first, yes yes, lots of Times stuff on there. Hooray! (I'm very proud to work here.) Here's the PR tweet:https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/1075045555741560832 …
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Chartbeat released their list of the most 'engaged' stories this year. There are 120 on them, and they're a good -- though imperfect -- measure of, well, the biggest online stories of the year. Take a look, and stick around for the thread http://2018.chartbeat.com/stories
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I've been using the list to catch up on things I completely missed this year (that stolen baby piece i tweeted earlier), and stuff I already loved (the Brendan Fraser GQ article.)
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But the list is also a snapshot of what draws readers in 2018 -- lots of caveats there. Something can have a viral tweet and draw readers. Something can park on a popular homepage and draw readers. There are lots of ways to climb that pole.
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I thought it was super interesting that number 14 is a pretty normal let's-not-call-it-clickbait-but-well-kinda piece from Insider. You'll find a similar entry at 35.pic.twitter.com/OTBCRvIwBY
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(I love when that stuff makes lists like this, because let's be honest, we all click those things, and I maintain that there's an artful way and a non-artful way to do them. AND READERS LIKE THEM.)
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no shame in giving readers what they like is basically my entire digital strategy, learned directly from
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So, back to the list, and here's a lesson for all you websites out there: number 12 -- NUMBER 12!! -- is a 2003 Washington Post article. They slapped a new URL on it and rode that sucker to internet glory, 15 years after they first published it. I see you there, doin' it right.pic.twitter.com/NZ3uhFoXlI
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all of us on this here twitter website know there's a tremendous market for recirculating old longreads (do we still use that term?). Wapo just took it a step further and snagged the search traffic around the Powerball jackpot in October. Brilliant! more of that!
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But moving on. You know what you don't see a lot of on US websites anymore? Live blogs. You know what still drives bonkers traffic for, say, the BBC? Live blogs, apparently. (that's not even all of them.)pic.twitter.com/pEavpTcPAS
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(sorry, that wapo piece is from 2005, not 2003. whoops!)
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Lots of stuff on that list using best-practice internet stuff: savvy SEO, social-friendly headlines. you know the type.pic.twitter.com/LVocp6TCQb
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And lots of stuff that defies those conventions and still commands a huge audience:pic.twitter.com/yJarmYByOn
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What I like about this list is that there's no single way to leapfrog to the top, but there are some common practices: write good things. do the digital hygiene. excel at the left-field idea. know what readers want and serve it up to them.
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None of this stuff is rocket science, but you can see, scanning through here, which news organizations are flexing on which one of those levers.
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Are the CNN obits for Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade the best written? Dunno, but they're the ones that ranked on here, because CNN's built a structure that makes that happen.
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I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that there's a lot of entries on here that aren't in English, because hey, there's a whole rest of the world out there! smart publishers don't ignore that.
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(here's chartbeat, btw, answering a little more about the methodology of the list. Turns out: yes, it is only sites that use chartbeat, which of course means it's not an exhaustive list of all your favorite news sites, but many of them. https://twitter.com/Chartbeat/status/1075163580348153862 …)
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What's the big takeaway here? I'm actually going to steal that answer from
@millie, who wrote it better than I could: "Knowing your audience, telling the best story you can, in the best way you can, is still not enough. You also need to get it to people." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/insider/millie-tran-reaching-audiences-social.html …Show this thread -
Finally, though, here's the link to the Brendan Fraser story from GQ, ranked 87 on that list. Go read it. https://www.gq.com/story/what-ever-happened-to-brendan-fraser …
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appendix: special congrats to
@carolynryan for finding all those names! https://twitter.com/carolynryan/status/1075393656796925952 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread
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