New Initiative: Most Shared Content

We’re launching a new initiative exploring the evolution of the most shared content on social media. This initiative builds on a proprietary archive of the most shared content to Facebook pages and public profiles between 2010 and 2023.

Have you ever wondered what gets shared most on social media? What explains these shares? And how things have evolved over time? We’re building an evidence base to look at how things have evolved on Facebook over the last 14 years, and bring to light the forces that have shaped this evolution. What type of content is most frequently getting shared? What type of sources are most frequently being amplified? How has the most shared content evolved over the years? What drove these changes? And how consistent are these trends across languages?

We backed up the most shared content to Facebook pages and public profiles for each year from 2010 to 2023 from CrowdTangle in June/July 2024. The archive features two distinct sets of data, for each year and language: 🔘 1,000 posts with the highest number of shares - revealing what was most shared overall. 🔘 1,000 most shared posts with a link - revealing which sources from the open web were most regularly promoted to social media.

While the data provides a unique window into how content sharing on Facebook has evolved over the years, it is not without its limitations. Notably: Shares ≠ Views While the number of shares can be an important indicator of content popularity, it does not necessarily equate to the highest number of views, as shares can be inauthentic and content can be otherwise amplified (or demoted) by platforms’ proprietary recommendation algorithms. Missing Posts It’s also important to note that the data was backed up in June/July 2024 and as such does not include posts which were removed by Facebook or its users ahead of the backup. This would also include content from pages or account that were banned or otherwise deactivated. The data is further subject to availability in CrowdTangle.

Are you interested in analyzing the data for your language? Providing input into the dashboards and research methodologies?