Top 100 newspapers on Facebook August 2010

4 Aug

Facebook reached 500,000 million users last month and is one of the most popular web sites in the world.

It’s also one of the most popular sites for driving traffic to media web sites. With that in mind, newspapers need to have a clear strategy for how they are using Facebook. A large part of that strategy should be creating a Facebook page and encouraging people to like your page. This puts your page’s updates into readers’ news feed.

I decided to take a look at how many people like the Facebook pages of the top 100 newspapers (by circulation) in the United States. I looked at what appeared to be the main Facebook page for each newspaper (if I got the wrong one, please let me know in the comments section).

I realize that most newspapers have multiple Facebook pages, but for the purposes here I decided to focus only on the main page. The results:

Most popular pages:

New York times – 686,401 fans
Wall Street Journal – 109,322
Washington Post – 57,842
Denver Post – 24,612
USA Today – 23,308
Chicago Tribune – 16,911
Los Angeles Times – 15,880
Arizona Republic – 14,721
New Orleans Times-Picayune – 10,384
Des Moines Register – 8,639

Most likes as a percentage of print circulation:

New York Times – 72.17%
Washington Post – 10.00%
Knoxville News Sentinel – 7.61%
Des Moines Register – 7.60%
Denver Post – 7.38%
Palm Beach Post – 6.72%
New Orleans Times-Picayune – 6.61%
Mobile Press-Register – 5.76%
Wall Street Journal – 5.22%
Birmingham News – 4.94%

Complete results:

