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Does the winner take it all in online newspapers?

Joo Romo

Abril 2,
2015

So this happened last night in Portugal: a controlled (?) explosion took place in a large quarry at about .. 11PM.
Soon, people around the area, and this went as far as 40 kms (24 miles), flooded facebook, twitter and other
social media channels, fantasizing and plotting about the event.
I took the opportunity to watch this event unfold, in a social media perspective. The news hadnt picked it up, yet
everyone was talking about it. To be honest, I didnt feel a thing and it was April Fools Day so I took it as a joke.
During the next 20 minutes, I browsed social media and online newspapers, looking for an answer. Zero, nothing,
nada. But then, in a 5-10 minutes window, 5 newspapers had covered the thing. The explosion was real.
I was able to take this screen shot using news tracking software Socialbeat.io, which monitors the impact of an
article, on social networks.

Im sorry in advance that captions and newspapers are (in) Portuguese, but well, it exploded here. For the sake
of context, Sol and Pblico are newspaper (paper and digital). Observador and Dirio Digital are digital-only
newspapers and Renascena is a radio with an online presence.
In those first 5-10 minutes the social explosion was also real.
Heres a timeline of when each of the newspapers published the story online:
Sol: 10.58 PM
Dirio Digital: 10.54 PM
Pblico: 11.09 PM
Observador: 11.14 PM
Renascena: 10.55 PM
And heres the timeline of when each of the newspapers published the story on facebook:
Sol: 11.05 PM
Dirio Digital: 11.02 PM
Pblico: 11.16 PM
Observador: 11.15 PM

Renascena: 11.08 PM
Lets look at this data for a moment. Each newspaper took, on average, 7 minutes and 12 seconds to publish its
article on their facebook page. The best performer was Observador (1 minute after) while the worst was
Renascena (13 minutes after).
Lets also look at their facebook audiences (number of fans):
Sol: 471,592 fans
Dirio Digital: 193,861 fans
Pblico: 811,522 fans
Observador: 195,193 fans
Renascena: 163,673 fans
So we know: (1) when they launched online; (2) when they launched on facebook; (3) how big is their facebook
audience.
What do you think happened? Ive just taken another screen shot on SocialBeat, almost 12h in now.

We had two players joining the race, SicNoticias (biggest TV news channel) and DN (one of the highest traffic
newspaper). But what happened to our first 5?
Sol took the lead immediately. Its important to be first but its also important to have a big head start and Sol had
it with its half a million facebook fans. It picked up early in the race and never lost the lead.
But what about being first? Does it matter? You bet it does. Dirio Digital, although being the second smallest in
facebook fans and the smallest in web traffic, was the first to publish the story, both online and in facebook.
It got them an explosive (pun intended) 3rd place with more than 1100 shares & tweets in the last 12h.
Observador never picked up and Publico, despite its massive audience, just wasnt the first.
Long story short: Social media is a great way to distribute content and yes, its important to have great copy
and great visuals. However, when sh.. explosions hit the fan, its all about getting there fast, furious and first.
Id say that the winner in this case was small, humble, Dirio Digital. It was the news David who crushed some
of the Goliaths out there. It was the first to publish online (web & facebook) and although it didnt take it all, it
definitely took a big chunk out of it. Congrats to their social media and publishing team.