These were the top publishers on Facebook in July 2022

Amid something of a summer lull for content engagement, The Daily Mail maintained its place at the top of our rankings in July, with around 10 million engagements more than the nearest competitor. 

Here are some of the key takeaways for this month: 

• The Daily Mail’s dominance continued, though its level of engagement did fall compared to June
• The top five publishers remained the same compared to the previous month
• Oil was a big focus of the top stories

Let’s take a closer look.

The top publishers on Facebook in July 2022

The Daily Mail’s 38 million engagements to its content were comfortably enough to make it the top publisher of the month, though its engagement did drop slightly from the 45 million it achieved in June.

This dip was not true of all publishers in the top ten, with Legit’s numbers actually increasing from 25 million to 29 million month over month, and The Daily Mirror’s staying around the same at 19 million. 

The Daily Mail’s success was driven by a mix of celebrity and human interest stories. Its top piece was about model Kate Moss being appointed Creative Director at Diet Coke (174k), while the top five also contained celebrity pieces about Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell enjoying a stroll in Italy (143k), and Harrison Ford filling up his classic Jaguar (138k). Other top stories included a woman that had a birthmark removed from her baby’s face (170k) and vets saving an elephant with CPR (149k).

The Nigerian publisher Legit once again had a distinctly local flavor to its stories, with feel-good and success stories widely engaged. These included a mum encouraging her son to go to school by dressing up (259k), a mother praying for her daughter (254k), a man raising a baby found by the roadside (253k), a mum training her kids for university (222k), and a woman driving a tanker at a young age (213k).

The Daily Mirror was as soccer-focused as it always is in its most successful months. Its top articles were about Manchester City players not immediately clicking (171k), Sadio Mane being named African Player of the Year (136k), Lionel Messi reportedly falling out with Kylian Mbappe (128k), Atletico Madrid moving to sign Cristiano Ronaldo (114k), and Cristiano Ronaldo’s desire to leave Manchester United (108k). 

There was relatively little politics among the top publishers, but that was less true of the top stories overall. 

The top articles on Facebook in July 2022

The top articles were both about oil, with Reuters (488k) and Business Insider (440k) both focusing on US exports of oil while gas prices remained high.

Sport was also a big driver of engagement, with new signings Lisandro Martinez (353k) Christian Eriksen (277k) and Gabriel Jesus (277k) all making waves for their respective new teams.

Interestingly, despite being the top publisher, The Daily Mail did not feature among the top 15 stories overall, though its closest competitor Legit did manage to get three of the top stories. 

The top 25 publishers in July

The chart below shows the top 25 publishers on Facebook in July, as well as the number of articles they have written.

Mainstream US news publishers struggled somewhat during the summer months, with only Fox News and CNN appearing in the top ten, with the likes of NBC News, Business Insider, and others all being outperformed by global publishers from the UK and Africa. 

Sports publishers continued to do well, with Manchester United’s website cracking the top 25 alongside Sportsbrief and Football London. 

If you’d like to know who the top publisher writing about brands was, read our latest brand blog here.