Yeah, you guys rock.
This is pretty cool: we've compiled the most viral stories from the Daily Kos community in 2013. The page views below
are NOT total page views -- they are the page views referred
just from social media outlets. That is, each one of those views is a person who otherwise
would not have read the piece if it had not been shared on a social media site.
Here are the top 10.
The next 15 are below the fold:
Just these top 25 stories drove over 2 million pageviews from people who weren't otherwise stopping by Daily Kos. That's how you grow a movement -- by bringing in people from the outside and educating them on important topics.
This is important to note, because every time I talk about social media sharing, there are inevitable grumbles in the comments about how they hate Facebook and Twitter and blah blah blah. As I've written before, not every tool is for everyone. I'm phone-phobic and wouldn't pick up a phone and make GOTV calls if my life depended on it. But that doesn't mean making GOTV calls isn't an important tool for accomplishing our collective goals.
The same goes for social media -- it's a critical way for us to move our message outside core activist liberal hangouts like Daily Kos. Our job is to grow the movement, not just talk amongst ourselves. You don't like social media? Good for you! Now shut up. You don't hear me going on and on about how much I hate phone banking. We all play our roles, so be happy someone else is taking care of the sharing stuff and bringing millions of new people to the site. Spreading the message outside our orange walls is as important as any other.
This December, we're on pace to drive about five million unique visitors to Daily Kos. A year ago, after an exhilarating and victorious presidential election cycle, we had 3.3 million visitors. This year has seen record-setting traffic without the benefit of traffic-driving major elections. Out social efforts are a big part of that, and those efforts will only grow in 2014 as critical elections loom.
We need more people in this movement, not less.
Two interesting asides: First, the top shared community story isn't even on this list, because it was written way back in November 2011: Stunning: Comparing U.S. & World Covers for TIME Magazine. That oldie (in blog terms) but still-goodie from David Harris Gershon drove 536,753 pageviews last year. It has likely crossed the 1 million mark over its two-year run.
Second, when first tagging the picture at the top of this post as I uploaded it into the system, I typed the dude's name as "Angus King". Yup, I'm a political dork, alright! Have a great New Years!