This social media audit has been performed on the profiles of All Def Digital and one of its principals. All Def Digital was initially created as a YouTube multichannel network that combines music, comedy, poetry, news and art. The network has since expanded across multiple platforms, including ADD52, a website to spotlight emerging musicians.
This audit is designed to show the executives of ADD some measurement of their social media marketing activities along with some suggestions as to how to elevate their activities to foster overall community interaction and audience growth.
Overview: In case you are new to my site, I regularly perform social media audits on brands, celebrities and sports teams to assess what they’re doing right and what I think they may be doing wrong…and how they can improve upon the success of their social media endeavors.
These audits are very similar in nature to the audits I would perform on a client’s social profiles. However if I have admin access on Facebook, I can dive a little deeper. But even in this format, the profile being audited can get a very good assessment as to the overall viability and health of their social media marketing.
What’s specifically interesting about reviewing the social media profiles of entertainment properties is their ability to truly capitalize and monetize their audience with compelling content and promotional activations.
Creating, developing, managing and executing social media activations for entertainers and sports figures is what social media is truly all about.
please click on the relative tab below for data on the specific social network
- All Def Digital - Facebook
- All Def Digital Twitter
- All Def Digital - Instagram
- All Def Digital - YouTube
As of the day of this audit, the Facebook profile for All Def Digital has 13,707 fans. This report covers the measurement period of the month of 01/01/2014 – 11/26/2014. Facebook auditing is somewhat limiting without full admin access, but with social media being so transparent, we can still get some pretty interesting data.
One of the first things that jumps off the page is that since the beginning of the year, the ADD Facebook page has averaged LESS than a post per day. It’s also startling to see that the page has enjoyed such little engagement.
The only posts that seem to get measurable interest (engagement) are those in which others like Russell Simmons tag the All Def Digital profile. The page averages only 13 engagements per its own posts. 58% of the content being posted is video content. 38% of the content is photo/images. The balance of content is text based or links.
Most disturbing is that one post, back in February, was responsible for skewing the results on the page. This post alone accounted for 44% of the entire engagement on the page. The numbers would be even worse if it wasn’t for this anomaly.
As for sentiment, 86% of the activity is neutral or positive in nature. The optimal posting time is on Tuesday evening between 9:00PM and 10:00PM.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
Recommendations:
- The post frequency needs to change immediately. Various studies have confirmed that the sweet spot on Facebook is 6-10 posts per week.(FYI…there have been zero posts in the last 8 days!)
- Test the timing of your posts. As the data shows that the best time for engagement is Tuesday, between 9PM and 10PM, make an effort to test this fully to confirm if it’s a matter of not enough posts in the data set skewing the results.
- No one from ADD is replying to fan commentary. A page with this level of fan interest and engagement should be striving to respond to ever person who likes the page or leaves a comment in an effort to grow an enthusiastic community.
- Begin posting exclusive content that the audience can’t find elsewhere. In order to be successful on Facebook you have to post content in native fashion. What works on YouTube may not work on Facebook. Split testing will help you define the content that resonates with your audience.
- You MUST deploy Facebook ads to promote your content. You’ll hear this over and over within this audit. Not having a budget for Facebook ads is inexcusable.If you’re not going to support your content on Facebook with ads, you might as well not be on Facebook. Facebook has throttled organic reach to near zero and a team that doesn’t know how to artfully place Facebook ads is a team that needs to be replaced.
The All Def Digital Twitter profile currently has 7,242 followers on Twitter and are following 385 people. The time period for this audit was 11/07/2014 – 11/26/2014. Currently the ADD Twitter account is “unverified“.
ADD is averaging only 1.6 tweets per day tweets per day with very good follower engagement and they have 85% positive or, at minimum, neutral sentiment. During this sample period ADD gained just 24 new followers.
ADD followers clicked on just 42 links that were tweeted by ADD and 616 unique people were responsible for 1,282+ engagements that had the potential reach of nearly 8 Million users.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
The best time for engagement on Twitter is between the hour of 2:00PM and 3:00PM. And the top day for tweeting is on Tuesday. Nearly 26% of the mentions that occur on Twitter regarding ADD take place on Tuesday.
The chart below shows that the ADD Twitter audience seems to respond well to both video and images. However, this may be a misleading. As there are not nearly enough Tweets in the sample to confirm this as there were nearly 3X as many video tweets than images during the audit period which may be skewing the numbers considerably.
In building an enthusiastic Twitter profile, it’s very important to engage with key influencers. The ADD profile has had a number of “influencers” who have interacted with the profile. However, lack of response is keeping ADD from incentivizing those who could help propel profile growth.
I confirmed this myself by tweeting a few times directly to ADD…with no response. This indicates that no one is really monitoring the profile to engage with key influencers. This was underscored by the extremely low level of overall tweets to engagements.
