triple j beats out big broadcasters for online engagement

Image: triple j’s One Night Stand concert at Mildura in 2014

Over the last few months, triple j has consistently been in the Top 3 of the top 61 local radio stations for engagement.

The youth broadcaster beat out local commercial heavyweights KIIS 1065 and NOVA 96.9 for its engagement across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Digital media ranking system BrandData issued its end of year statisticson Monday, revealing triple j’s Like A Versionfranchise on YouTube has helped inch its engagement level ahead of other radio brands.

“Our statistics are solely based on‘weighted engagement events’, not traffic or number of fans – thisaccounts for a very small percentage of a brand rank,” said Summerhayes. “Comments, shares, time on site, retweets etc are what matters when ranking.”

YouTube has thelargest engaged audiencefor triple j; in a 24-hour period, an average of 259,000 activities are tracked on YouTube.

“With their combined audience of over 1.74 million across all channels from Australia, triple j is the biggest brand in radio in terms of online engagement,” said BrandData CEO Georgie Summerhayes.

Summerhayes told TMN the broadcaster’s digital strategy was transformed in September following prior erratic results, particularly on Twitter where it boasts almost 417,000 followers.

“Their audience size helps it perform well,” Summerhayes said.“Audience size is a contributor to the ranks although weighted lower than comments or shares in determining overall engagement.

Data collated earlier this week shows the average daily engagement percentage for triple j across all channels over a 24-hour period is 15.40%. The average daily engagement percentage for radio brands in the same period is 8.62%.

As is common with entertainment brands, Facebook has the largest audience figures, followed by Twitter, YouTube and then Instagram. triple j is the top brand in the Radio category at the moment and radio is regularly the most engaging category out of all the 300 categories listed on BrandData.

According to the daily updated data on the brand report page on BrandData for triple j, Facebook has thelargest audience, however they have a higher engagement percentage on Instagram (8.14%) and YouTube (29%).

Category statistics encompassing 61 radio brands included in BrandData show the best average weekly engagement percentage is on twitter at 12.6%, while the largest average engaged audience is found on YouTube with over 30,000 engagement activities tracked. The average combined audience engagement is over 102,000 weekly, which is extremely high and should be used by radio stations when converting advertising dollars.

Why is triple j’s engagement level higher, 40 years postinception? The station has always operated under an unorthodox commitment to music. It could be said that its shows and announcers fall under the rat bag ethos that has spawned controversial, progressive and always entertaining radio for the past four decades.

triple j has never played it safe, yet just like its big-budget comrades, it has a sophisticated behind-the-scenes team who seem to spin every transgression into a badge of honour.

It’s paid off too; according to market research agency GfK, triple j has an average weekly audience reach of 1.9m or 14.5% of the five-city population aged 10+.

In the last radio ratings survey triple j ranked #1 in Sydney and Perth and #2 in Melbourne in the 18-24s age demographic. In the 25-39s bracket, triple j was an equal #1 in Adelaide and Perth, equal #2 in Sydney and Brisbane and #3 in Perth overall.

The station’s ratings just keep climbing. In the year to date triple j’s five-city share in radio ratings is 7%, an increase of 5% on 2014.

BrandData provides TMN with chart data for its Australian Social Media 50chart and its International Social Media 50 chart.

BrandDatachartsare based on 41 weighted engagement events across 5 channels – website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube – any social media that accounts for more than 2.5% of the world’s traffic.For further details and charts on radio and streaming, visitwww.branddata.com.