Ben Smith ✓

@semaforben · Brooklyn, NY · joined 19 Oct 2007

Editor-in-chief of @semafor. Former @nytimes media columnist, @buzzfeednews EIC. "Traffic." bsmith@semafor.com, Signal semaforben.90

318 422Followers

3 967Following

145 743Posts total

319.4KViews on collected posts

Against accounts of the same size

6 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 100K–1M follower range. below its peers on both reach and engagement.

Median views14 826this account21 891median for 100K–1M

Reach, %4.66%this account6.81%median for 100K–1M

Engagement, %0.31%this account1.14%median for 100K–1M

Metric	This account	Median for 100K–1M	Ratio
Median views per post	14 826	21 891	0.68×
Reach (views ÷ followers)	4.66%	6.81%	0.68×
Engagement rate	0.31%	1.14%	0.27×

Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →

Growth & engagement

How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.

Views per post

17.3K2 Sep

19.3K

7.2K

253.8K

9.4K

12.3K

Last 6 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.

Engagement rate per post

0.77%2 Sep

0.21%

0.04%

1.19%

0.40%

0.19%

Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 100K–1M accounts is 1.14%.

What the audience does

Likes73.9%2 431 in total

Reposts22.2%731 in total

Replies1.1%37 in total

Quotes1.6%54 in total

Bookmarks1.2%38 in total

Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.

The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.

Latest posts

🚨🚨It's looking like Parnell, @ShelbyTalcott @nicholaswu12 report https://t.co/QSdWsUTGmy 12.3K views · 12 likes · 9 reposts · 1 replies 02 Sep 2026 For all the talk of "dark money" and foreign influence, platform dynamics, audience incentives, human nature on X and everywhere else have driven far more political division 9.4K views · 29 likes · 8 reposts · 1 replies 02 Sep 2026 I wrote about a guy running a network of secret "ghost creators," paying actors $26 per video to read AI-assisted "anti-Dem" videos on YouTube. In just a few months, the channels got 45 million views, more than media companies like WaPo, the New Yorker, and, sadly, Semafor. http 253.8K views · 2.3K likes · 680 reposts · 30 replies 02 Sep 2026 .@maxwelltani's latest glimpse into the abyss https://t.co/pQZpJqsP9d 7.2K views · 3 likes · 0 reposts · 0 replies 02 Sep 2026 Update: With a push from MrBeast, the book has made it to a modest 12th on Amazon, which somehow makes it the #2 (of 5!) James Patterson books in the top 20 Publishing remains the most mysterious of the media businesses to me ... https://t.co/mB7CuJBXHl 19.3K views · 34 likes · 2 reposts · 3 replies 02 Sep 2026 A big @maxwelltani investigation into a new force in American politics: Paid actors, AI texts, and divisive political videos at scale to make a buck Totally amoral, and optimized for its audience -- now with the scale of AI and freelance platforms https://t.co/Og5MH3UaMu https 17.3K views · 98 likes · 32 reposts · 2 replies 02 Sep 2026