ListenFirst just launched our new YouTube channel, and in our inaugural video, we used our social media analytics to determine the audience response to the recent Academy Award nominations. Without further ado, here are the Top 7 social media insights you should know about the Oscar nominations.

Insight #1. Expect Interest To Be Way Down Around The Oscars This Year

There were 269,820 Tweets mentioning the Oscar Nominations on March 15, 2021 which was a -45% decrease from the 493,448 Tweets that mentioned the Oscars nominations on January 13, 2020. While it’s not shocking considering how many movie releases have been delayed in the past year, and how many theaters have been closed, there’s a significantly lower level of interest in the awards show in 2021.

Insight #2. With Theaters Closed, People Don’t Care About Nomination Snubs As Much

In a year when most movie theaters were closed, there was much less discussion over what films or performances were overlooked around the Oscar Nominations. There were 1,008 Tweets mentioning Oscar Snubs on March 15, 2021 compared to 3,904 Tweets mentioning Oscar Snubs on January 13, 2020, when the Oscar nominations were announced last year.

That’s not just about people watching less movies however. With so many serious Oscar contenders debuting on streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu in past year, likely more people have already seen these films than would have if they had more traditional theatrical runs. That said, a performance is probably not going to hit the same way, if you watch the film over a couple of sittings while distracted by your phone, as opposed to at once with an auditorium of other people.

Insight #3: Minari Was The Biggest Winner On Social

Minari was the Oscar nominated film that had the biggest lift in social engagement because of the nominations. It had a social engagement score of 65,272, which was an increase of +1,066% comparing March 15 to March 14, 2021. 

Insight #4: The Best Actor Race Drove The Most Responses On Twitter

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1371442727943032832

Most of the top performing Tweets mentioning the Oscar Nominations on March 15, 2021 brought up the history being made in the Best Actor category.  For instance, a Tweet talking about how Steven Yeun becomes the first Asian-American actor to be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars got 11,268 responses while another Tweet congratulating Riz Ahmed on making history as the first Muslim to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar got 10,396 responses.

Insight #5: The Women Got The Audience’s Attention Around the Best Director Race

It took 93 years, but FINALLY, this year is the FIRST TIME EVER more than one woman was nominated for Best Director in the same year.

Congrats Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell! #Oscars #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/V8NlkOZh7S

— Women and Hollywood (@WomenaHollywood) March 15, 2021

On March 15, 2021 there were 5,118 Tweets mentioned  that for the first time, two women were nominated for Best Director in the same year: Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell. 

Insight #6. Mank Ruled The Day In Terms Of Wikipedia Performance

David Fincher’s Mank may have gotten the most Oscar nominations this year, but its great performance was expected and without the element of surprise it wasn’t as talked about on social media as you might expect. However, Mank did get 167,179 page views of their Wikipedia page on March 15, 2021 which was the highest total for any nominated film on the day.

Insight #7. Don’t Expect A Huge Immediate Lift In Social Media Followers From A Nomination

Minari got 2,614 new fans or followers on their social media accounts the day the Oscars nominations were announced, and that was the highest such total for any nominated film. If a movie isn’t already on someone’s radar, getting Oscar nominations alone is unlikely to be enough to lead to a follow.

Want more insight into how ListenFirst helps brands track the social media audience, film related or otherwise? Request a ListenFirst demo today!

How does your brand compare to the industry’s social media 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 Media & Entertainment 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 Media and Entertainment Brands that partner with ListenFirst, the Industry Benchmarks Report is an invaluable cheat sheet

Without delving too deeply into the still unclear fate of TikTok, whether the platform is going to be banned in the United States or spun off into a seperate company; the short form video platform faces competition. In August 2020, Instagram launched its own mobile phone short video solution Reels, while YouTube is currently beta testing its own TikTok competitor Shorts in India. Other short form video competitors include Triller, Byte, and Dubsmash.

For marketers, trying to navigate the rapidly changing short form video ecosystem can feel daunting, so with that in mind we put together this quick overview of everything you need to know about short form mobile videos on social media. Download the full cheat sheet here.

What Marketers Need To Know About Instagram Reels

Launched in August 2020, Instagram Reels was released in the same week President Trump was threatening to ban TikTok in the United States, and while the timing to release a TikTok clone was perfect, the reviews generally weren’t positive. For instance, one New York Times writer labeled Reels “the worst feature I’ve ever used”, citing how complicated it is to find within the Instagram app, how there were too many restrictions around music, inferior editing functions, and the lack of duets. Instagram has since improved the editing functionality as well as extended video length from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, but at this point Reels is most valuable to brands as a channel to repost their TikTok videos. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDuMMQfDOB7/

For example, a video promoting DC FanDome featuring Margot Robbie got 57.6K Likes on TikTok while when the same video was shared on Instagram Reels, complete with a TikTok watermark in places, it generated 251K Likes. 

