Media & Entertainment Industry: Social Media Benchmarks

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.

7 Social Media Insights Around The Oscar Nominations

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


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!

5 Social Insights Marketers Need To Know About Holiday Movie Season

With Wonder Woman 1984 the only major new release with a possibility of being released into theaters in 2020, it’s safe to say that the holiday movie season is looking unrecognizable compared to past years. Almost every big budget film has either been pushed into next year or is debuting on a streaming service, and the social media conversation around movies is evolving as well. To help film marketers navigate the new normal, here are 5 social media facts you need to know.

Insight #1. There Is More Social Media Interest Around Film During The Pandemic

Even with most scheduled new releases delayed, the social media conversation around movies has actually increased during the Fall. There have been 69,152,194 Tweets mentioning Movie or Film between September 1- November 15, 2020, a 31% increase from the 52,680,727 Tweets that mentioned Movie or Film during September 1- November 15, 2019. Just because the audience has been dealing with the pandemic, the elections, and isn’t currently comfortable physically going into movie theaters, doesn’t mean they’re any less interested in watching or talking about movies.

Insight #2. The Real Time Conversation Around Movies On Streamers Is Way Up This Fall  

Between September 1 – November 15, 2020, there were 1,471,989 Tweets that mentioned Netflix and either the word Movie or Film, a 160% increase from the volume of such Tweets between September 1 – November 15, 2019. Similarly in the same time period, there were 111,449 Tweets mentioning Hulu and the word either Movie or Film, a 361% increase; while there were 85,394 Tweets mentioning Amazon Prime Video and either Movie or Film, a 160% increase compared to September 1 – November 15, 2019.  With people’s entertainment options more limited during the pandemic, movies on major streaming services are getting a lot more social media attention. 

Insight #3. Gently Used Content On Netflix A Conversation Starter On Social 

Between November 1-15, 2020, Knock Knock had a ListenFirst Interest score of 655,997 (Wikipedia page views and hashtag & handle mentions on Twitter), the most of any movie during that time period. Knock Knock is a low budget Keanu Reeves horror movie that originally was released in 2015 but is finding a new audience after being released on Netflix. With major new releases, either in theaters or on streaming, few and far between during the pandemic, “new to me on Netflix” is as big a conversation driver on social media as anything else. 

Insight #4. Netflix Is The Streaming Platform With The Most Rewatch Conversation On Social… But With A Catch

There were 22,978 Tweets that mentioned both Netflix and a Rewatch between September 1- November 15, 2020; which by far was the most Rewatch social media conversation around a streaming site. In comparison during the same time period, Disney+ was mentioned in 3,282 Rewatch related Tweets and HBO Max was mentioned in 2,877 Rewatch related Tweets.  However, the Rewatch conversation around streamers is primarily on the television side. For example of the 50 Netflix Tweets mentioning a Rewatch that generated the most responses, only 9 of them mentioned movies, with far more often the Tweet being about a TV series.  

Insight #5. Streaming Movies Can Still Provide Moments That Go Viral On Social Media 

While films that debut on streaming platforms don’t traditionally have the marketing budget of tentpole theatrical releases, streaming first movies are still creating water cooler discussions on social media. For example, between October 21-27, 2020, there were 294,584 Tweets mentioning both Borat and Rudy Giuliani around the climatic scene in Amazon Prime Video’s movie, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm; including celebrities such as as Mark Hamill, Ice T, and Sean Penn weighing in. As more high profile projects begin to debut on streaming services, expect the social media conversation around film to increase as well.

Want more insights into how ListenFirst can help navigate the social media conversation around movies? Request a demo today! 

What The Movie Industry Can Learn From TV About Social During The Coronavirus

Since the pandemic started, it’s been a period of unprecedented challenges for the film industry, with theaters either shut down or opening at a reduced capacity. While the television industry has faced the exact same setbacks in terms of filming new content, because of the at home distribution model, television has been releasing more content during the pandemic and has gotten a lot more reps at identifying social media best practices during the age of the coronavirus. Based on those efforts, the ListenFirst social media social listening platform has identified the following best practices that movie marketers can adapt in their own social media outreach. 

Virtual Table Reads 

One big social media trend on the television side since the pandemic began has been doing virtual table reads of classic TV shows, for instance The Nanny revisiting their pilot and the Lizzie McGuire reading their Bra Episode, with these original casts usually reuniting in support of a charity. During the pandemic, there have also been movies virtual table reads, though with a couple of key differences. For one they’re longer; while most TV table reads being shared on social media are only reading a script for 30 minutes tops, movie table reads streamed on social media should be maximum an hour in length, which is still shorter than an actual movie.   

