In the social networking universe, the 1 million fans on CNN’s Facebook page dwarf those for Fox News by a factor of eight. And with a combined total of 9.4 million followers, @CNN and the rest of the news brand’s Twitter handles have 1.8 million more followers than the closest news competitor, the New York Times.
According to Brad Adgate, senior VP and director of research for ad-buying firm Horizon Media, the very programming attributes that seem to give Fox News an advantage over CNN on cable television also seem to have a converse effect online. Focused on what Adgate calls “infotainment” and leveraging the opinions of strong, ideologically minded personalities like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, Fox News’ programming is thematically different from that of CNN, which is rooted in breaking news. In short, CNN has more pure news product that can be easily converted into text and optimized for search.
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