The World's Most Influential Media on Social Networks
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THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL MEDIA ON SOCIAL NETWORKS JULY 2017 The most influential media Over half the users of social networks use platforms such as Facebook or Twitter to keep up to date with current affairs (1), some on a recurring basis. The media is not blind to this trend, so more and more effort is being put into the digital realm. Which is why, for this edition of SocialScene, we wanted to know which media have the most followers on social media. Is there a preferred type of news producer on the Internet? Has the way we consume news changed? METHODOLOGY For the purpose of this report, the official channels belonging to media on the three main social networks in the western world (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) were analyzed. For media with several profiles on Twitter, the sum of people following the most significant accounts was used. This report has not taken into account the official profiles of communications groups that are not media outlets per-se, as well as specific radio or television programs and/or their hosts. (1) Pew Research Center with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Uncle Sam speaks to the whole world 1 2 3 118M 107M 72M Absolute rulers. In both the Top 10, and the Top 100 Conversely, it is rather curious to take a look at the rankings. This is the only possible way to describe the Top of the ranking, since the number one position is presence of the USA in terms of media with the most not held by a TV station, nor a powerful current affairs followers on social networks. Just one Chinese and newspaper, nope… It is The National Geographic, the one British media featured in the Top 10 alongside leading science and nature magazine. With 114 their American counterparts. million followers, it has over 12 times more followers than the circulation of the print magazine . So, it seems that not only do American brands and consumer habits rule the world; apparently, their media outlets have found the perfect vehicle for global expansion too. Ranking Top 10 followers 1 National Geographic Magazine 118.212.255 2 BBC News 107.463.876 3 MTV 72.301.875 4 CNN 67.216.197 5 National Geographic TV 64.027.999 6 ESPN 59.494.975 7 The New York Times 55.019.949 8 CGTN 54.122.193 9 Discovery 51.065.806 10 HISTORY 45.793.906 The world map of information Top 100 media distributed per region Europe USA Middle east Asia - Africa Rest of America LEADING COUNTRIES: USA BRAZIL U.K, FRANCE E.A.U., EGYPT, QATAR, SAUDI ARABIA CHINA, INDIA, PAKISTAN Based on origin, three regions divvy up the pie in terms of the media and their followers on social networks: The USA (who, as we saw above, heads up the ranking), Asia and the Middle East, with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt in the starring roles. Bearing in mind that to draw up this Top 100 ranking we only took western social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) into account, it’s rather surprising that 4 of the 6 Chinese media in this ranking feature in the 25 most followed. It would make sense to think that, if we had also considered followers on Weibo or Renren, China could have been head to head with the USA. On the other hand, while 5 countries are vying for the Top 25 spots for media with the most followers, whole continents, such as Europe or non-US-America, only get 10 media outlets each in the Top 100 ranking. In fact, only one European media outlet is among the first 50, with the BBC’s second place, and only Brazilian Rede Globo just makes it onto the Top 25 leader board. The picture only changes slightly if you add the “new digital media” to the mix, though the US is still the absolu- te dominant force, Europe does manage to draw even with China, since British Unilad or The LADbible or Irish MetDaan feature in the Top 25. The absence of other large European countries stands out; Neither Germany or Italy have any media in the Top 100, and only France (in addition the the UK) can claim to have more one media in the Top 100 list. If we tallied up the fans of just the US media outlets, including Tasty, we would Number of followers per region have over 1,000 million followers. 