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For the most part, people tend to Fox News is way more popular
gravitate to personality, not RSS feeds, the mainstream on Facebook than Twitter. It only

media guide to
on Twitter. The Chicago Tribune’s hints at the traditional media’s
@coloneltribune is a great example. dominance of Fan Pages.
social media
Major news sources over 500,000 followers Major news sources, over 250,000 fans
ESPN
compared to news
In the mainstream 365,000
@cnnbrk sources with 25,000- compared to news
Popular personality: Bill Simmons

CNN
sources with fewer

media, who wins

499,999 followers (24,000)
than 250,000 fans Share of traffic from Facebook:
2.9 million 10.01%

@nytimes Popular personality: Larry King (@kingsthings, 1.2M)

Share of traffic from Twitter: 1.69%
and who loses at 818,000
Popular personality: Anderson Cooper 360 (340,000)
NPR
@mashable @time
Share of traffic from Facebook: 7.40%
2.3 million
1.9 million
Popular personality: David Pogue
(@pogue, 1.3M)
Share of traffic from Twitter: 2.46% 2.0 million
@nprpolitics
1.8 million
Twitter and Face- 728,000
Share of traffic from Facebook: 9.49%

book? The answer is

Share of traffic from Twitter: 7.43% Popular personality: Joel Stein

NY Times
(@thejoelstein, 1M) Share of traffic from Twitter: 2.17%

somewhere in this Fox News 553,000

Share of traffic from Facebook: 6.07%

469,000
massive graphic. Popular personality: Glenn Beck (751,000)
Share of traffic from Facebook: 7.07%

@cnn @huffingtonpost
@techcrunch @breakingnews @cbsnews @newsweek @abc 561,000
1.3 million 1.2 million 1 million 973,000
1.6 million 1.5 million Share of traffic from
Share of traffic from Share of traffic from Popular personality: Twitter: 2.24%
Popular personality: Katie
Twitter: 4.84% Twitter: 1.98% George Stephano-
Couric (@katiecouric, 67k)

methodology:
poulos (@gstephano-
Share of traffic from Twitter:
poulos, 1.6M)
1.22%
@coloneltribune
(Chicago Tribune)
880,000
Share of traffic from
Twitter: 1.65% Why these sources?: The focus was U.S.-
focused media sources (the BBC, which has
significant media exposure in the U.S., was the
exception). Newspapers were the top ten in U.S.
circulation, the broadcasters cover most na- Major news sources, 50,000-249,999 fans
tional TV news sources, and Web sites that
often get lumped in with the mainstream media.
Major news sources, 100,000-499,999 followers The cutoff point was 25,000 Twitter followers. Al
Jazeera barely missed the mark.
compared to news
How was this tabulated?: Lots and lots of
@bbcbreaking @si_24seven counting and searching. Social media totals
sources with fewer
than 50,000 fans Mashable
@espn
were rounded, and the data was gathered the
311,000 week of March 12, 2010. 140,000
(Sports Illustrated) Share of traffic from Facebook: 10.81%
274,000

@cnnmoney
291,000 Popular personality: Bill Simmons (@sportsguy33, 1.2M)
Share of traffic from Twitter: 1.46%
The New Yorker Time Huffington
analysis: Post
96,000 100,000
211,000 Share of traffic from

Wall Street
Facebook: 3.75%
96,000
Share of traffic from Facebook:
TMZ
Journal
7.07% 66,000
WHO DRAWS MORE TRAFFIC?
Despite Twitter getting more media atten- 59,000
tion, Facebook draws more traffic for most
sites, acccording to Web traffic tracker
Alexa. In some cases, the total approaches
Google. Facebook fans are more active
@bbcworld @newyorker
123,000 @nprnews @wsj @foxnews @tmz 103,224 and dedicated compared to passive Twitter
192,000 190,000 145,000 125,000 Share of traffic followers.
Popular personality: Walt Mossberg
(@WaltMossberg, 45k)
Share of traffic from Twitter: 1.95%
Popular personality: Glenn
Beck (@GlennBeck, 200k)
Share of traffic from
Share of traffic from
Twitter: 1.88%
from Twitter: 3.29%

BIGGEST OVERACHIEVER
Major news sources, 10,000-49,999 fans
Twitter: 1.16%
CNN: CNN, despite being at the bottom of
the TV news ratings pack lately, has man-
Washington Post
aged to pull off the social media presence compared to news
compared to news sources with fewer
better than any other broadcast outlet. Be- than 10,000 fans
sources with 25,000- 40,000
sides the popular @cnnbrk account, they
TechCrunch
99,999 followers
have three other related Twitter accounts
with over 200,000 followers, including 35,000
@si_24seven, which is more popular than
@ESPN. Plus, many of its personalities, es-
pecially Rick Sanchez and Anderson ABC News MSNBC
Cooper, own the social media sphere. 28,000 27,000
However, its sister network’s @HLN feed is
Major news sources 25,000-99,999 followers anemic in comparison.

