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By The Numbers

Marketplace’s most viral stories: February 2014

Raghu Manavalan Mar 10, 2014

Thoughts, disclaimers, bad jokes, etc.: This is our rundown of Marketplace’s top stories on Marketplace.org, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, LinkedIn, and Stitcher during February 2014.

 

Our story inside Netflix HQ when season two of House of Cards launched brought in the most traffic to our site, and did well on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Will HBO’s True Detective dominate web traffic for March 2014?

 

Most viewed on Marketplace.org: These were our most visited stories in February 2014, even if the article was posted before the month. reddit brought most of the traffic to our interview with a retired football referee before the Super Bowl. Employees took a break from applying to jobs to read a story about applying to jobs.

1. What happens at Netflix when House of Cards goes live

2. You Hate My Job: Football referee (plus, a ref quiz!)

3. Your loyal employees are always looking for the next job. 

APM: Marketplace on Facebook:  Facebook posts are sorted by “total reach” on the Marketplace page, essentially the number of people who saw that post, because they like Marketplace on Facebook or saw the post through their friends. This list includes Facebook posts from February 2014. 

1. iPads in schools
 

2. Innovators

3. Outdated checking

 

Most traffic to Marketplace.org from Facebook

What happens at Netflix when House of Cards goes live

@MarketplaceAPM on Twitter: Defining success on Twitter can mean a few things. Are you looking for which article was clicked the most? Most re-tweets? Best use of a cat GIF? There’s a couple of different categories that mean success:

Most clicked tweet

 

Backstory: Author John Green recognized high-school friend Townsend Kyser, a catfish farmer in Greensboro, Alabama as a guest on the show.

Most retweets

 

 

Most traffic to Marketplace.org from Twitter

 

reddit: Articles on reddit are sorted by which stories received the most upvotes, basically reddit’s equivalent to Facebook’s likes.

1. NFL referee Bill Carollo received 200 angry phone calls to his unisted home number, had 15 death threats that resulted in arrests and even had to pull his kids out of school because of a controversial call in a championship game. Later it was found that he had made the right call. (Sports)

2. TIL the First Family pays for most of its living expenses in the White House, including groceries, toiletries and some staff. (Today I Learned)

3. EVE’s “The Mittani” on NPR (Eve)

LinkedIn: Sorted by most traffic to Marketplace.org from LinkedIn. Tech employers and employees make up a huge part of its audience, which comes through in the stories that did well.

1. What happens at Netflix when House of Cards goes live

2. Your loyal employees are always looking for the next job.

3. Silicon Galley? Seeking innovation off-shore

Stitcher: Stitcher is one of our most popular audio platforms that allows people to share and listen to individual audio segments.  It’s really popular in the Bay Area, tech and health stories tend to do better on the site than other topics. 

1. Facebook buys WhatsApp messaging service for $19 billion

2. You won’t listen to this audio, and you won’t share it

3. CVS to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco, will miss $2B in sales per year

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