Welcome to the EzyInsights round up of the most viral posts by a selection of the world’s biggest news publishers. What wondrous insights will be gleaned from this examination of social engagement gluttony? Let’s find out!

For BBC News, nothing beat Michelle Obama’s tearful farewell speech way back in January. 848,429 likes, 38,427 comments and a whopping 714,023 shares made this the Queen of all news on Facebook from the BBC. Also worthy of note: the top 13 posts on Facebook from BBC News were videos, and the 2nd placed post was Barack Obama’s tearful tribute to Michelle. In two posts, the Obamas managed to generate about 3m engagement and 88m views.

Remaining in the UK we move to another broadcaster, Channel 4 News. Their top story was a moving video from acid attack victim Jameel Muhktar. 

Starting off our cavalcade of viral news from newspapers, we have the Daily Mail. Their top story concerned the nurse wrongly detained for refusing to draw blood from an unconscious patient for an irritated Policeman straight from the 1982 movie Rambo. This post generated over half a million shares on Facebook.

The Telegraph did best with the story in which Korea expert Professor Robert Kelly’s live interview with the BBC was gatecrashed by his ebullient children.

The top Daily Express story of the year on Facebook was Andrew Neil’s ‘Message for ISIS‘, which generated almost 200k likes, comments and shares.

UK tabloid The Sun had a touching video from ‘Help for Heroes’ of a little girl talking to a solider who’d been shot by a sniper and lost his sight. This grabbed over 300,000 shares.

Another red top, the Daily Mirror had a thank you note along with an article on nurses and doctors rushing from a local hospital to assist people during the London terror attack.

For The Guardian, it was a very close call between several posts – but this video on a ballet school in a slum in Nairobi seems to have generated the most engagement this year on a single post.

No strangers to making viral posts, The Independent scored biggest with this video of a small child taking popcorn from Prince Harry’s bucket.

Finally, for free paper Metro, this story about Muslim women lining up on London Bridge to condemn the terror attack was their number one story for 2017.

So then, Politics, Terrorism, Hope in the face of Poverty, Children and Injustice. Perhaps that sums up 2017 quite accurately. Happy New Year everyone!