Facebook tops the week’s most shared

Looking at the most shared articles over the past week, there is one clear winner according to BuzzSumo. Facebook’s announcement that it is opening its Instant Articles platform to all publishers has so far received over 4,000 shares on Facebook, 500 plus on LinkedIn and 724 on Twitter.

Facebook will officially open the platform to all publishers on 12 April at its F8 conference. Currently, it is being trialled with the likes of the Washington Post and the Guardian.

The company says: “Opening up Instant Articles will allow any publisher to tell great stories, that load quickly, to people all over the world. With Instant Articles, they can do this while retaining control over the experience, their ads and their data.”

Arguably it is big news. If anything, it should have attracted more attention. Instant could be great for Facebook, maybe not so brilliant if you’re looking to build your own site. While Instant brings faster mobile loading speeds, there are questions over the duplication of content and whether Facebook will be seen as the prime content holder. Theoretically, your site could be penalised for duplication if it runs content that is also on Facebook Instant.

From a company/content marketing perspective, it is definitely worth giving it a try. If you’re interested, Facebook Instant docs are here.

The rest

Further down the list, Seth Godin’s blog is well represented. Then things degenerate into more how-tos. However, adding ‘inbound marketing’ to the search criteria generates a different set of results. Topping it is a useful how-to from content marketing tech provider HubSpot. It is a download showing how to create an e-book. There are plenty of e-book guides around (tip: they are not very hard to produce), but a how-to that fulfils a practical purpose is welcome – rather than ethereal subjects such as ‘Be number one for SEO’ or ‘Write awesome blogs’.

This week’s most shared articles containing the words “content marketing”

Title	Total	Facebook	Twitter	LinkedIn
Opening Up Instant Articles to All Publishers	5482	4146	724	555
Ad of the Day: Watch Gwen Stefani and Target’s Live Four-Minute Ad on the Grammys – Adweek	2861	2146	314	388
Want To Be Successful With Content Marketing? Teach, Don’t Sell	2844	1397	907	509
Seth’s Blog: For those unwilling to think deeply…	2629	710	1416	456
Seth’s Blog: The realest thing in our lives	2411	615	1416	329
Seth’s Blog: Prep, spec, fit and finish	2222	388	1384	408
7 Content Marketing Trends That Will Reign Supreme in 2016	1946	154	1302	318
7 Awesome Tips For Writing Brilliant Blog Posts [Infographic]	1757	574	946	172
6 Ways To Use Social Media To Make More Business This Easter	1723	361	1152	158
How To Combine Print And Digital Marketing Campaigns	1712	132	1290	240

 

Facebook tops the week’s most shared is part of Content24, the online magazine for London content marketing agency FirstWord.