Fast-movers and slow-burners: different approaches to virality

There may be more appetite on social media for high impact journalism than previously thought

When a story goes viral there’s usually a giant spike that accounts for most of the activity. It’s often triggered by the publisher posting the link to their brand page on Facebook.

Other times a story just keeps building and building over time. It amasses huge numbers as it spreads over the course of a few days or weeks. These slow burn stories can be particularly interesting stories.

This month we noticed a few examples of slow burners amongst the 138,000 articles we tracked in June. (All the data is available for download with an open license.)

The Independent’s story “There will be no one minute silence for the victims of Isis’s latest attack in Kabul” (source) by Thaslima Begum is an interesting case. That story earned over 520K engagements on Facebook in June. It held a steady pace over the first week after publication, never earning higher than 200 engagements per minute. Some of the other stories at that level of virality hit engagement rates of over 10,000 per minute.

Kaleida’s slow-burners of June 2017

1. HuffPost: World’s Top Religious Leaders Issue Rare Joint Appeal (448,813 total engagements, 158 per minute peak)
2. Your News Wire: Women Absorb And Retain DNA From Every Man They Have Sex With (704,855 total engagements, 196 per minute peak)
3. The Independent: There will be no one minute silence for the victims of Isis’ latest attack in Kabul (520,394 total engagements, 200 per minute peak)
4. New York Times: President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List (769,578 total engagements, 656 per minute peak)
5. Buzzfeed News: This Gay Couple Re-Created Their March Photos 24 Years Later And It Has People Emotional (538,119 total engagements, 1,028 per minute peak)
6. HuffPost: I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People (1,486,144 total engagements, 1,102 per minute peak)
7. Fox News: Hero homeowner holds escaped Georgia inmates at gunpoint until arrests (703,291 total engagements, 1,259 per minute peak)
8. BBC: ‘Serious fire’ in west London tower block (534,172 total engagements, 1,357 per minute peak)
9. HuffPost: The Hourly Income You Need To Afford Rent Around The U.S. (732,646 total engagements, 1,883 per minute peak)
10. HuffPost: Just A Bunch Of Really Good Parents Supporting Their Kids For Pride Month (451,612 total engagements, 20,924 per minute peak)

*Stories with over 400,000 Facebook engagements ranked by lowest peak shares per minute

It’s fun to see which are the rocket ships, too, and June had some considerable viral hits. It should be no surprise that this list is dominated by Trump-related news. When Trump does or says something out of the ordinary, which is at a pretty high bar these days, publishers benefit by covering it.

In a fascinating twist, six of the top 10 from this list were not triggered by Trump’s actions but rather by forces opposing Trump.

The fastest-moving stories of June 2017 by peak engagement rate

1. The Guardian: Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain put on hold (445,151 total engagements, 31,657 per minute peak)
2. HuffPost: Just A Bunch Of Really Good Parents Supporting Their Kids For Pride Month (451,612 total engagements, 20,923 per minute peak )
3. CNN: Donald Trump just held the weirdest Cabinet meeting ever (312,063 total engagements, 17,788 per minute peak )
4. The Independent: NBA Champions Golden State unanimously decide they will not be visiting White House (322,254 total engagements, 15,033 per minute peak )
5. Fox News: First New Coal Mine of Trump Era Opens in Pennsylvania (271,956 total engagements, 11,169 per minute peak )
6. The Washington Post: D.C., Md. attorneys general to sue Trump, saying foreign payments to his businesses violate Constitution’s anti-corruption clause (207,836 total engagements, 10,811 per minute peak )
7. The Washington Post: Jeff Sessions personally asked Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana providers (275,974 total engagements, 10,802 per minute peak )
8. The Washington Post: D.C. and Maryland to sue President Trump alleging breach of constitutional oath (202,161 total engagements, 10,798 per minute peak )
9. HuffPost: Everyone Needs To Read This List Of How Kindergarteners Reacted To ‘Wonder Woman’ (205,508 total engagements, 9,390 per minute peak )
10. HuffPost: Wyoming Town Hall Replaces Donald Trump Portrait With Photo Of Native American Chief (161,469 total engagements, 6,897 per minute peak )

*All stories ranked by peak shares per minute, descending.

All this should be encouraging to publishers. It suggests there may be more appetite on social media for high impact journalism than quality news orgs have believed in the past. It’s not just cute animals that go viral.

We don’t know whether this is a change in people’s views or a new insight we have due to Facebook’s recent update to the way they report engagements. Either way, this should be handy data for anyone wanting to push for harder journalism at the expense of lazy traffic drivers.