Regardless if Reels specifically works as an application, reposting content to Instagram is always going to be an effective way to increase engagement. 

What Marketers Need To Know About TikTok 

For tactical advice on posting on TikTok, ListenFirst has previously shared a best practices guide for brands, but the big picture point for marketers to keep in mind is that TikTok has 100 million active users in the United States each month. For brands worried that TikTok might get banned in the U.S. or radically change under new ownership, TikTok has too big of an audience to ignore. 

If you’re interested in reaching the audience of short form video and worried about what comes next, your best bet is expanding the amount of social platforms you’re leveraging, as opposed to abandoning TikTok. 

@charlidamelio

Join the #MoreHappyDenimDance and #hcocontest to win a virtual meet & greet with me and Dixie!! hcopartner. Official rules: https://bit.ly/37ZFQih

♬ More Happy – The Hollister Jean Lab

Hollister Co. is a great example of this strategy. They have been working with Charli D’Amelio, a 16-year-old dancer and social media influencer who has 88.8 million followers on TikTok, on a jeans campaign. A sponsored TikTok video showing D’Amelio sharing her #MoreHappyDenimDance generated 59.8 million views and generated numerous response videos. Meanwhile Hollister Co. experimented with posting an Instagram Reel featuring D’Amelio promoting their Tiny Jeans campaign that received 757K views. While the campaign didn’t extend to Triller, it certainly could have, as D’Amelio has 3.4 followers on Triller.

   

TikTok may be the biggest player around short form video, but there’s enough volume around other platforms that TikTok-based campaigns can be expanded to other short form video apps. 

What Marketers Need To Know About YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts is expected to arrive in America some time in the near future. Similar to Instagram Reels, it’s essentially a new feature to shoot and edit short videos directly from a preexisting mobile app, with YouTube capping the video run time at 15 seconds. It’s too soon to know to what extent Shorts will take off, but it does have a couple of key advantages over other TikTok clones. Being able to sample popular songs for audio clips is a huge part of how users create short form video and YouTube already has licensing agreements in place with major record companies, meaning there should be a large library of songs to use in Shorts videos. 

YouTube also has the advantage of being YouTube, meaning creators are already making original content there, and getting influencers to create 15-second content on YouTube should be an easier ask than asking them to create content for a brand new mobile app. 

What Marketers Need To Know About Triller

If TikTok was actually going to get banned in America, Triller is the short form video app that would be in the best position today to replace it. Created in 2015, it actually predates TikTok; Triller has 27 million active daily users and actually overtook TikTok in terms of App Store downloads in August around fears TikTok will disappear. Triller has two major categories of content, “Music” and “Social”, but Music is really its bread and butter. The app, which has signed deals with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music, allows users to create music videos through their unique auto-editing algorithm, matching self-filmed cell phone video with snippets of popular songs, usually in the rap genre. 

That formula has become a significant marketing tool for the music industry, for instance a snippet of Money Mouf by Tyga, Saweetie, and YG has received 15.6 million views on Triller with Unbelievable by Tiger Schroff getting 7.2 millions views. Regardless of what happens with TikTok, Triller has emerged as a powerful marketing tool for the music industry. 

What Marketers Need To Know About Byte

Created by Vine co-founder Dom Hoffman, Byte is essentially Vine 2.0; bringing back the 6-second long looping video format (which they’re currently experimenting with extending to 8 seconds). Launched in January 2020, pretty much everything is in flux with the app; for instance some features are on iOS but not Android; you can’t create sounds from popular music yet, and there’s no full screen video yet. Byte needs to be a little bit more built out for marketers to be able to evaluate it. 

What Marketers Need To Know About Dubsmash

Created way back in 2014, initially peaking in popularity in 2015 and seeing a resurgence in 2020; Dubsmash allows users to lip sync over audio clips including sections of songs, movies, and famous quotes. Focusing more on building community, inclusion of people underrepresented on social media and improving retention rate; Dubsmash is having the most success around dance challenge videos and comedy videos. For example, the hashtag #DubSmashChallenge has received 4.7 million views on Dubsmash, while the hashtag #Comedy received 9 million views. 

However, the largest reason Dubsmash’s profile is being raised is fears of TikTok disappearing. Sensor Tower reported that during the last week of June, Dubsmash worldwide weekly downloads increased by 235% to 511,000 compared to the previous week.  

Want more social media insights around video platforms? Request a demo with ListenFirst today!