Last week was an eventful one for social networking here at Daily Kos. We passed 100,000 likes on
the Facebook page, after which we threw our imaginary hats in the air and danced imaginary victory dances. We started
a Tumblr. And we began posting to
our good old Google Plus page again.
Another thing that made the week of 5/27 to 6/2 especially interesting was that it was our biggest week ever for community-produced content. Diaries written by the community vastly surpassed those written by front pagers in terms of social network shares. Take a jump over the orange puff to see my pretty charts.
Okay, okay. They're not that pretty. But here they are anyway. As always, if a cell is highlighted orange, that means the story was on the front page of Daily Kos.
FACEBOOK:
A couple diaries topped the chart this week that weren't shared on the Daily Kos Facebook page, something I haven't seen before. That would be #1, #3 and #8—diarists The Troubadour, Obamalover20122 and Troubadour. (Two different Troubadours in one week! My mind is blown.) All of them were Reddit hits this week, which explains why they got so much traction across the board on all social networks. Good job, guys!
As for front pagers, Laura Clawson made the list twice, Tom Tomorrow made a usual appearance and Joan McCarter and Jed Lewison made it on the top 20. But by far the most traffic was driven by content produced by the community. A full 14 out of 20 stories. Superstars, all.
TWITTER:
Only three of these stories were featured on the Daily Kos front page. We had a couple double-hitters as well: The Troubadour made the Twitter list twice this week, as did Jed Lewison. Hoorays!
REDDIT:
A LOT of traffic was driven by Reddit hits this week. And a whopping zero of these were front-page stories. The Reddit hits made the stories share across Facebook and Twitter as well this week, which is why several stories topped every list.
One thing I noticed was a diary from 5/3/13 hit Reddit this week. (That would be #8, a post by Dr Erich Bloodaxe RN.) It's a good thing to keep in mind if you're ever feeling like a diary you wrote didn't get the traction you'd hoped. Sometimes these things get recycled through social networks months or even years later. It's hard to put a limit on the lifespan of stories that don't have any kind of shelf date on them, especially when they get passed around on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.
(Commenter nomandates brought it to my attention that Chrislove's diary, #14 on the Facebook charts, was actually written in April as well. Another diary resurrected!)
Thanks again for writing such an array of fantastic content, everybody. And remember that sharing each other's work outside of Daily Kos is just another way to say "thank you" and to try to spread their work around the vast, mysterious interwebs.