Who tops Pakistan news on social media? (II)
While the need to grow in terms of sheer numbers of followers on Facebook and Twitter is still a primary goal, almost all the online media groups have been trying (with varying degrees of success) to increase engagement, particularly on Facebook via visual web rules:
- Share photos instead of links. Images have better engagement levels.
- Take a message (or news story) and make it visual.
Now that a number of the media groups are reaching followers upwards of 100,000, the issue of how to best share the huge amounts of information being generated online is also becoming paramount. Just to give you an example, The Express Tribune website publishes close to 120-140 stories per day, excluding blogs, slideshows and videos!
Some groups are trying out the ‘share everything as it’s published on the one page’ approach on Facebook. Personal opinion: bombarding people with 10+ posts in an hour is intrusive and annoying.
Some are diversifying their social network presence by offering multiple Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for their various desks/brands, and having those accounts share content specific to their desk/brand. Personal opinion: its early days but this is the way to go.
As the Pakistani user base on social media grows (and it’s growing fast), more people will want more options in terms of content, and niche pages and Twitter accounts will begin to gain traction, perhaps forming smaller, stronger communities as compared to the larger accounts for the mainstream news brands.
Anyway, enough talk about trends! Let’s see how the various media groups are doing online as compared to the report I did six months ago.
Jang Group
In the last six months, the Geo English page has grown from 116,465 followers to 135,689 followers as of November 4. That is an increase of 19,224 followers. Its ‘Talking about this’ metric (a measure of how much conversation/stories are being generated by a page in a one week span) was a low 2,779 in May, and is now a similarly low 4,844.
The Geo Urdu page has grown from 132,114 followers to a whopping 224,147 followers. That is an increase of 92,033 followers! Was it advertising on Facebook that paid off? Is it the fact that the page is doing posts in the Urdu language? Is it the promotion of the page being carried out on TV that is paying off? Either way, this is the second largest increase of any Facebook page in the last six months (See Samaa TV below). The Urdu page’s talking about this metric has grown from 6,192 to 26,088, suggesting this page is doing something right.
The Daily Jang page has grown from 63,518 followers to 121,655 and increased its talking about this metric from 3,520 to 18,490 (again, doing something right). The English daily, The News has lagged behind however, growing from 33,919 followers to 48,436 and from 1,033 talking about this to a still low 2,224.
Express Media Group
The Express News page has grown from 108,057 followers with 2,687 talking about this to 138,860 followers and a low 3,630 talking about this. That is a gain of 30,803 followers.
The Express Tribune page has grown from 109,241 followers with 4,546 talking about this to 138,053 likes and a significantly better 11,052 talking about this. The page gained 28,812 followers.
Dawn Media Group
The Dawn.com Facebook page has grown from 58,842 followers with 894 talking about this to 91,638 followers and a low 2,371 talking about this. That is a gain of 32,796 followers in six months.
The Dawn News Facebook page currently has 135,152 likes and 3,901 talking about this.
| MAY STATS | NOV STATS |
| Samaa TV Facebook likes: 92,524 Talking about this: 9,806 Klout: 41 | Samaa TV Facebook likes: 232,186 Talking about this: 18,607 Klout: 50 |
| Aaj TV Facebook likes: 69,264 Talking about this: 2,131 Klout: 45 | Aaj TV Facebook likes: 96,204 Talking about this: 3,817 Klout: 51 |
| Dunya TV Facebook likes: 30,685 Talking about this: 2,412 Klout: 28 | Dunya TV Facebook likes: 61,826 Talking about this: 11,526 Klout: 54 |
| Pakistan Today Facebook likes: 17,609 Talking about this: 1,492 Klout: 36 | Pakistan Today Facebook likes: 30,027 Talking about this: 1,287 Klout: 49 |
| The Nation Facebook likes: 17,805 Talking about this: 801 Klout: 49 | The Nation Facebook likes: 27,592T alking about this: 867 Klout: 50 |