Which local news publisher has the most engaged Facebook community in the UK?
Perhaps it’s the 1.6million-strong Manchester Evening News Facebook page, or another Reach-owned title, Wales Online or the Liverpool Echo?
You’d probably suggest a fair few more established news titles across the country before getting to the correct answer: a six-strong news start-up operating from a co-working space in Manchester city centre that only began to monetise their incredible stats last year.
The Manc actually began life seven years ago as a vehicle for nostalgic pictures of old Manchester. The page took off but its founder, Sam Ridgway, was soon snapped up as head of social at Unilad, the viral publisher’s very first employee.
Ridgway, a 28-year-old from Newton Heath, kept his side project going during five years at Unilad but left when it was bought out of administration by Mancunian rival LadBible.
After a couple of months off, Ridgway decided he had a business “staring me in the face” and decided to dedicate himself full-time to The Manc. With some financial support from co-director, property developer Mark Burgess, he has assembled a small team and the results have been spectacular.
According to social monitoring tool Crowd Tangle, The Manc received 9.79m interactions (likes, comments and shares) on Facebook last year, ahead of Wales Online in second and the MEN in third. Perhaps even more impressively, it made the top 10 for all UK national media, coming in behind ITV News.
