Daily Kos is going to try something new this year. After going through the metrics of 2015, we’re promoting the four diarists who wrote the most posts that topped the Facebook charts. They’ll be called “Featured Writers.”
These four writers have written a ton of quality diaries that went viral. They went viral because they were excellent, important stories, and they widened our reach and brought us new readers.
Without further ado, our new Featured Writers:
SemDem, who brings us stories of outrageous Florida politics and beyond.
Dartagnan, who so eloquently unpacks a range of issues affecting the Democratic Party.
xxdr. zombiexx, who often writes up stories on the beat of legalization, police brutality and gun nuts.
Pakalolo, who does such a fantastic job explaining the dire issue of climate change.
Featured Writers, who will be working with the Social department, are different from our current Contributing Editors who work with Editorial. We’re not working with people on Sunday essays or front-page material. That’s not our department. We’re instead working more closely with these writers to proof and polish their stuff before sharing it to our Facebook audience.
I know, I know … a lot of the Daily Kos community here doesn’t exactly embrace Facebook. Some of you don’t even have an account. That’s totally fine. I’m not here to spread the Gospel of Facebook. But the fact that we get a ton of interactions on posts we share over there, an average of 15-20 million people seeing our posts every week, means we have another wider and different audience to listen to our community’s stories. And that can only be a positive thing.
How did we choose these Featured Writers? It was easy. I made a spreadsheet of all the diaries that appeared on our top-25 list each month for most-trafficked stories from Facebook. Sorted by author. Chose the top four from there—SemDem (who had 5 diaries), Dartagnan (4), xxdr zombiexx (3) and Pakalolo (3).
There are so many incredible diarists at this site whose stories we share often. As Director of Social Media, I hope to continue to find ways to recognize and reward the work of community members.
A round of applause for these fantastic writers and all the work they’ve done. And for everyone in the community for all your posts and participation. We’re reading. We’re listening. We’re working to boost your content whenever we can.