Why The Hill credits growing engagement for its social traffic bump

“There is a change of policies as a result of what they’re doing in D.C.,” Rai said. “How it’s going to impact Americans, in terms of retirement funds, in terms of tariffs and trades, cost of living — that’s what people are interested in.”

With its focus on the political ins and outs of Washington, D.C., The Hill is certainly positioned to benefit from increased reader interest in U.S. politics in 2025. But Rai said that current events were just one facet of The Hill’s social resurgence, with increased social engagement in the form of likes and comments also directing more traffic to The Hill’s articles. Over the past year, The Hill has intentionally encouraged more reader engagement on social channels, sometimes by directly engaging with commenters on platforms like Reddit.

“We will actually refute it when someone has a problem with our journalism, saying, ‘this is so one-sided,’” Rai said. “We’ll actually go through, at least if it’s a trending post on Reddit, and we’ll comment and say, ‘actually, that’s not true.’”

Another way The Hill has built its social engagement is by encouraging its staff to post and comment on social platforms using their personal accounts. Rai highlighted The Hill national political reporter Cate Martel as an example of one of the publication’s writer–creators, who frequently posts videos on social that summarize or encapsulate her daily newsletter.

“Our YouTube now has over 2 million followers, and our social media is continuing to grow. We just crossed 200,000 followers on TikTok,” Rai said. “So there is a direct impact of what our journalists are doing, and how we amplify their reporting on social media, that helps The Hill grow its presence as well.”

As The Hill rethinks its approach to social platforms to focus less on clicks and more on creators, loyalty and engagement, Rai framed her company’s returning social traffic and growing social engagement as an advantage amid the ongoing encroachment of AI overviews and the potential Google Zero future on the publishing business. 

With social users increasingly consuming headlines, graphics or short clips without clicking through to full articles, The Hill is looking to treat social platforms less as pure referral engines and more as places to build brand recognition, credibility and loyalty — so that when users do want deeper coverage, they think of The Hill.

“It is a great way for us, given all of the changes with Google and with the zero-click future, to continue to engage our core audience,” Rai said.