How does your brand measure up against the industry benchmarks?
Is there more CPC value on Twitter? Are competitors having more success with video content on Facebook or Instagram? Is the loss of organic reach on Facebook more or less than what the rest of the industry is experiencing? How often is the audience Saving posts on Instagram?
The ListenFirst Industry Benchmarks Report for Consumer Brands answers all these questions and more, arming your team with the competitive insights necessary to make sure your social media content is being seen by the widest, most relevant audience.
Using exclusive, anonymized and authorized data from the large network of consumer brands that partner with ListenFirst, this report is an invaluable cheat sheet, spelling out exactly how your brand performance on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter measures up against the rest of the industry, both around organic and paid.
4 Facts You Need To Know About The Reddit Stock Market Surge
The following is a guest post by Miranda McWeeney, the SVP of Client Success at ListenFirst.
Back at the beginning of the week, when very few of us knew that “stonks” was internet slang for stocks, there was generally very little recognition of Reddit being a key market indicator around individual stocks.
What a difference a week makes; Reddit users have been promoting a number of stocks, hoping to squeeze short sellers that have been betting against them and they’re succeeding. Their best-known bets to date are GameStop (GME), AMC (AMC) and BlackBerry (BB). The top targets have had their trading occasionally halted for volatility, but one question remains: will we see it coming next time?
Here are the 4 social media facts you need to know about Reddit and the Stock Market.
Fact #1. There’s Been Long Term Interest By Reddit Users In The Stock Market
It’s not like amatuer investerors flocking to Reddit for financial advice is something new, for instance, the influential subreddit of r/wallstreetbets has been around since January 2012. “Stock” is mentioned an average of 1.3M times on Reddit each quarter, with a steady rise in interest over the past year.
Fact #2. It’s Been A Record-Breaking January
Throughout January to date, the term “stock” has been used on Reddit at record-breaking levels. There have been 635K mentions to date with a steep climb in the final week of the month.
Fact #3. There’s A High Correlation Between Brand Mentions And Rising Stock Price
Early Reddit buzz about GameStop and BlackBerry was the catalyst for the user base taking a greater interest in the stock market in general. The volume of conversation on Reddit related to GameStop and Blackberry started to rise on 1/11/21 and has remained above each brand’s average through the close of the month. AMC saw the same trend beginning on 1/15/21. All brands show a relationship between the daily volume of Reddit mentions and their closing stock price.
Fact #4. Social Listening On Reddit Can Help Identify The Next “GameStop”
This event has raised the notion that Reddit mentions are potentially more intentful and/or high-value than a mention on another social media platform. On Twitter, for example, “stock” has been mentioned 5M times this year, while Reddit saw only 635K mentions, looking between January 1 -27, 2021. The general public was able to dominate the conversation on Reddit, seemingly quietly, and organize action. This was not an event where a high volume of social activity flew under the radar. It was an event where there was a continuous build in social activity for a select few brands, at a level that most would historically discredit as not notable.
Also worth noting is the importance of using social listening to identify high upvoted posts on Reddit. For example, on January 13, a r/WallStreetBets post that received a high Reddit post score of 801 (meaning upvotes – downvotes), talking about how targeted hedge fund Melvin Capital was only half out of GameStop, and that the stock could continued to be squeezed for days. Amatuer investors were largely influenced by this post and saw it as a green light to become even more aggressive in buying GameStop. The stock price in GameStop jumped to $31.40 on January 13 from being $19.95 on January 12; and continued to skyrock from there; as of January 28, closing at $193.60.
Reddit posts can go in far more depth than the character limited Twitter; meaning individual Reddit posts can have an outsized influence on moving the need around publicly traded companies. Along those same lines, after ensuring you’re tracking Reddit mentions in ListenFirst for all brands, topics and people of interest, it is recommended to focus your analysis on changes in volume over time, rather than the total volume itself. This will provide insight on when the general public is more/less interested, and when there may be a momentum shift worth digging into further.
This doesn’t mean that brands have to spend hours surfing Reddit looking for breadcrumbs of an emerging trend. By integrating social listening with such external data as stock prices through an open API, these patterns can be identified and reacted to faster and more effectively.
The Super Bowl and Social: A Guide To Campaign Success
How can my brand see the most social media success around our Big Game related campaign?
