Which music publishers are top on social media? We take a look at the top music publishers in June 2016.
How do you keep ahead of the latest and greatest music? Of course, there’s Pandora and Spotify (we even have a NewsWhip collaborative playlist!) but music publishers are still going strong to keep us informed in what’s rocking and rolling in the music world.
Using NewsWhip Spike’s data, we identified the biggest publishers in music. We calculated their Facebook likes, shares, comments and Twitter shares together to find which publishers are making the sweetest music on social.
These numbers count all Facebook engagement on these sites’ links published last month, including shares from the publisher pages, copy-and-paste shares, and social sharing buttons on the websites themselves.
Billboard was the top publisher of music related content in June, followed by MTV, and Rolling Stone in third. Rolling Stone had the most shares and comments, while XXL Mag had the biggest number of Twitter shares.
After the household names of music publishers, more nuanced names appear on the list, such as Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound. XXL Mag and Your EDM meanwhile, are genre-specific publishers, for hip hop and electronic music, respectively.
Let’s dive into what these publishers are doing well.
Top Articles and Content Trends
If we look at the top ten articles from music publishers, we see current events and celebrities dominate the list.
Race and sexuality both are at the top of the list, with Jesse Williams’ speech about race at the BET awards and inflammatory comments about the LGBT community from a rapper.
Three articles are about the deaths that occurred in Orlando, both Christina Grimmie and the Pulse club shooting.
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Christina Grimmie’s death was a shock to the music industry. The two articles on our top ten, about Adam Levine paying for her funeral costs, drove a combined 134,000 engagements.Â
Consequence of Sound had the most commented article of June, around Ticketmaster giving free tickets out. The article drove nearly 21,000 comments on Facebook.
If we look to the 100 top performing articles, we can see which content trends get the most engagement.
Current events and social issues took up a combined 22%. Music has long been considered a social commentary of life, so it makes sense that so many of the top articles were about the correlation between the arts and society.
Celebrity articles and music industry news (such as concerts, performances, other changes), tied at just under 20%.
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Eminem and Nick Cannon are both big names — combining them and creating a rivalry between them was sure to see engagement from impassioned fans of both.Â
Nostalgic pieces, about renowned bands such as ABBA, and content about musicians’ deaths, took a combined 20% as well. Even as new music comes out, sentiment remains for artists and songs that have moved people in their past.
12% of stories were about new songs and albums coming out, and 5% were profiles or interviews with musicians.
To Video or Not to Video?
The music industry is obviously, naturally suited to video and audio content. Of the top 10 articles, five had video content, two had audio content, and two were solely text-based.
For music in particular, using video can add more interactivity and relevant elements to stories.
Kris Kristofferson opens up about everything from marijuana to memory loss in our candid new interview https://t.co/X2nPd4Wq71
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) June 6, 2016
This Rolling Stone profile of Kris Kristofferson drove nearly 62,000 engagements across Facebook and Twitter. The accompanying 1:46 minute long video gives context and history to the profile of the 80-year-old country music legend.
What better way to enhance an interview with a renowned musician, than by featuring video and audio content of their work? As live video becomes more popular, this could give way to impromptu Q&As, practice sessions, and casual performances that engage viewers.
What Music Publishers Should Know
The internet has not killed the video or radio star. If anything, social media creates more opportunities than ever for people to share new music and keep up to date on their favorite artists.
Our content recommendations, based on the rankings:
- Find music stories that relate to real life events
- Stories with music celebrities drive big engagement
- Nostalgia is a powerful motivator around beloved musicians of yesteryear
- Use video/audio where possible to enhance content
As always, we’ll keep an eye on the music scene, and see how these trends evolve. If you’re interested in discovering the music stories, videos, and posts seeing success on Facebook and Twitter in real time, take a free trial of Spike today.
Did we miss something? We strive for complete coverage, but sometimes we will miss some content for some publishers. Drop us a line on Twitter or email to let us know.
