Evaluating the effect of viral news on social media engagement

TL;DR

This study analyzes the impact of viral news on social media engagement across European outlets, revealing that most viral events are transient, depend on prior trends, and do not significantly boost sustained engagement.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian structural time-series approach to evaluate viral impact on engagement, highlighting the transient nature of virality and its dependence on existing engagement trends.

Findings

Most viral events do not significantly increase engagement.

Virality often reverses prior engagement trends.

Quick viral effects fade faster than slower, sustained growth.

Abstract

This study examines Facebook and YouTube content from over a thousand news outlets in four European languages from 2018 to 2023, using a Bayesian structural time-series model to evaluate the impact of viral posts. Our results show that most viral events do not significantly increase engagement and rarely lead to sustained growth. The virality effect usually depends on the engagement trend preceding the viral post, typically reversing it. When news emerges unexpectedly, viral events enhances users' engagement, reactivating the collective response process. In contrast, when virality manifests after a sustained growth phase, it represents the final burst of that growth process, followed by a decline in attention. Moreover, quick viral effects fade faster, while slower processes lead to more persistent growth. These findings highlight the transient effect of viral events and underscore the importance of consistent, steady attention-building strategies to establish a solid connection with the user base rather than relying on sudden visibility spikes.