Recommendations: Lots of work to be done here. If there is a sincere interest in developing a Twitter community, a much higher commitment needs to be made to content and communication.
- The current tweet volume of 1.6 tweets per day is abhorrent. ADD should be posting a MINIMUM of 10 tweets per day. By responding to influencers, posting great content, and replying in surprise and delight fashion to other Twitter users, generating 10 tweets per day is a low bar standard to reach…and exceed.
- The more you tweet, the greater your opportunities are to engage with followers, and the more total response and follower growth you will receive.
- As an entertainment entity, you have the ability to delight more than a consumer brand could imagine. Take advantage of that.
- Remember, music IS social media. It’s the number one draw on social media. Cross referencing fan bases drives exponential fan growth and with the influencers that ADD has access to it’s extremely important to leverage those relationships.
- Twitter is a high volume / low value network. Make each post a piece of content that contributes something of value to the ADD audience. Don’t use Twitter as a promotional platform. Use Twitter as a means of letting your audience know that you care about them and respect what they believe to be important.
Instagram: As of today the All Def Digital Instagram profile has 38,817 followers and ADD is following 342. The audit period is 01/01/2014 – 11/26/2014.
Instagram is a huge social platform for entertainment properties. However one of the reasons so many entertainers like IG is because they treat it like a low-maintenance, self-promotion vehicle. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Too many artists use IG as “fake-follower” laced network wherein they post what matters to them. However, the real value in IG is being able to post “exclusive” content. Exclusivity is an entertainer’s greatest asset.
How often should you post? IG is different than the other networks. Strike a balance between being informative and annoying…but be careful. Whatever level you find to be the best, you will need to maintain that level or you will lose followers.
Recommendations: ADD is doing well on IG. Here are some suggestions to improve upon what you’re doing.
- Continue posting exclusive content that the audience can’t find elsewhere.
- Create and activate promotions (monthly) and offers unique to IG.
- Using the profile link to drive real engagement.
- And of course…replying to fans and key influencers is a must.
- Be sure to include both trending and relevant hashtags in all posts
- Lastly using image based surprise and delights takes Instagram to an entirely different level.
The All Def Digital YouTube channel has over 313,000 subscribers, has 714 video uploads and in excess of 60 million total video views.
Video is the fuel of social media for an entertainer and it’s obvious that ADD understands this and as a burgeoning multi-channel network they are capitalizing on their video marketing.
This audit doesn’t speak to artist development or monetization. This audit solely address the content from audience development perspective.
In building a video online community, there are two very basic tenets that need to be adhered to. That being valuing the people in your community and committing to an ongoing development of valuable content.
How do you enlarge upon these numbers? Why is it so important to show care for your video community? People and Content! (sourced in part via Youtube):
In regards to the people, you have to understand that there are two specific types of people you need to build an online community:
1. Your audience IS your customer. In the digital age, if you want people to buy, you have to foster a relationship.
2. You MUST cultivate Influencers; the leaders, innovators, and voices particular to your industry.
The bulk of your community members will generally be silent; you’ll see their views add to your YouTube Analytics meters but they will never comment on your videos. They are passive-consumers.
By contrast the influencers are active-consumers; they will not only comment on your videos, they will talk about the video elsewhere such as their Facebook wall or their personal blogs. They will re-share your content more often (and regularly) than anyone else will.
Have you ever seen a YouTube video that has millions of views, but only several thousand ‘likes’ and re-shares? This is because influencers make up a smaller portion of a community; they are the ones who are willing to engage with content. They are a smaller group but they are the main reason why content can “go viral”, because they are the ones who share content with their own communities.
The take away from this is that if you focus your community building on having a relationship with influencers, you will get a much bigger audience (=more customers).
Yes, a relationship. Community building is really about relationships.
Relationships are created by…
Listening and responding. Caring and taking the time to understand. Providing valuable advice or insight. You must find the balance between entertainment and profundity in order to build a successful community.
As for building a large, cross channel community, you must have good content that is posted on an ongoing basis. Content that is funny, entertaining, and motivational resonates the best on video. In addition, be careful to look at the data as to what is working and not working.
ADD YouTube data shows that videos posted on Tuesday between the hours of 10PM and 11PM get the most interaction. Those videos that get the most views also tend to be between 2 minutes and 40 seconds and 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
It’s important to remember that on most MCN’s, 69% of your channel’s comments will occur on videos that are less than one day old and that comment volume on your channel declines at an average daily rate of 31% per day after a video is posted.
Recommendations: Eyeballs are the lifeblood of the development of an MCN. My position here is to help you drive views. Views are what dives the CPM level of monetization. Lately the peak view amounts have fallen off on the posted videos. This may be a product of a number of things. It could be the quality of content. It could be the quality of the subscriber. It can also be the marketing of the videos.