For marketers the many ways to share content on social media is exciting, but for many brands the Super Bowl is the centerpiece of their marketing efforts for the year, and it’s not the time you want to experiment with endless possibilities. Companies want to know exactly what social media strategies work on which social networks, to make sure they get the big increase in awareness around their messaging.
What Social Networks Were The Most Talked About In 2020
Whether it was a complete game changer or accelerating trends that were already in motion; the pandemic dramatically impacted what social media platforms we were using and discussing during the past year. To help quantify which social media platforms fell in and out of favor during 2020; we used our social listening abilities on Twitter to identify the following 5 insights your brand needs to know about the most widely used social media platforms.
Methodology:Minus owned Tweets, looking at the number of times a social media platform was mentioned on Twitter between 2018 – 2020.
Insight #1. Discussion about Facebook Decreased Dramatically
There were 261,423,808 Tweets that mentioned Facebook in 2020; a decrease of -66% from 2019. It does not appear this trend is being driven by the pandemic, as starting in Q1 2019; the conversation around Facebook has decreased from the previous quarter 6 out of 7 times.
Snapchat and LinkedIn were the other social networks that were discussed less in the past year. There were 19,512,228 Tweets mentioning Snapchat in 2020, down -7% from 2019. Meanwhile, there were 16,447,966 Tweets mentioning LinkedIn in 2020 which was a -6% decrease from 2019. In both cases, Snapchat and LinkedIn were less discussed for the second consecutive year.
Insight #2. The Conversation Around TikTok Is Way Up, Particularly By Gen X
There were 129,168,704 Tweets mentioning TikTok in 2020, which was a 360% increase from 2019. While President Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok in the United States certainly impacted the volume of conversation around the video app, it wasn’t the primary driver of that trend. There were 3,689,862 Tweets mentioning TikTok and either “Trump” or “Ban” in 2020; meaning the topic only accounted for about 4% of the increase in discussion about TIkTok.
With 2020 being the year that TikTok became more mainstream, the demographics of people aware of the app has changed as well. In 2018, the audience for people Tweeting about TikTok was 74% Millennials and 12% Generation X. By 2020, that had shifted to the audience for people Tweeting about TikTok being 57% Millennials and 29% Generation X. TikTok is now something on the radar of people born between 1965 and 1980; much more than was the case even 2 years ago.
Insight #3. Interest In Video And Messaging Exploded In 2020
Especially with people stuck at home during the pandemic starving for entertainment; there was a significant uptick in the real-time conversation around social media networks that are video focused in the past past year. For example, there were 1,330,442,552 Tweets that mentioned YouTube in 2020; a 48% increase from that number in 2019. Similarly, there were 117,303,382 Tweets mentioning Twitch in 2020, an 86% increase from the volume of Twitch related Tweets in 2019.
There was also an increase in Tweets about social media networks that are messaging based. For instance, 72,317,756 Tweets mentioned WhatsApp in 2020; which was a 31% increase from 2019. Meanwhile Discord, which is a VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform was discussed in 26,481,473 Tweets, which is up 135% from the volume of Tweets mentioning them in 2019.
Insight #4. The Conversation About Instagram Was Flat
Despite 2020 generally involving much less hanging out with other people, meaning fewer traditional opportunities to take traditional Instagram photos, there were 528,481,055 Tweets mentioning Instagram in 2020 which is statistically a 0% change from 2019. Tumblr was the other social media platform where the real-time conversation about them was essentially flat during the pandemic. It was mentioned in 23,179,798 Tweets in 2020, just a -1% decrease from 2019.
Insight #5. The Twitter Audience For Pinterest, Twitch, and Discord Skews The Most Towards Gen Z
Since not all age groups use Twitter equally, there are some considerable limitations in trying to determine the generational makeup of other social networks using their audience data. That stipulated, directionally there are some conclusions that can be established by looking at the audience of people posting about specific social networks. For instance, looking at Q4 2020, the audience of people Tweeting about LinkedIn was only 3% in the Generation Z age group. No audience around the Twitter mentions of any other social media platforms we checked in Q4 2020 has a lower percentage of Generation Z followers.