@nbcnews BIGGEST UNDERACHIEVER

@reuters 45,000
Popular personality: Ann
USA Today: Despite a fairly solid Twitter
account curated by a human being and a
90,000 Curry (@AnnCurry, 1M)
huge national presence (and being the
@washingtonpost Share of traffic from Twitter: 1.18%
second-largest-circulation paper in the
73,000 country), USA Today has less than 50,000
Popular personality: Howard Kurtz @drudge_report
followers and 11,000 fans which we don’t
@latimes CBS Slate CNBC AP
(@howardkurtz, 21k)
Share of traffic from Twitter: 1.65%
64,000
understand. Drudge BBC The Daily
55,000 @usatoday Report News News 20,000 15,000 12,000
Share of traffic from Twitter: 2.03% 45,000
Share of traffic from 12,500 13,000 13,500 Beast
Twitter: 1.44%
BEST SOCIAL MEDIA HABITS 26,500
The New York Times: The Times has a
level of depth in its Twitter feeds organiza-
tions half its size could only wish for. Its Bloomberg USA
personalities, from David Pogue to Paul TV
Krugman, are incredibly popular on social 10,700 Today
@nypost
28,000
@msnbc @politico
33,000
@slate
44,000
@cnbc
43,000
@thedailybeast
40,000
@ap
35,000
@gawker
26,000
@chicagotribune
26,000
media, too. The only newspaper that 11,800
Share of traffic
from Twitter:
Popular personality: 48,000 Share of traffic from
Popular personality:
Mehgan McCain
Share of traffic from
Share of traffic
from Twitter: comes close? The Washington Post.
Rachel Maddow Popular personality: Ben Twitter: 1.24% Twitter: 1.92%
1.44% (@McCainBlogette, 80k) 2.96%
(@maddow, 1.6M) Smith (@BenPolitico, 12k)
Share of traffic from
Twitter: 2.42% Mashable: Even with a tight focus on
social media, the site has become such a
consistent source of news that its posts
regularly drive conversation on both Face-
book AND Twitter. Also, their try-anything
philosophy (see Google Buzz) is refreshing
compared to conservative news outlets. Major news sources, 4,000-10,000 fans Major news sources, <4,000 fans
Houston CNN
Highlights from the lower 25,000 WORST SOCIAL MEDIA HABITS
NBC News: By far the worst. Despite L.A. Times Politico Chronicle Money
doing well in the ratings, the network hasn’t 7,600 7,300
updated its official @NBCNews feed since 3,700 3,700
the Olympics ended. One thing to note:

23,000 three 1,120

Personalities get a strong focus here – both NBC
David Gregory and Rachel Maddow have Nightly
over a million followers. (But NBC Nightly News
News host Brian Williams is notably miss- Reuters
ing.) It’s clear MSNBC gets a larger focus in 4,700 1,600
N.Y. Gawker
2,200
number of followers of the top ten U.S. number of followers this realm – the cable network recently took
over the @BreakingNews Twitter feed. Post
3,500
Al-Jazeera’s newspapers have Newsday (No. 11 in Bloomberg News: Just 27 tweets since Breaking Sports Chicago Philadelphia
Inquirer
English-language less than 10,000 circulation) has – it’s October for the wire service. The Bloom-
berg TV accounts do a little bit better than News Illustrated Tribune 1,200
5,500
news feed has Twitter followers behind a paywall that, but the organization has more em-
ployees than the Wall Street Journal and
8,300 5,800
the New York Times.

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DO NEWS PAYWALLS REALLY HURT?
The Wall Street Journal: No. While Rupert
Murcoch’s attempt to take on The New
followers for @BloombergNews, despite York Times doesn’t compare in the social
media sphere, the paywall otherwise
their having more employees than either the doesn’t affect it. Their top star, Walt Moss-
berg, doesn’t compare to David Pogue, but
Wall Street Journal or New York Times