Since this audit isn’t about addressing the quality of content, I’d like to advise a deep dive into the quality of the marketing and cross promotion of the videos.
- I would suggest increasing the advertiser base with a targeted YouTube/Google advertising campaign.
- The videos can be modified/cut to be promoted on Vine. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
- Incentivize social influencers to share the video content ( remember… I tweeted to ADD and no one ever responded to me..) This is obviously costing ADD a substantial amount of views.
please click on the relative tab below for data on the specific social network
As of the day of this audit, the Facebook profile for ADD52 has just 4,192 fans. This report covers the measurement period of 3/11/2014 – 11/29/2014.
As seen with the All Def Facebook page, ADD52 isn’t posting enough. The ADD52 page is posting just publishing 1.1 posts per week. That frequency doesn’t create a raving community.
However the ADD52 engagement is higher than the All Def Facebook profile.
As for sentiment, only 36% of the activity is positive in nature. The optimal posting time is on Wednesday evening between 6:00PM and 7:00PM.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
Recommendations: (some as stated on the All Def Digital Facebook suggestions)
- The post frequency needs to change immediately. Various studies have confirmed that the sweet spot on Facebook is 6-10 posts per week.(FYI…there have been zero posts in the last 11 days!)
- Test the timing of your posts.
- No one from is replying to fan commentary. A page with this level of fan interest and engagement should be striving to respond to ever person who likes the page or leaves a comment in an effort to grow an enthusiastic community.
- Begin posting exclusive content that the audience can’t find elsewhere. In order to be successful on Facebook you have to post content in native fashion. What works on YouTube may not work on Facebook. Split testing will help you define the content that resonates with your audience.
- You MUST deploy Facebook ads to promote your content. You’ll hear this over and over within this audit. Not having a budget for Facebook ads is inexcusable.If you’re not going to support your content on Facebook with ads, you might as well not be on Facebook. Facebook has throttled organic reach to near zero and a team that doesn’t know how to artfully place Facebook ads is a team that needs to be replaced.
Instagram: As of today the ADD52 Instagram profile has 4,351 followers and ADD52 is following 62. The audit period is 4/01/2014 – 11/26/2014.
As mentioned earlier, Instagram is a very popular social platform for entertainment properties. However, many artists and entertainers lack a real strategy on IG. What are you looking for? Numbers? Anyone can build numbers. Some even resort to building them with “fake followers” as a huge ego stroke.
But if the objective is to build an audience that actually engages and has the potential to build a base of credit card holding fans, than you MUST build your IG community by building what THEY want. Too many people listen blindly to record label execs, band managers and promoters…instead of listening and communicating with those who matter the most. The actual audience.
IG isn’t a platform that has a one size fits all strategy. What works for hip-hop artists won’t work for country artists. An artist like Usher who posts as many as 3 images per day struggles to maintain a 2-3% engagement rate. An artist like Luke Bryan hasn’t posted in over a month and he enjoys a 7-8% engagement rate. Katy Perry lags with a 4% engagement rate.
What’s your objective. The sheer number of fans? Or fans who actually engage and buy tickets and swag. This year’s Usher’s tour is experiencing weak ticket and album sales despite a huge IG following. While Luke Bryan had one of the best tours of the year and his album sold like hot cakes.
Country artist Kenny Chesney has a tiny IG following comparatively speaking but he experiences nearly 10% engagement and is set to embark on 2015’s biggest stadium tour. And he had 4 total IG posts in the entire month of November.
Recommendations: So the question that remains after viewing the data above and the IG information provided…what’s the objective of the ADD52 IG profile?
If it’s to build numbers, anyone can do that and it’s quite worthless. If you want a real audience that is motivated by your content, a concerted effort to post the images that matter most to your audience is the recipe. Frequency and timing can be tested but of most importance is the content and the influencer reach out to build and promote a compelling IG profile.
It’s not the social media platform that matters too much. It’s about building an enthusiastic audience. It’s all about the audience and that’s a fact that many in the music industry are overlooking.
The ADD52 Twitter profile currently has 4,716 followers on Twitter and are following 321 people. The time period for this audit was 11/07/2014 – 11/26/2014. Currently the ADD52 Twitter account is “unverified“.
ADD52 is averaging 3.3 tweets per day tweets per day with decent follower engagement and they have 75% positive or, at minimum, neutral sentiment. During this sample period ADD52 LOST 10followers.
ADD52 followers clicked on 216 links that were tweeted by ADD52 and 297 unique people were responsible for 724 engagements that had the potential reach of over 5 Million users.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
As you can see above, the best time for engagement on Twitter is between the hour of 4:00PM and 5:00PM. And the top day for tweeting is on Wednesday. Nearly 21% of the mentions that occur on Twitter regarding ADD52 take place on Tuesday.
The chart below shows that the ADD52 Twitter audience seems to basically respond to video and images in like fashion.