Circ rank	Newspaper	Circulation	FB Likes Aug. 2010	Likes/circ ratio
1	Wall Street Journal	2,092,523	109,322	5.22%
2	USA Today	1,826,622	23,308	1.28%
3	New York Times	951,063	686,401	72.17%
4	Los Angeles Times	616,606	15,880	2.58%
5	Washington Post	578,482	57,842	10.00%
6	Daily News	535,059	5,872	1.10%
7	New York Post	525,004	6,599	1.26%
8	San Jose Mercury News	516,701	4,704	0.91%
9	Chicago Tribune	516,032	16,911	3.28%
10	Houston Chronicle	494,131	4,291	0.87%
11	Arizona Republic	433,731	14,721	3.39%
12	Philadelphia Inquirer	356,189	1,796	0.50%
12	Philadelphia Daily News	356,189	1,557	0.44%
13	Newsday	334,809	4,371	1.31%
14	Denver Post	333,675	24,612	7.38%
15	Star Tribune	295,438	3,313	1.12%
16	St. Petersburg Times	278,888	4,325	1.55%
17	Chicago Sun-Times	268,803	1,502	0.56%
18	Cleveland Plain Dealer	267,888	1,041	0.39%
19	Oregonian	263,600	2,050	0.78%
20	Seattle Times	263,468	2,651	1.01%
21	Dallas Morning News	260,659	3,086	1.18%
22	Detroit Free Press	252,017	4,850	1.92%
23	San Diego Union-Tribune	249,630	2,364	0.95%
24	San Francisco Chronicle	241,330	6,158	2.55%
25	Star-Ledger	236,017	5,503	2.33%
26	Boston Globe	232,432	3,776	1.62%
27	Kansas City Star	216,446	1,632	0.75%
28	Sacramento Bee	214,219	2,491	1.16%
29	St. Louis Post-Dispatch	209,839	3,095	1.47%
30	Baltimore Sun	201,830	4,311	2.14%
31	Orange County Register	196,684	3,075	1.56%
32	Atlanta Journal-Constitution	196,200	5,698	2.90%
33	Indianapolis Star	193,525	3,867	2.00%
34	St. Paul Pioneer Press	193,054	3,089	1.60%
35	Pittsburgh Post-Gazette	192,279	4,270	2.22%
36	Orlando Sentinel	191,191	4,215	2.20%
37	Milwaukee Journal Sentinel	186,433	2,690	1.44%
38	Arkansas Democrat-Gazette	185,222	233	0.13%
39	Louisville Courier-Journal	180,377	2,335	1.29%
40	South Florida Sun-Sentinel	180,273	4,717	2.62%
41	Las Vegas Review-Journal	174,876	2,713	1.55%
42	Cincinnati Enquirer	172,536	1,651	0.96%
43	Miami Herald	170,769	6,587	3.86%
44	Pittsburgh Tribune-Review	170,538	3,281	1.92%
45	Columbus Dispatch	170,179	3,376	1.98%
46	Charlotte Observer	166,546	3,315	1.99%
47	Fort Worth Star-Telegram	165,252	1,721	1.04%
48	Buffalo News	162,213	852	0.53%
49	Virginian-Pilot	160,609	4,160	2.59%
50	Tampa Tribune	159,813	1,469	0.92%
51	Record (Hackensack)	158,105	609	0.39%
52	Times-Picayune	157,068	10,384	6.61%
53	Omaha World-Herald	152,522	1,157	0.76%
54	Oklahoman	151,264	1,213	0.80%
55	Detroit News	149,872	6,240	4.16%
56	Commercial Appeal	148,763	2,215	1.49%
57	San Antonio Express-News	146,230	6,148	4.20%
58	Austin American-Statesman	143,760	4,569	3.18%
59	Hartford Courant	139,166	1,751	1.26%
60	The News & Observer (Raleigh)	137,804	1,769	1.28%
61	Tennessean	133,997	6,079	4.54%
62	Boston Herald	132,551	1,354	1.02%
63	Investor’s Business Daily (Los Angeles)	131,959	2,353	1.78%
64	Richmond Times-Dispatch	125,011	4,412	3.53%
65	Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester)	124,987	1,324	1.06%
66	Palm Beach Post	122,611	8,241	6.72%
67	Fresno Bee	118,978	1,978	1.66%
68	Toledo Blade	117,704	2,452	2.08%
69	Florida Times-Union	117,416	1,484	1.26%
70	Asbury Park Press	114,655	2,615	2.28%
71	Riverside Press-Enterprise	114,556	1,590	1.39%
72	Birmingham News	113,810	5,624	4.94%
73	Des Moines Register	113,597	8,639	7.60%
74	Salt Lake Tribune	113,474	806	0.71%
75	Honolulu Advertiser	109,479	3,939	3.60%
76	Arizona Daily Star	108,612	474	0.44%
77	Daily Herald (Arlington Heights)	106,287	804	0.76%
78	Morning Call	103,845	3,197	3.08%
79	Akron Beacon Journal	102,981	1,718	1.67%
80	Dayton Daily News	102,357	2,749	2.69%
81	Lexington Herald-Leader	102,324	955	0.93%
82	Tulsa World	101,508	2,429	2.39%
83	Knoxville News Sentinel	100,441	7,643	7.61%
84	Grand Rapids Press	99,642	4,564	4.58%
85	Providence Journal	99,573	1,604	1.61%
86	Press-Register (Mobile)	97,607	5,624	5.76%
87	Albuquerque Journal	95,469	575	0.60%
88	News Journal (Wilmington)	92,501	1,782	1.93%
89	Wisconsin State Journal	91,575	662	0.72%
90	Post-Standard (Syracuse)	89,819	2,130	2.37%
91	Los Angeles Daily News	89,804	453	0.50%
92	Sarasota Herald-Tribune	89,097	2,948	3.31%
93	Post and Courier (Charleston)	88,939	652	0.73%
94	News Tribune (Tacoma)	87,315	2,649	3.03%
95	Journal News (White Plains)	87,205	1,795	2.06%
96	The Times of Northwest Indiana	85,342	2,734	3.20%
97	Gazette (Colorado Springs)	85,305	1,414	1.66%
98	La Opinión (Los Angeles)	83,558	1,176	1.41%
99	State (Columbia, S.C.)	83,392	893	1.07%
100	Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era	80,842	652	0.81%