The other key difference is unlike with TV projects, film virtual table reads don’t have to feature the original cast, for instance the Fast Times at Ridgemont High virtual table read featured Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, and Matthew McConaughey; and even while Sean Penn took part, he was playing a different role than the one that made him famous. The event was a huge success, raising $135,000 for COVID-19 related charities.

There is one way that movie studios can improve on these virtual reads. The Scott Pilgrim vs. The World table read and Princess Bride Reunion were both done as fundraisers, and that’s great. However, considering studios are hesitant to release new films during the pandemic and are instead rereleasing old favorites into theaters, there should be more synergy around the movies chosen for virtual table reads. For instance if Jurassic Park and Dirty Dancing are returning to theaters, staging a virtual table read for those films could serve both as a fundraiser and a promotion for the rerelease. 

Watch Parties 

TV brands have been pretty active during the pandemic in using watch parties on social media to promote previously released content. For example, as ListenFirst previously discussed, Amazon Prime launched a #MaiselMonday weekly watch party for season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which generated 10,381 Tweets between May 11 – August 11, 2020. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CC8v7iHA8vK/

As films are standalone content, movies need to find watch party angles that work as one time events. For instance, The Kissing Booth 2 generated 106,935 responses to an Instagram challenge asking fans to rewatch TKB1 and ask the cast questions; while The Hunger Games promoted watching the movie series on Tubi by creating a bingo card to fill out whenever a moment happens on screen, which generated 20,104 responses on Instagram. 

Meanwhile the movie Irresistible generated 1,955 responses on Twitter to an announcement that writer/director Jon Stewart would host a watch party around the film and that fans should Tweet him questions.

If your film has previously promoted a watch party with the cast on social media, a fresh angle is to work with an influencer and have them host the watch party, using either Twitter or Twitch to lead the real-time conversation around the screening. 

Memes 

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

Reese Witherspoon is credited with starting the January – September meme, showing how her mood has deteriorated during the pandemic and the joke was picked up, both by TV shows and films. For example, Stranger Things generated 852,372 responses on Instagram to their version of the meme. Meanwhile on the film side, Deadpool shared their version of the January – September challenge which received 54,516 responses on Instagram with the Little Woman take generating 28,313 responses on Instagram.  In another meme, James Bond showed the before and after images of a work from home desk set up in week 1 vs. week 30 of the pandemic, which received  8,346 responses on Twitter.

Memes have become far more popular during the pandemic, for example there were 92,191,880 Tweets mentioning the word Meme between March – August 2020, which was a 55% increase from the volume of Tweets using the word in March – August 2019. Memes have become a huge part about how the social media audience is coping with “2020” and movie pages should be using them in their social outreach. 

Remix Old Content 

Comedy Central generated 140,523 responses for 15 minute YouTube video sharing all of Chappelle’s Show best movie parodies and film has also scored social media wins around collections of content framed around a specific theme. For example, Yash Raj Films shared a video on Facebook of their Top Comedy Scenes which generated 90,190 responses and James Bond posted a montage of Daniel Craig as James Bond beating up on bad guys, with the video getting 18,289 responses on Instagram. The New Mutants even saw success around a more self-effacing theme, as they generated 19,676 responses on Instagram around a photo gallery of posters with all of their different, pandemic changed release dates. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEHt04YHZ4P/

This might all be content the audience has seen before, but they’ll reengage if it’s framed in a fresh context.  

DVD Extras Now Social Media Content 

Back in the day, extra content would make its way to the DVD release, but in 2020 likely even more people are seeing this content when it’s shared on social media. That’s been the case for TV Pages, for instance Star Trek shared a Next Generation blooper reel on Instagram that generated 15,186 Responses and that’s proven equally true for Movie Pages. For example, Frozen 2 generated 18,690 responses for Instagram post sharing concept art; Terminator 2 got 17,889 responses on Facebook for sharing behind the scenes video of the cast getting their makeup put on; and Halloween shared a behind the scenes photo from 1981’s Halloween II that generated 464 responses on Twitter. 

This type of additional content doesn’t even have to be archival in nature; for example Universal uploaded the original cast of the Pitch Perfect performing a new cover of Beyonce’s Love On Top, which doubled as a UNICEF fundraiser and received 523,367 responses on YouTube. 

Especially around film franchises, any content that gives fans a chance to see more of their favorite characters or the actors who portray them will be embraced by the social media audience.    


Want more ListenFirst tips for how movie pages can pivot and  optimize their social media channels during the age of the coronavirus? Request a demo today!