Again, you can see the value of “key influencer” participation. In building an enthusiastic Twitter profile, it’s very important to engage with key influencers. The ADD52 profile has had a number of “influencers” who have interacted with the profile. However, lack of response is keeping ADD52 from incentivizing those who could help propel profile growth.
Recommendations: Suffice it to say, that as in the All Def main Twitter profile, there’s lots of work to be done here. If there is a sincere interest in developing a Twitter community, a much higher commitment needs to be made to content and communication.
I would offer the same recommendations and suggestion detailed on the All Def Twitter profile, to be implemented on the ADD52 profile.
please click on the relative tab below for data on the specific social network
The Twitter profile of Steve Rifkind currently has 55,000+ followers and Rifkind is following 622 people. The time period for this audit was 11/07/2014 – 11/26/2014. Currently the Steve Rifkind Twitter account is indeed “verified“.
Steve Rifkind is averaging 1.3 tweets per day tweets per day with decent follower engagement and he maintains a 82% positive or, at minimum, neutral sentiment. During this sample period he gained 10 followers.
Steve Rifkind followers clicked on 19 links that he had tweeted and 320 unique people were responsible for 464 total engagements that had the potential reach of over 6 Million users.
The best time for engagement on Twitter is between the hour of 10:00AM and 11:00AM. And the top day for tweeting is on Sunday Nearly 21% of the mentions that occur on Twitter regarding Rifkind take place on Sunday.
The chart below shows that the Steve Rifkind Twitter audience seems to respond best to text only tweets. This is an anomaly. I firmly believe that of more photos were published, the engagement level would drastically change.
As an individual…especially a person with Steve Rifkind’s sphere of influence, it is extremely important to leverage influencers with conversation AND compelling content. People want to hear from Rifkind. His words matter. His opinion matters. His experience in the industry matters.
Recommendations: Rifkind has the pulse of the hip-hop music industry, is partnered with another icon and as mentioned earlier herein, access is your biggest attribute. Building this Twitter profile is a no-brainer. You have probably forgotten more about hip-hop than others have yet to learn. That means you have tremendous value to bring to an audience.
- build up to a Twitter health wherein you’re posting 6-10 tweets per day but be sure each tweet contains an image, video or Vine. 6 seconds of knowledge dropped by Steve Rifkind will resonate profoundly.
- cross-promote your content on Instagram but make sure not to over duplicate.
- try to achieve a reply rate in excess of 65% with an effort to get to 80%. Nothing builds a celebrity following quicker than people realizing that they have the real opportunity to possibly engage with you
- A retweet or favorite is the new autograph. You will make someone’s day with a simple acknowledgement in the form of a retweet, quoted retweet or a favorite
- don’t take yourself so seriously…remember what people value is “access”
- Consistency is very important. Don’t take too many days off
- Promotions! There is nothing you will enjoy more than making someone’s day…or life, with a compelling and relevant surprise and delight or prize in a major Twitter promotion. You’ll also drive substantial organic followers.
Instagram: As of today the Steve Rifkind Instagram profile has 14,500 followers and is following 472. The audit period is 01/01/2014 – 11/26/2014.
For an individual to build a big following on IG takes a tremendous amount of work in developing compelling content. For Steve Rifkind, creating and curating great content might be a bit easier.
After 25 years in the music business, Rifkind has a content arsenal and maintains content access that most could only hope for. However, what’s Rifkind’s objective in building a large IG following? The posting frequency (currently averaging a little over a post per day), type of content, level of incentivized engagement are all dependent upon the objective of the IG profile.
Currently, the top day to post for engagement is on Thursday and the best time to post is between the hours of 5PM and 6PM.
Recommendations:
- Continue to be wholly genuine and relatable. People don’t go to IG looking to be sold to. They follow you to be entertained and to gain insight into your life and your experiences (access).
- keep the content educational, humorous, inspirational, exclusive and don’t afraid to be reciprocal
- Invite people to engage…don’t be afraid to promote others. If someone is already following you, chances are they’ll jump at the chance to interact with you. Don’t just expect people to engage with you…you actually have to ask them. Ask your followers to submit photos that you’ll repost. Acquire them via a specific hashtag
- don’t take yourself too seriously…show people a side of you that shows that you are just like them
- split test everything…pictures, videos, hashtags, calls to action…split test all of it. Find out what works and amplify and reduce/remove what doesn’t.
- Storytelling is the currency of social media. “Storytelling is the glue to building stronger relationships with your audience and being unforgettable,”
- use call to actions via IG profile URLs is working well these days
- deploy an ongoing IG promotional constest/sweepstakes strategy to heighten engagement and stimulate follower growth organically
Visual storytelling will continue to emerge as a strategy for not only standing out, but also for nurturing and growing vibrant and engaged communities.
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