On the other hand, the audience of people Tweeting about Pinterest, Twitch, and Discord was 7% from Generation Z during Q4 2020 ; the highest such total during that time period. That doesn’t mean that the audience for Pinterest, Twitch, and Discord is only 7% Generation Z; it’s presumably quite higher. However for brands that are looking to reach Generation Z through social media platforms, it is an indication that Pinterest, Twitch, and Discord merit further investigation while LinkedIn would likely be a dead end.
5 Social Media Insights Around Virtual Fashion Weeks
While events like New York Fashion Week, London Fashion Week, and Paris Fashion Week have soldiered on this Fall, it’s been in a radically different form. Social distancing requirements have turned runway shows from gatherings that influencers travel halfway around the world for; to largely audienceless shows, which can only be viewed on social media. To help fashion marketers navigate this new normal, here are 5 social media insights about the audience reaction to fashion week events during the pandemic.
Insight #1. Social Media Is Paying Less Attention To Fashion Weeks Right Now
Between the audience no longer having in-person events they need a new outfit for and the fashion industry no longer able to safely stage a runway show where they jam as many celebrities, influencers, buyers, and reporters into a small room as possible, there’s been significantly less social media interest in fashion week shows this Fall. For instance, there were only 15,467 Tweets mentioning New York Fashion Week between September 13-17, 2020, down -95% from the 316,304 Tweets that mentioned the event last year between September 6-14, 2019.
When the social media audience is talking about Fashion right now, it’s often for non- clothing related reasons. For example during Paris Fashion Week, Kenzo had a ListenFirst Interest Score of 67,549, meaning they had more Wikipedia page views and Twitter handle and hashtag mentions between Sep 28 – Oct 6, 2020 than any other presenting brand. However, rather than that interest being a reaction to the dramatic beekeeper look the brand debuted, it was a reaction to Kenzo founder Kenzo Takada dying of Covid-19 at age 81 during Paris Fashion Week.
Insight #2. Rather Than Leveling The Playing Field, Digital First Runway Shows Are Helping Big Brands
In theory, runway shows being scaled back into being primarily virtual only events without celebrity filled audiences should benefit smaller brands, as the runway show becomes more about the fashion and less about the event around the fashion. The reality however is that big brands have still found ways to present differentiated production value. For instance, big brands have enough resources that they can still in some cases present a social distanced in person runway show. Louis Vuitton had the most successful video of the Fashion Week Shows ListenFirst tracked this Fall, receiving 2,791,772 video views on YouTube for the presentation of their Spring-Summer 2021 Collection at La Samaritaine. Given that space is huge, the audience could safely show up in-person and celebrities like Alicia Vikander, Venus Williams, Lea Seydoux were in attendance.
Big brands don’t even need the celebrities to appear in person to showcase star power. For example, the Balmain SS21 Paris runway show, which generated 788,444 video views on YouTube, didn’t have an in-person audience, but set up video screens instead, so you could still see celebrities like Usher, Jennifer Lopez, and Kris Jenner react to the new collection. Rather than big brands and small brands being on equal footing in presenting their collections as digital shorts, it’s more analogous to an indy movie trying to compete in movie theaters when a tentpole superhero movie is being released.
Insight #3. There’s More Space For Emerging Designers To Stand Out
Even with big brands making the biggest splash around Fall Fashion weeks overall, the fact that there are less fashion week events going on, means there’s more space on social media for designers who are just starting out to make a name for themselves. The Fashion East show is a great example of that trend, as they hold a showcase at London Fashion Week for emerging talent. At last year’s London Fashion Week event between September 13-17, 2019; no presenting designer was mentioned in more than 36 Tweets. However this year around Fashion East’s London Fashion Week show, looking at September 17-22, 2020, there were 276 Tweets mentioning emerging designer Nensi Dojaka with 195 Tweets mentioning rising star Maximilian Davis. Fashion fans on Twitter were impressed by Nensi Dojaka’s dresses while Maximilian Davis’ focus on “black elegance” generated a lot of positive notices on social media.
Insight #4. With Online Only Fashion Shows, Brands Are Rewarded For Experimenting More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQQE9PrcIDo
No longer constrained by needing to create a runway show that can accommodate a large in-person audience; many brands had success with fashion week content more ambitious than traditional runway footage. For example Moschino generated 267,902 video views on YouTube around their Milan Fashion Week runway show where all of the models and audience members were replaced with miniature string puppets.
