Weather is the ongoing topic that communities rarely seem to grow tired of discussing. Much of the local news content that overperformed on social media in February is related to weather, which is not surprising considering record-breaking temperatures and snow flurries across the United States.
On Instagram in particular, local news publishers took various creative approaches to tell weather stories and build community with images, including user-generated photos, memes, lists, and snapshots of how the weather affects the news team. The posts entertain, encourage engagement and provide useful information.
Using CrowdTangle, we surfaced some of the best recent weather content from local news publishers in the U.S.
Here are five overperforming posts from the last month that showcase useful and fun weather coverage on Instagram.
1. Album list from NBC Chicago
NBC Chicago provided this helpful and engaging list of items to keep in the car during extreme winter weather. As the city experienced days of harsh weather conditions going into the first week of February, the Instagram post performed 3.5x better than average at the time of publishing, ultimately garnering more than 500 likes. The informative post included a call to action and localized hashtags. This station also used a video album to explain how frostbite works, with equal positive engagement and performance.
2. Screen grab for gratitude from Fox 6 in Milwaukee
This Instagram post from Fox 6 News in Milwaukee was a simple idea that promoted the station’s on-air talent while staying on the topic of record-breaking weather. The post did about 3x better than average and was ranked the second-highest in the last month for this publisher.
3. Meme brag from the Coloradoan
While much of the country was under piles of snow, the Coloradoan made a point to juxtapose their mild and sunny weather conditions in meme form. Local news publishers have embraced the meme on Instagram especially for describing weather events of local culture. This post performed 14x better than average and was the publisher’s top photo posted to Instagram in the last month.
4. UGC photography from Isthmus in Madison
An Instagram user captured a scenic photo of snow falling user in Madison, WI, and publisher Isthmus shared with its users with great results. The post received 19x more engagement than a typical post, and it was the most commented and most liked post of the month.
5. Graph comparison from the Des Moines Register
The Des Moines Register used a temperature graph to tell the weather story. The post overperformed by about 3 times and was the second most commented post on Instagram in the last month. Mixing up the posts by using graphs to tell the story can help publishers stand out among lots of potentially similar snow and weather photos in the user’s feed.
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