1.100M 499M 440M 217M 172M Cristiano Ronaldo has more followers (238 million) than all the European media channels in the Top 100 together. There are more people following major brands such as Facebook, Nike or FC Barcelona than there are who follow the Rest of America number one media outlet on the list, Middle East – Europe USA National Geographic. África Asia Speaking in English, but not exclusively We also wanted to see if the language used by the Languages by number Languages by of speakers media in Top 100 main media outlets is equivalent to the languages spoken around the world: at the end of the day, the Internet allows us to communicate with every corner ENGLISH ENGLISH of the planet, but language is a hurdle we seem to forever trip up on. MANDARIN ARABIAN To this end, we have contrasted the main language of the 100 media outlets with the most followers with the ranking of the languages spoken most spoken by SPANISH SPANISH people as their first, second or foreign language. English dominates both classifications, though in HINDI HINDI terms of this analysis, it represents one in three of the Top 100, and amasses almost half of the total followers on social networks. ARABIAN PORTUGUESE Arabic is far more represented in the main media outlets than in the number of speakers, with 30 media in the Top 100 and over 20% of total fans. Mandarin Chinese, though it is the language of four of the main FRENCH MANDARIN media in the ranking, is not in the five most-used languages in the Top 100, even though it is a langua- ge used by over 1,030 million people worldwide. Old media, new formats In the overall ranking, television channels dominate Internet: moving beyond the programmes they over any other type of media, occupying 59 of the broadcast or the articles they publish, they have had 100 Top positions and accumulating even more to reinvent themselves in web versions and practically followers, almost 67% of the total. create a new media outlet, editing their content into small morsels or even creating multimedia pieces that The written press is the next largest group, with 15 are not at all in line with their tradition. newspapers and 10 magazines in the ranking. It is surprising that it is precisely a magazine that heads up All of this aimed at penetrating another channel, the list, when only The New York Times, The People’s where there are more and more users, that are Daily of China and TIME are the only other media in especially active and that are increasingly essential the Top 20 that are not television channels. to re-broadcast the information from media outlets to new audiences. In recent years all these media outlets have adapted their content to the format, which in this case is the Media by category in Top 100 3% 9% TV 61% Newspapers Digital 11% Magazines Radio 16% Beyond infotainment Top 100 media by genre WITHOUT new digital media WITH new digital media General-interest Entretainment Lifestyle Science & Nature Sport Music Food Healthcare In a Top 100 dominated by general and entertainment media (film, series, kids’ content…), we see that the remaining third of our ranking is made up of media specialized in different areas (sports, lifestyle, general interest and cooking). However, the arrival of digital media has been a game-changer. The digital revolution has witnessed the birth of new media, and those who up until now had dominated the market were beginning to suffer the consumers’ preference for specialization. The figures show that interest in current affairs and politics was declining, and entertainment media were faring no better as they also were also slipping out of the Top 100. Filling the void, the information market has become increasingly distributed and balanced, thanks to the growing popularity of subject matters that until now had always been anecdotal. The result of this change of trend is that the number of media outlets dedicated to general interest subjects has doubled within the Top 100, with history, nature and health subject matters standing out especially. The true bombshell came with gastronomy. It seems that something’s ‘cooking up a storm’ in the digital world. The media outlets devoted to cooking and ‘quick & easy’ recipes have experienced tremendous growth (1% to 8% of the market share) and a new site called Tasty, started in 2015, is third in our ranking, trampling on well-esta- blished media outlets such as CNN, MTV and The New York Times in terms of number of followers. One might think that the tendency towards healthier living has had something to do with it, but a quick glance at these channels reveals that the true recipe for success is the secret desires that many of us admit to having: desserts, chocolate and cheese. European overview: London calling We have already seen how Europe is one of the EUROPEAN MEDIA (Traditional) followers regions with less presence in the Top 100, with the exception of the BBC, but let’s take a closer look at 1 BBC News 103.459.673 the European media with the greatest digital following: 2 BBC Sport 20.188.879 3 Sky Sports 16.346.672 4 France 24 arabic 14.888.539 5 RT Arabic 14.703.054 6 El País 13.003.029 7 Daily Mail 12.125.566 8 Le Monde 11.173.557 9 France 24 11.137.386 10 বিবিসি বাং লা - BBC Bangla 10.611.214 Only 4 countries are represented in the A large chunk of the audience lives Top 10: UK, France, Russia and Spain.