A review of content trends over the last three years. The research found a significant fall in content referrals from social, particularly Facebook. These slides highlight some of the key findings. The full report is available at the BuzzSumo website at http://buzzsumo.com/blog/content-trends-2018/

1. www.buzzsumo.com
Content Trends 2018

2. Median Shares of an Article in 2015
8

3. Median Shares in 2017 (Sample of 100m articles)
4

4. Majority of content gets very low shares
Only 5% of
Content
Gets
More Than
343 Shares
90% 5%

5. Social Shares 2017
Social Shares
Top 1 percent 2,409
Top 5 percent 343
Top 10 percent 62
Median 4
In 2017 you only needed 62 shares to be in the top 10% of posts

6. Many Sites Suffering Fall In Social Engagement
BuzzFeed.com Social Engagements (Down 60% in 3 years)

7. Why?
1. Growth in content publication and competition
2. Rise in private sharing
3. Facebook algorithm changes and fall in
engagement

8. 1. Growth In Content Competition
Number of posts published on Wordpress.com

9. Content Views Have Fallen
Pageviews of posts published on Wordpress.com

10. Content Saturation Of Popular Topics
40,000 Articles a Week
Published About Bitcoin
In December 2017

11. As content competition increases typically
average shares decline
Data for Machine Learning from BuzzSumo.com

12. 2. A Rise In Private Sharing
Data from GetSocial

13. 3. Facebook Changes

14. Facebook v Google Referral Traffic (2012-15)

15. Facebook v Google Referral Traffic (2017-18)
Google
Facebook

16. Search V Social 2012-2017 (Shareaholic Data)
Google
Facebook

17. Beyond Publishers: Jumpshot Data
Google always drove the majority of web-wide
traffic referrals but this has further increased.
Oct 2016 59.2%
May 2017 62.6%
https://www.slideshare.net/randfish/inside-googles-numbers-in-2017

18. Social Network Referrals 2012-2017
Google
Facebook
The one consistent finding from different studies is that Facebook referrals have declined.

19. Facebook Changed Its Algorithm
You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next
“Last year we made an update to News Feed to
reduce stories from sources that consistently post
clickbait headlines that withhold and exaggerate
information.
Today, we are making three updates that build on this
work so that people will see even fewer clickbait
stories in their feeds”
Facebook May 2017

20. Former Top “What Happened” Headlines
3.1m
Facebook
Engagements
2.2m
1.9m
1.7m

21. “What Happened” Headlines Since May 2017
Facebook
Engagements
246k
242k
186k
172k

22. PlayBuzz Facebook Engagement Pre-2017
Facebook
Engagements
8.6m
6.4m
6.3m
6m

23. Top PlayBuzz Facebook Engagement 2017
Facebook
Engagements
195k
144k
142k
103k

24. BuzzFeed Listicles
Pre-2017 June-Dec 2017
Article Total Shares Article Total Shares
26 Pictures That Will Make You Re-
Evaluate Your Entire Existence
21 Things You Know Only If You've
Been Best Friends For 10 Years
26 Reasons Kids Are Pretty Much
Just Tiny Drunk Adults
41 Camping Hacks That Are
Borderline Genius
2.6m
2.2m
2.2m
2m
21 Photos That Show Just How Bad
The Flooding In Houston Really Is
9 Tweets Only People Who Shop At
Aldi Can Truly Understand
47 Things You'll Immediately
Understand If You Were A Teen In
The Late '90s
85 People Who Are Sexier Than Blake
Shelton
0.53m
0.4m
0.27m
0.2m

25. Fall in
Number of
Big Viral Posts

26. Total & Average Shares Upworthy Content

27. Total Shares of BuzzFeed Content
Social Engagements down 60% in 3 years

29. Financial Times Commentary on Latest FB Changes

30. Buffer – Top Posts Pre 2017

31. Buffer – Top Posts 2017

32. Average Shares of
Social Media Examiner Articles

33. However, some sites are bucking the trend……

34. Average Shares of New York Times
Content Treble

35. Financial Times - 21 February 2018

36. New York Times Political Posts

37. A Flight To Quality?
Seven of the top ten most shared articles on
Harvard Business Review over the last five years
were published in 2017. The other three were
published in 2016.
The two most shared posts from The Economist
over the last 5 years were both published in 2017.

38. Growth in LinkedIn Sharing
LinkedIn recently told Digiday that
comments, likes and shares on the platform
are up more than 60 percent year-on-year,
due to product updates, new features and
analytics.
https://digiday.com/media/publishers-eye-
linkedin-facebooks-reliability-falters/

39. Growth in LinkedIn Sharing
LinkedIn Shares of Forbes.com content

40. Growth in LinkedIn Sharing
LinkedIn Shares of BusinessInsider.com content

41. Backlinks
The median number of backlinks in our sample
of 100m posts published in 2017 was zero.
In fact over seventy percent of all content
published was never linked to from another
domain.

42. Authoritative Evergreen Content
Consistently Gains Shares and Links

43. Implications for Marketers
Be clear on your objectives for content and social media.
Social may be better for engagement than referrals.
Don’t chase shares with viral content and headlines
Build your authority early
Build your audience and direct distribution models
User generated content

44. Implications for Marketers
You need a promotion strategy
Focus on high quality content to gain shares and links
Less maybe more
SEO arguably more important than ever
LinkedIn may offer opportunities for B2B marketers

45. Thank you.
BuzzSumo.com
@steverayson