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The posting benchmark

Sowetan on Facebook, beside its peers

How Sowetan's Facebook Page posted from 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026, and how readers responded, beside its 13 peers: news publishers and digital-native newsrooms in Africa with 500k to 5m followers.

Country
South Africa
Region
Africa
Kind
Publisher, digital-native or agency
Followers
1m to 10m

Within South Africa

Sowetan: 56.3 a day

Median in South Africa: 18.3 a day

That is 38.1 more a day than the median in South Africa.

Place the dots by

Posts a day5th/14Photos and video14th/14Evening posts12th/14Weekend day11th/14
Engagement per post14th/14Engagement a day7th/14Per 1,000 followers12th/14Comments per post12th/14Comments a day6th/14

Sowetan, South Africa

5thof 14

Rank among its peers, highest first, posts a day

Sowetan posted 56.3 times a day to Facebook. The median of its 13 peers: 27.4.

Its first gap: photos and video

77 more of its posts a week as photos or video would reach its peers' median. What it would take

Peers: 13 news publishers and digital-native newsrooms in Africa with 500k to 5m followers, 12 weeks to 20 September 2026.

See all nine measures

Sowetan's 13 peers, lifted out of the 950 news brands in the comparison, placed by posts a day. The scale is logarithmic, so 1 to 10 takes the same width as 10 to 100.

Public Facebook posts, 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026. Dataset peers-2026-09-v4.

At a glance

Sowetan beside 13 peers

Sowetan and its peers, measure by measure. Public Facebook posts, 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026. Dataset peers-2026-09-v4.
MeasureFigureRank among its peers, highest firstMedian of its peers
Posts a day56.35th of 1427.4
Photos and video26%14th of 1446%
Evening posts14%12th of 1420%
Weekend day40%11th of 1456%
Engagement per post1214th of 1443
Engagement a day10,1207th of 147,027
Engagement per 1,000 followers0.007812th of 140.027
Comments per post2412th of 1442
Comments a day1,3376th of 14920

What it would take

What would reaching the median of its peers take?

Sowetan's posts a day are at or above the median of its peers, so this starts with photos and video, where it sits furthest below them.

77more posts a week

as photos or video, of its 394 a week: 103 now, 180 at the median of its peers

Arithmetic on the figures above, rounded up. It isn't a forecast.

Its 394 posts a week: photos and video now, and at the median of its peers

  • Photos and video now
  • The rest of the way to the median
  • Its other posts

The other measures, in posts

  • Evening posts

    18:00 to midnight: 14% of its posts; the median of its peers 20%

    25 more of its 394 posts a week between 18:00 and midnight: 54 now, 79 at the median

  • Weekend day

    A weekend day: 40% of a weekday's posts; the median of its peers 56%

    23 more posts a weekend: 13 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday
  • At or above the median of its peers on posts a day.

Posts a day and the weekend add posts; photos and video and the evening move posts it already publishes. Each rounds up. It isn't a forecast.

Posting

Posts from your own stories, in the hours you choose

Each story you tick in the RSS feed gets a poster from your template, and each channel's queue spreads the posts across its own slots, so posting more of your stories doesn't mean making more cards by hand. A story needs a photo unless the template uses a solid background.

Auto-pilot starts with Friday 15:00–21:00 and Saturday and Sunday 07:00–21:00, every 15 minutes, and an organisation admin can change the days, hours and interval.

Today's queue on The Port Arden Post's Facebook channel.

Publishing · The Port Arden Post

FICTIONAL NEWSROOM

Today · Tue 6 Oct

  1. 11:00Greyport cannery confirms 40 jobs at riskNext · in 16 min
  2. 12:30Opinion: The ferry fare rise is the wrong fix
  3. 14:00Night markets return to the Greyport waterfront this Friday
FIG. 1 · Today's queue on The Port Arden Post's Facebook channel. All mastheads, people, handles and comments shown are fictional. Illustrative figures. Labels as they appear in Sence, September 2026.

Comments

The comments that come with them

Sowetan's posts drew 1,337 comments a day, 1.5 times the median of its peers.

Posts you publish through Sence go out to a comment section Sence is already watching.

When a comment matches a rule you've switched on, Sence typically hides it within seconds and alerts whoever you choose. Replies are always sent by a person. Comments on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and your own site are read the moment they arrive. YouTube is checked every few minutes.

Whether a gap comes from choice or from staffing, Sence does the card-making and the scheduling, so how many of your stories reach each platform is up to your desk, within each platform's limits.

Contact us

Sence doesn't forecast what posting more will do for your reach, engagement or revenue. If you switch on link tagging, your own analytics can see the visits each platform sends.

Head to head

Put it beside up to three news brands

Add a news brand from anywhere in the comparison, or one of its peers, and every figure lines up beside Sowetan's.

Type its name, then choose it.

Or one of its peers in its own country

Day by day

How Sowetan posted, beside its peers

Its own posts beside its 13 peers, 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026. Days are UTC days; hours and weekdays are local time.

