Same accounts. Same weeks. 3× the views.
For four weeks, the Instagram and Facebook accounts of Where Pop Culture Meets PR carried two kinds of reel side by side: clips AE chose, cut and published, and clips the show’s own team made. Same episodes, same audience, same days.
Instagram + Facebook · 14 Sep – 11 Oct 2026 · Measured in Meta Business Suite
- The typical AE reel on Instagram reached 7,270 views. The typical in-house reel reached 1,668.
- Three of the four most-viewed Instagram reels of the period were AE’s.
- 133 people followed the Instagram account from an AE reel, against 79 from an in-house one.
- The single biggest reel of the period, on either platform: an AE clip at 111,338 views.
A side-by-side nobody had to stage.
Where Pop Culture Meets PR is a podcast about the PR machine behind celebrity and royal news. It already had a team cutting short clips from each episode. When AE started on the account in mid-September, that team kept posting its own clips too.
So the two ran together: the same episodes as source, the same two accounts, the same followers, the same news cycle, often the same day. AE picked the moments, cut them, wrote the captions and published; the show’s team approved each AE clip before it went out. Nothing on either side was boosted.
Every reel on both accounts, counted.
| Platform | Clips by | Reels | Total views | Average | Median | Best reel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AE | 8 | 76,705 | 9,588 | 7,270 | 20,601 | |
| The show's own | 5 | 26,508 | 5,302 | 1,668 | 17,084 | |
| AE | 6 | 274,223 | 45,704 | 40,416 | 111,338 | |
| The show's own | 6 | 88,947 | 14,825 | 2,485 | 45,094 |
The totals are the headline, and the reel counts are next to them on purpose: the two sides did not post the same number. Per reel, AE’s clips averaged 1.8× the views on Instagram and 3.1× on Facebook.
The moment is most of the result.
Both sides cut from the same episodes. The difference is which thirty seconds got chosen and where the clip opens. AE’s top reels each lead with one claim a stranger can follow in the first line.
The typical clip moved, not just the best one.
The show’s strongest in-house reel reached 17,084 views on Instagram, in the same range as AE’s best. The gap is in the middle: a median of 7,270 against 1,668. Fewer clips that go nowhere.
Views turned into followers.
133 follows came straight from AE reels on Instagram and 79 from in-house reels. The account grew by 218 followers across the period, and the Facebook page added 754 after AE’s first clips went out there.
Approval, not production.
The show’s team watched each AE clip and pressed approve. Selection, editing, captions, copy and publishing were AE’s.
Stated plainly, so the numbers can be checked:
- All figures are Meta’s own, pulled from Meta Business Suite for the show’s Facebook page and Instagram account on 12 October 2026. The window is 14 September – 11 October 2026 and covers every reel published on either account in it.
- “Views” is Meta’s metric and counts replays. It is a reach figure, not an engagement figure.
- The sample is small: 14 AE reels and 11 in-house reels. Read it as a clear first result, not a settled law. One in-house Facebook reel was published without a caption and reached 48 views; it is counted.
- Two AE clips published on 12 October were hours old when the numbers were read and are left out entirely.
- The four weeks before this window were busier for the account than these four: the show’s own reels did better then, during a heavier news run, than either side has since. This study compares clips published in the same weeks for that reason.
- Nothing on either side was boosted. This study covers Instagram and Facebook only.
Run the same side-by-side on your own account.
Start with free clips and post them next to your own, or book a call and we'll look at your show together.
Signing up is free: three clips a week, no card. Or email ezra@aethelstan.media.