About Our Data & FAQs
This page is meant to act as a resource to answer commonly asked questions about Resonate’s data or related analysis. If you have a question not covered below, please reach out via email at whatsresonating@resonatemedia.org.
What platforms and accounts does Resonate’s data cover?
Resonate's social listening database spans over 10,000 social media accounts across nine platforms.
Bluesky
Facebook
Instagram
Rumble
Threads
TikTok
Truth Social
Twitter
YouTube
We track accounts that have consistently engaged in political discourse, cultural creators that have occasionally referenced politics, and key cultural voices that we think have political cross-over potential or are essential for understanding the ecosystem on a given social media platform (e.g. Mr. Beast).
FAQs about Accounts
What is the difference between an “entity” and an “account” or “channel?”
Entity: The name of an individual, organization, show, etc. with a presence across one or more social media platforms. Entities are our way of linking accounts together across platforms.
Account/Channel: Interchangeable terms for a single social media account on a particular social media platform.
Are you tracking XYZ entity/account?
In general, we are routinely adding accounts that meet the above criteria and have at least 100,000 followers. If you have questions about a specific account, contact us at whatsresonating@resonatemedia.org.
How do you label your pages?
Pages are categorized as Neutral, Left-Leaning, and Right-Leaning, as well as primarily 'Political' or 'Cultural’ based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative reviews of the content of their social media posts. Assessments are based purely on the content of their social media channels as they appear to users and do not take into account offline information.
If you have questions about a specific entity’s label, please contact us at whatsresonating@resonatemedia.org.
What do the metrics mean?
Engagements: The total number of interactions on a post. This includes likes, comments, and shares. This is our best available cross-platform metric.
[Metric] Score: A multiplier-based score that measures the relative performance of a post (by likes, engagements, or views) compared to that channel’s average over a given time period.
If the score is positive, the post performed better than average; if it is negative, the post performed worse than average.
Views: The number of times a piece of content was seen. This is useful for measuring the content's overall exposure, but it is not available for all platforms/post types. Views are calculated differently by each social media platform based on internal definitions that are not made public.
In particular, Twitter view counts are considered inflated and not comparable to other platforms, which is why they are rarely cited by Resonate.
FAQs on Metrics
Why do charts include engagements instead of views by default?
We use engagements over views because it is the metric that is available most consistently across platforms, allowing us to compare and aggregate similar posts from across social media.
Why do you include views for some posts and engagements for others?
Where available, views can be a very useful metric. We try to cite the metrics in What’s Resonating that will be most intelligible and useful to our audiences, depending on the type of post and context.
What’s Resonating FAQs
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We’ve found that this often has to do with individual Substack settings. Here is a page on troubleshooting. If you’re still experiencing issues, please don't hesitate to contact us at whatsresonating@resonatemedia.org.
What if I have feedback or a question on a specific post?
Feel free to reach out directly at whatsresonating@resonatemedia.org.
Who can I share 'What’s Resonating’ with?
What’s Resonating is designed to be a tool for the left to give a data-driven snapshot of the stories, trends, and messages shaping online culture and politics. Please feel free to share with anyone working at organizations, as creators, or anyone else you think would benefit from this intel.