Posts each day

  • Sowetan
  • Median of its peers
  • Middle half of its peers' posts a day
Show the figures as a table
Posts each day by Sowetan, 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026, beside the median of its peers each day and the middle half of their posts a day.
DaySowetanMedian of its peers
Monday 29 June6235
Tuesday 30 June11245
Wednesday 1 July6525
Thursday 2 July6431
Friday 3 July3723
Saturday 4 July1717
Sunday 5 July2314
Monday 6 July5621
Tuesday 7 July5724
Wednesday 8 July5718
Thursday 9 July5925
Friday 10 July5926
Saturday 11 July2017
Sunday 12 July2321
Monday 13 July5820
Tuesday 14 July4717
Wednesday 15 July7429
Thursday 16 July5519
Friday 17 July4717
Saturday 18 July4415
Sunday 19 July2919
Monday 20 July6328
Tuesday 21 July6131
Wednesday 22 July5735
Thursday 23 July6523
Friday 24 July6425
Saturday 25 July2115
Sunday 26 July3412
Monday 27 July6429
Tuesday 28 July7327
Wednesday 29 July7829
Thursday 30 July8129
Friday 31 July5828
Saturday 1 August3520
Sunday 2 August2219
Monday 3 August6431
Tuesday 4 August8537
Wednesday 5 August7227
Thursday 6 August8228
Friday 7 August6932
Saturday 8 August3118
Sunday 9 August2219
Monday 10 August5023
Tuesday 11 August7328
Wednesday 12 August7528
Thursday 13 August6733
Friday 14 August5929
Saturday 15 August2622
Sunday 16 August2817
Monday 17 August7023
Tuesday 18 August7735
Wednesday 19 August7432
Thursday 20 August8130
Friday 21 August4535
Saturday 22 August2015
Sunday 23 August3915
Monday 24 August7641
Tuesday 25 August8534
Wednesday 26 August6536
Thursday 27 August6735
Friday 28 August5829
Saturday 29 August2521
Sunday 30 August2417
Monday 31 August7735
Tuesday 1 September8127
Wednesday 2 September7234
Thursday 3 September7530
Friday 4 September3230
Saturday 5 September1815
Sunday 6 September3016
Monday 7 September8033
Tuesday 8 September7837
Wednesday 9 September7935
Thursday 10 September8830
Friday 11 September4826
Saturday 12 September3022
Sunday 13 September4014
Monday 14 September8531
Tuesday 15 September8539
Wednesday 16 September7635
Thursday 17 September9136
Friday 18 September6334
Saturday 19 September1717
Sunday 20 September3221

Share of posts by local hour

Show the figures as a table
Share of posts by Sowetan in each local hour, beside the median of its peers.
Local hourSowetanMedian of its peers
00:000.1%0.5%
01:000%0.4%
02:000%0.1%
03:000%0.1%
04:000%0.1%
05:001.9%0.4%
06:002.7%1.5%
07:002.9%4.3%
08:004.1%4.7%
09:005.7%7.3%
10:007.4%8.4%
11:007.5%8.5%
12:007.5%8.3%
13:0012.8%7.8%
14:0010.2%7.7%
15:008.9%7.2%
16:008.6%7.1%
17:006.2%6.4%
18:005.4%5.1%
19:003%4.3%
20:004.1%4%
21:000.9%2.7%
22:000.1%2.1%
23:000%1%

Posts a day by weekday

Show the figures as a table
Posts a day by Sowetan on each local weekday, beside the median of its peers.
WeekdaySowetanMedian of its peers
Monday67.229.9
Tuesday76.232.9
Wednesday70.328.4
Thursday72.930.1
Friday53.228.7
Saturday25.316.8
Sunday28.816.2

What it posted

Show the figures as a table
Share of each format among posts by Sowetan, and the median across its peers.
FormatSowetanIts peers, median
Photo15%32%
Video or reel11%16%
Album0%6%
Link74%47%
Text only0%0%
Other0%0%

The detail

When it posts, and who it's compared with

When it posts, day by day and hour by hourEvery day of the 12 weeks, every hour of the day and what it posts, beside the median of its peers.
  • Sowetan, 18:00 to midnight: 14%
  • Median of its peers, 18:00 to midnight: 20%
  • On a weekend day, Sowetan posted 40% of a weekday's posts. The median of its peers: 56%.

Public Facebook posts, 29 June 2026 to 20 September 2026. Dataset peers-2026-09-v4.

Who is it compared with?Where each of its peers is based, and every one of them by name.

Sowetan's peers are 13 news publishers and digital-native newsrooms in Africa with 500k to 5m followers: the same kind of title with a similar number of followers, from the nearest place that has enough of them. Its 13 peers, A to Z.

The peers

Its 13 peers, A to Z

Each has a page of its own, beside its own peers. Each news brand's rank is among its own peers only. Being counted says nothing about which tools a newsroom uses.

Compare another news brand

Type its name, then choose it to open its page.

Every news brand, A to Z

Talk to us

Tell us how many stories you publish and where they go today. We'll show you what your queues and auto-pilot could carry.

Contact us