Meanwhile Balenciaga and Burberry both had success turning the outside world into a runway. Balenciaga received 368,249 video views for a YouTube video showing their Summer 21 Pre-collection where models explored the Paris city streets alone at night in sunglasses; while Burberry received 21,815 YouTube video views for a horror film like clip showing their Spring/Summer collection, where models walked single file in the woods before gathering together for a ceremony meant to symbolize regeneration.
Insight #5. TikTok Has Become An Important Platform In Promoting Fashion
While there may have been less Twitter acitivey around fashion weeks this Fall, on TikTok Fall fashion content was only ramping up. TikTok launched a TikTok Fashion Month initiative this year, where they began live streaming shows from popular designers and created new related creative effects. The promotion was a huge success, with there being 3.2 billion views on TIkTok of the hashtag #tiktokfashionmonth while Louis Vuitton posts from Paris Fashion Week have generated as much as 4.8 million video views on TikTok. For fashion brands looking to connect with Generation Z, TikTok has become an important communication tool.
5 Social Insights About Music During The Holiday Season
To answer what music streaming brands need to know about music on social media during this holiday season, ListenFirst looked at the social media posts of 8 music streaming services: Spotify, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Soundcloud, and Pandora Music. Here are the top five takeaways the industry needs to know about sharing on social media during the holidays.
Insight #1. Past Hits And Highlights Are Often The Most Effective Holiday Posts
An iHeartRadio gallery post sharing pictures of past Jingle Ball performances generated 63,530 responses with a Tweet showing a video of Jingle Balls’ greatest past moments received 25,571 responses. Meanwhile Spotify’s top performing holiday related post between December 1-14, 2020 was an Instagram gallery talking about Mariah Carey’s classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You” which generated 31,520 responses. Considering how much of the holiday season is about nostalgia; sharing holiday content that connected with the audience in the past is often going to be what performs the best on social media.
Insight #2. There’s A 5% Increase In The Real-Time Conversation Around Holiday Music YOY
While there’s been a huge increase in interest around Christmas Trees during the pandemic; interest in Christmas songs is only up slightly this year. There were 393,595 Tweets mentioning Holiday or Christmas Music between December 1-14,2020, up from 373,691 Tweets mentioning Holiday or Christmas Music during December 1-14, 2019. Since how people listen to recorded music is one of the few things that hasn’t changed during the pandemic, there’s no reason for people to be talking significantly more or less about holiday music on social media this year.
Insight #3. This Holiday Season, BTS Is Musical Act Generating The Most Responses For Music Streaming Services
Between December 1-14, 2020; Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, YouTube Music, Spotify, and Pandora Music shared 15 posts mentioning BTS that averaged 64,269 responses. During the same time period, iHeartRadio, Apple Music, Pandora Music, and Amazon Music, and Spotify shared 22 posts about Taylor Swift that averaged 19,452 responses; while HeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora Music, and Tidal shared 19 social media posts mentioning Shawn Mendes which averaged 18,678 responses. These are the musical acts that the social media audience most wants to see music streaming services post about this holiday season.
Insight #4. One Holiday Song Moving The Needle On Social For Streaming Services And One That Could Move The Needle
An iHeartRadio Instagram post about the Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello duet “The Christmas Song” received 21,377 responses while a Pandora Music Tweet promoting the same Mendes and Cabello collaboration received 16,441 responses between December 1-14, 2020. It appears this cover is the new holiday song that’s moving the needle the most for music streaming services on social media.
The song that music streamers might be sleeping on? Tyler Joseph from Twenty One Pilots Tweeted about the song “Christmas Saves The Year” he recorded in his basement and that link generated 76,745 responses on Twitter.
#5. Virtual Holiday Events Gain Traction During The Pandemic
Pandora Music got 19,273 responses for a Facebook post promoting a Carrie Underwood virtual event around her new Christmas album while an iHeartRadio Tweet about a Louis Tomlinson live stream billed as a holiday season gift received 11,282 responses. With live concert and other in-person appearances an impossibility this holiday season; creating virtual events and promoting them on social media, is the next best way to connect fans with their favorite artists.
Want more insights about how the social media audience is engaging with holiday music on social media?Request a ListenFirst Demo today!
