multicom and Gogol Publishing analysed the most engaging articles of German local newspapers of 2017. For each of the 200 local newspapers that were analysed, the five most engaging articles were determined. As a result, the most popular topics on social media were identified. Among the 1,000 analysed articles the most frequent topics were: local news, crime, politics, animals and human interest stories. All other categories combined account for only about 6% of the most engaging articles of German local newspapers.

Local news make up over one third of the most engaging articles
35.1% of the 1,000 most engaging articles feature stories about local news. This is an encouraging sign for local newspapers, as reporting about this topic is their core business. Local news are particularly suitable for social media, because people are more affected by events in their immediate environment rather than national or international events.

The crime beat generates attention
It is commonly known that the worse the news, the more attention it attracts. Articles about criminal offences, accidents, police operations and missing persons generate great interest on social media and thus lead to high engagement rates. Therefore, one quarter of the most engaging articles feature crime stories.

Politically controversial topics encourage users to comment
On social media, local newspapers can score with highly contentious issues. Posts about controversial topics encourage users either to comment in order to enter the controversy or to share the article in order to emphasise their own opinion. As political topics are inherently controversial such articles generally produce a lot of reaction, even more so when they cover local politics. As local-level politics and policies directly affect users and their immediate environment, readers want to pass their opinion on such topics - and social media provides an ideal platform for that. 15.7% of the most engaging articles fall into the category of politics.

Animals enjoy great popularity on Facebook & Co.
Articles about animals are known to cause high engagement rates on social media. About one tenth of the top articles of German local newspapers are animal-related. Stories about animals with both positive and negative associations trigger the users’ emotions. Animal content with positive connotations scores mainly thanks to its visualisation (“cute animal pictures”). However, in stories about animal cruelty the element of animal protection is key for success. In this case, users often feel like helping the cause by engaging on social media. Users are therefore more likely to like, share or comment.

Emotional human interest stories perform well on social media
Stories putting emphasis on the experiences of ordinary people – so-called human interest stories – make for high engagement rates. 8.6% of the 1,000 most engaging articles are human interest stories. With such articles, it is vital that readers can identify themselves with the subject of the story and consequently sympathise with them. Thus, the readers’ interest increases the more the article focuses on a person’s fate or actions. If the readers can empathise with the protagonist of the article, it will be reflected in a high engagement rate on social media.

Publishers are offered an individual analysis of the study, including the most important online key performance indicators, a detailed analysis of the most engaging articles of their news portal as well as specific advice on improving reach. Publishers can request their individual analysis from Gogol Publishing:

Nicole Scherer
E-mail: nicole.scherer@gogol-publishing.de
Telephone: +49 821/ 907 844-39

*About the data collection:
In order to determine the top social articles, the online analytics tool Buzzsumo was used. Buzzsumo lists the articles of each portal that received the most likes, shares, comments or references on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Reddit. For each portal, the best article of 2017 was included in the evaluation. To determine the Top 5 Facebook articles, the Facebook engagements were put into proportion with the number of Facebook fans of the corresponding sites (as of May 2018). As a result, the articles achieving the highest engagement rate considering their potential reach were identified.

About multicom and Gogol Publishing:
Gogol Publishing and its affiliate company multicom offer a broad range of tools for print and online publishing from a single source. In the German-speaking area, over 600 newspapers and magazines and news portals with more than 400 million page views per month are produced with these systems. Today, over 500,000 editors and authors use the system, making multicom and Gogol one of the the leading providers of multimedia publishing solutions. Important daily newspaper publishers such as the DuMont Mediengruppe, mh:n Medien, die Rheinpfalz etc. put their trust into the solution.
(http://www.multicom.de – http://www.gogol-publishing.de)