July Social Leaderboard: Remarkably Flat

20 Sep
2012

by Ben Elowitz

Results took a little while longer to compile for July:  social traffic to the Top 50 publishers on the web remains remarkably flat, with the average publisher adding only 0.2 percentage points to their social traffic composition.

What’s up with the slump?  Sure, we could all be a running a little faster, but there are signs that Facebook’s internal priorities are putting a damper on publisher progress.  Search and advertising initiatives have been getting a lot of attention in light of the post-IPO hangover, and platform initiatives seem to be taking a back seat.

 

For the Win:  Wetpaint, People, NFL!

Despite a lackluster performance overall, we did have a few sprinters on the Social Leaderboard.  CBS jumped 6 spots and added 3 percentage points to its social traffic composition to become the 4th most social publisher on the list.  People held a steady pace and was able to reclaim the #2 spot on the Social Leaderboard when NFL and MTV both stumbled and fell into 3rd and 5th place, respectively.

Wetpaint Entertainment held the top spot with a 5.7 percentage point gain that put us at 35% social.

 

Average Social Volume Gain: 110,000 Social Visitors

We’ve been measuring social performance on two metrics:  1) Social Composition (percent of traffic coming from social) and 2) Social Volume(total number of visits from social).  On the second metric, the average publisher was up just slightly this month (by 110K social visits).  The Huffington Post is still the publisher to beat on this list, and the publishers who topped the list this time are the same publishers we saw in last month’s Top Ten.

 

Details for Social Leaderboard Publishers:

MONTHLY RANKINGS

Jul

Jun

May

 Name of Publisher (Owner) URL

Monthly Uniques

% from Social

Change

1

1

1

 Wetpaint Entertainment WETPAINT.COM

                 3,756,818

35.0%

5.7%

2

4

2

 People PEOPLE.COM

               12,512,843

10.3%

-0.1%

3

2

5

 National Football League NFL.COM

                 5,054,004

10.3%

-1.6%

4

10

6

 CBS CBS.COM

                 5,255,065

9.1%

2.9%

5

3

3

 MTV MTV.COM

                 9,743,751

9.1%

-1.7%

6

5

7

 TMZ TMZ.COM

               13,350,933

8.5%

-0.2%

7

6

4

 NBC Universal NBC.COM

                 6,545,231

7.3%

-1.2%

8

7

8

 Yahoo! YAHOO.COM

             148,433,777

7.2%

-0.1%

9

12

28

 E! Entertainment Television EONLINE.COM

                 7,850,359

7.2%

1.3%

10

8

10

 Major League Baseball MLB.COM

               14,203,530

6.9%

0.0%

11

9

9

 Patch (Aol) PATCH.COM

               11,476,566

6.5%

-0.1%

12

11

11

 Aol AOL.COM

               46,783,960

6.2%

0.0%

13

13

15

 Entertainment Weekly EW.COM

                 6,392,260

5.9%

0.4%

14

14

14

 TV Guide TVGUIDE.COM

                 6,160,054

5.3%

-0.1%

15

15

16

 IGN (News Corp) IGN.COM

                 8,773,566

5.2%

-0.1%

16

18

20

 FOX News (News Corp) FOXNEWS.COM

               26,898,357

5.1%

0.3%

17

21

13

 Discovery Channel DISCOVERY.COM

                 9,416,222

5.0%

0.5%

18

16

19

 CNN CNN.COM

               43,781,596

4.9%

0.0%

19

17

18

 MSN MSN.COM

               92,238,832

4.9%

0.0%

20

34

30

 FORBES FORBES.COM

               11,280,333

4.8%

1.5%

21

20

23

 BBC News BBC.CO.UK

               13,046,671

4.7%

0.2%

22

26

24

 National Geographic Society NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM

                 4,940,584

4.5%

0.8%

23

19

17

 US Weekly USMAGAZINE.COM

                 7,563,554

4.4%

-0.3%

24

23

22

 The Huffington Post (Aol) HUFFINGTONPOST.COM

               38,522,868

4.2%

0.1%

25

29

26

 New York Times NYTIMES.COM

               25,357,128

4.1%

0.5%

26

22

21

 TIME TIME.COM

                 7,710,128

4.0%

-0.2%

27

24

12

 Break Media BREAK.COM

                 9,043,234

3.8%

-0.1%

28

32

32

 Bleacher Report BLEACHERREPORT.COM

               10,580,640

3.7%

0.3%

29

28

25

 The Washington Post WASHINGTONPOST.COM

               16,076,403

3.7%

0.0%

30

33

27

 CBS News CBSNEWS.COM

               11,952,616

3.6%

0.2%

31

27

35

 The Guardian GUARDIAN.CO.UK

                 9,178,171

3.5%

-0.2%

32

31

31

 IMDB (Amazon.com) IMDB.COM

               34,636,527

3.5%

0.0%

33

30

33

 Nickelodeon (MTV Networks) NICK.COM

               10,319,657

3.4%

-0.2%

34

35

38

 Los Angeles Times (Tribune) LATIMES.COM

               15,454,530

3.4%

0.2%

35

25

29

 New York Daily News NYDAILYNEWS.COM

               11,964,397

3.1%

-0.6%

36

37

34

 Food Network (Scripps) FOODNETWORK.COM

               14,706,293

3.0%

0.3%

37

36

36

 Cartoon Network (Turner) CARTOONNETWORK.COM

                 9,284,076

2.7%

-0.3%

38

38

37

 Wall Street Journal (News Corp) WSJ.COM

               12,631,777

2.6%

0.1%

39

40

40

 Reuters REUTERS.COM

               10,594,538

2.3%

0.3%

40

41

39

 USA Today (Gannet) USATODAY.COM

               18,774,614

2.1%

0.1%

41

39

41

 FOX Sports (News Corp) FOXSPORTS.COM

               21,971,854

2.1%

0.0%

42

43

43

 CNET (CBS Interactive) CNET.COM

               22,876,301

1.8%

0.0%

43

42

42

 WebMD WEBMD.COM

               14,282,989

1.8%

0.0%

44

44

44

 Bloomberg BLOOMBERG.COM

                 6,344,855

1.7%

0.0%

45

46

45

 Businessweek (Bloomberg) BUSINESSWEEK.COM

                 6,539,164

1.7%

0.1%

46

45

46

 everyday Health EVERYDAYHEALTH.COM

                 9,717,095

1.5%

-0.1%

47

47

48

 LIVESTRONG (Demand Media) LIVESTRONG.COM

               15,249,509

1.1%

-0.1%

48

48

49

 About.com (NY Times) ABOUT.COM

               50,908,931

1.1%

0.0%

49

49

47

 ThePostGame (Yahoo) THEPOSTGAME.COM

                 6,096,594

1.1%

-0.1%

50

50

50

 Mayo Clinic MAYOCLINIC.COM

                 9,860,926

0.8%

-0.1%

51

51

51

 eHow (Demand Media) EHOW.COM

               51,587,708

0.8%

0.0%

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