Facebook changed its algorithm. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the platform would shift to favor content from friends and family over content from publishers, what he called “meaningful interactions,” when he announced the change in January.

A couple of interesting takeaways:

• News remains a strong topic on the platform. Out of the top 100 engaging articles, 56 were about hard news or current events. And 53 of the top 100 most engaging articles came from general news publishers.

• Many news publishers did not see an obvious drop-off in engagement. Some, like NBC and Fox News, are actually seeing increased engagement.

• NBC passed Fox News in February and became the most engaged publisher on the platform, a first since January 2017.

• Fake news continues to be a problem on Facebook, but perhaps not as big of a problem as people might think. The fake news story with the most engagement, which ranked 26th overall, came from Your Newswire and was titled “‘Disastrous’ Flu Shot Is Causing Deadly Flu Outbreak.”

• Comments have become more important to a post’s success. In January 2016, on average, 3.36 percent of a top Facebook post’s engagements came from comments. Now comments count for about 11 percent on average.

• Users who tag friends to alert them to a post, or “share comments,” might not meet Facebook’s definition of “meaningful interaction.”

• Facebook Groups remain a powerful way to engage users.

The full report is available here.

Posted by Tim Morrissey