29% of the Top 500 Google+ Pages are News and Content Sites

Whenever I do a presentation on Google+ for publishers I mention that quite a few news and content brands are among the most followed pages. The point being that Google+ does indeed offer good opportunities for audience development, engagement and content promotion.

Today I thought I’d check to see just how many news and content sites are among the top 500 pages on Google+. So I went through the most followed rankings on CircleCount to see how many fall into this category.

For the purposes of this exercise I counted traditional news organizations, lifestyle publications, Web-only news and content sites and broadcast channels/programs with a companion site.

Here is the breakdown:

• Top 500: 29% (145)
• Top 100: 28% (28)
• Top 50: 22% (11)
• Top 10: 30% (3)

The three Google+ pages that made the top 10 are The Economist, National Geographic and TIME.

29% of the top 500 pages is a pretty good showing, and a wide range of content brands, areas of coverage and audience demographics are covered. This has been established for some time, but the Google+ user base goes well beyond young, tech-focused males.

A number of international sites fared well too, particularly some from Brazil and other parts of Latin America.

The Most Followed News and Content Sites on Google+

Here is the full list of Google+ pages, ranked by their CircleCount PagesRank (which is based on the number of followers).

It should be noted that the figures reported by CircleCount will not exactly match what is shown on a Google+ page. However CircleCount informed me that the data for any page shouldn’t be more than 24 hours old.

Follower count is not the most insightful metric (and it becomes quickly outdated) but I find it useful to take a snapshot at periodic intervals, as I do with my posts on Google+ engagement for news sites.

	Google+ Page	CircleCount PagesRank	Reported followers as of 12/3/13
1	The Economist	8	4,632,772
2	National Geographic	9	4,567,736
3	TIME	10	4,097,452
4	ESPN	12	4,001,707
5	MTV	23	3,448,571
6	Travel Channel	26	3,335,575
7	BBC News	27	3,315,935
8	Food Network	28	3,235,697
9	TechCrunch	37	3,023,175
10	Epicurious	49	2,695,448
11	The Wall Street Journal	50	2,661,448
12	FashionTV	52	2,557,690
13	IGN	56	2,524,114
14	The Guardian	57	2,494,104
15	NBC Sports	60	2,466,391
16	Mashable	61	2,440,411
17	CBSSports.com	64	2,417,902
18	ELLE	66	2,386,109
19	WIRED	67	2,304,569
20	Billboard	69	2,295,340
21	Finanical Times	70	2,289,383
22	Vogue	72	2,274,983
23	Martha Stewart	80	2,183,243
24	Bravo	84	2,136,478
25	NBC News	87	2,098,339
26	Huffington Post Politics	93	2,031,006
27	Esquire Network	94	2,026,255
28	CNBC	96	1,988,214
29	Rachel Ray Show	103	1,918,191
30	Motor Trend Magazine	109	1,858,223
31	MAKE	121	1,753,449
32	Los Angeles Times	124	1,748,035
33	The Associated Press	126	1,746,835
34	CNN International	129	1,713,071
35	TripAdvisor	135	1,668,900
36	CBS This Morning	141	1,640,048
37	VEJA	145	1,608,612
38	The Next Web	148	1,592,691
39	The Huffington Post	149	1,588,632
40	Reuters	151	1,570,034
41	Forbes	155	1,552,129
42	The New York Times	156	1,550,257
43	BBC Good Food	158	1,524,034
44	Cooking Channel	168	1,487,400
45	CNN en Espanol	171	1,470,171
46	Booooooom	172	1,466,370
47	Car and Driver Magazine	177	1,441,733
48	Engadget	183	1,419,019
49	The Onion	192	1,380,775
50	Estadão	193	1,379,143
51	Sports Illustrated	194	1,369,835
52	VH1	201	1,351,850
53	SB Nation	202	1,350,575
54	FAWN	206	1,312,859
55	Design Milk	208	1,303,010
56	designboom	209	1,298,350
57	Bored Panda	211	1,286,012
58	Scene 360	212	1,285,120
59	Young Hollywood	216	1,264,899
60	Colossal	217	1,263,041
61	USA Today	219	1,259,241
62	ABC News	220	1,254,925
63	PEOPLE	224	1,246,261
64	Face the Nation	225	1,239,429
65	CNET	226	1,238,095
66	Breaking News	227	1,225,583
67	Washington Post	229	1,218,790
68	msnbc	234	1,204,027
69	E! Entertainment	236	1,118,928
70	Bleacher Report	241	1,166,422
71	Food Republic	242	1,160,576
72	Vanity Fair	243	1,159,217
73	ÉPOCA	247	1,132,584
74	Al Jazeera English	249	1,129,536
75	Nerdist	255	1,118,810
76	Mother Jones	257	1,107,966
77	MTV Brasil	259	1,106,418
78	Rasa Malaysia	265	1,093,268
79	Hyperallergic	266	1,087,377
80	Jornal O Globo	268	1,083,077
81	zoOm TV	277	1,060,409
82	Al Arabiya News - English	278	1,054,153
83	Canal GNT	279	1,052,737
84	CollegeFashionista	280	1,050,561
85	Fast Company	281	1,050,360
86	Revision3	284	1,046,086
87	Rolling Stone	287	1,037,871
88	Firstpost	292	1,021,172
89	ITN	302	979,137
90	PBS NewsHour	305	968,802
91	BakeSpace.com	308	966,768
92	Yoga Journal	312	962,707
93	People StyleWatch	313	961,827
94	CMT	342	935,552
95	CELEBUZZ	330	917,823
96	Mixmag	337	902,507
97	PBS	338	900,699
98	Entertainment Weekly	339	898,315
99	Talking Points Memo	340	894,762
100	ESPN cricinfo	341	894,285
101	Who What Wear	355	866,091
102	TV Cultura	360	861,787
103	Smithsonian Magazine	361	861,023
104	Good Morning America	375	839,535
105	Catraca Livre	378	832,885
106	Al Jazeera Channel	384	823,192
107	MODTV	389	813,550
108	FashionEtc	394	809,515
109	The Hacker News	395	807,967
110	ModernMom	398	806,111
111	Slate	401	796,531
112	TODAY	405	792,715
113	Adweek	406	790,942
114	Marie Claire Brasil	407	788,949
115	National Geographic Abu Dhabi	415	775,124
116	The Zoe Report	416	773,940
117	Every Day with Rachael Ray Magazine	417	771,738
118	Foodily	418	770,999
119	INFO	419	770,894
120	Thrillist	421	767,068
121	Viva	423	766,535
122	The Daily Show	429	761,010
123	glamsham.com	430	760,029
124	Ars Technica	443	739,224
125	The Weather Channel	444	738,660
126	TMZ	445	737,790
127	Modelina	451	729,247
128	Seventeen	453	728,022
129	Folha de S.Paulo	455	726,166
130	Terra	456	725,578
131	Eater	458	724,658
132	EIWatan News	463	722,129
133	Revista Galileu	466	713,980
134	The Stream	468	712,291
135	UOL	470	708,951
136	EXAME.com	478	705,371
137	PetaPixel	479	703,455
138	This Week	482	699,925
139	Perez Hilton	488	694,231
140	PurseBlog	490	693,149
141	QUEM Acontece	493	689,710
142	Cultura Brasil	494	688,080
143	OK! Magazine	495	687,028
144	Crescer	499	683,286
145	The Times of India	500	681,701