Bloggers are more influential on social media than Australia’s top-selling artists

Independent bloggers and Australia's top radio stations have a higher engagement rate with their audiences than the highest-selling local artists.

That’s according to BrandData,a just-launched daily ranking index of digital and social media identities and 5,000 brands.

Of the 220 artists in the system, all of whom are Australian,almost all of them are registering single digits for engagement.

Country superstar Keith Urban, who has a combined audience of 8,284,444 on social media registers an engagement level of just 1.1%; Kylie Minogue’s engagement level is 7.8%, and she has a combined audience of over 6m; Guy Sebastian registers 2.7% with a combined audience of over 1m; Iggy Azalea registers just 2.5% with an audience of over 19.8m; Chet Faker registers 4.1% with an audience of991,142, and Reece Mastin has a combined audience of617,861 and registers3.0% engagement.

BrandData was launched in February in partnership with creative agencies Bashful and Mentally Friendly, it ranks online influencers based on website activity, taking in unique views and page views as well as social engagement using shares, comments, followers, mentions, tags, retweets, favourites, check-ins and RSVPs to determine engagement.

Lesser-known identities and radio stations are getting momentum ahead of big-name artists and brands. Beauty tip blogger Chloe Morello registers an engagement level of just over 15%, fitness blogger Emily Skye (pictured) registers 14.6% and Natasha Oakley and Devin Brugman’s blog A Bikini A Day engages 17.6% of their 570k-strong audience. In the radio sector Nova 100 Melbourne takes the top spot with 86% of its more than428,000-strong audience engaged; KIIS 101.1 Melbourne has a combined audience of98,442, 46.5%of them are engaging with the content in some way; and of 2Day FM's over 410,000-strong audience approximately70% are engaging with its content.

Melbourne-based rapper Allday, whose combined audience of 353,940 pales in comparisons to other artists listed, is one of the few acts registering double digits at12.8% engagement.

BrandData CEO Georgie Summerhayes, a former commercial director for EMI UK and a current board member at Albert Music, told TMN it’s a double edged sword of dichotomy for artists, who need to make themselves more available in order to build engagement.

“It’s difficult for musicians because on the one hand they want to engage their audience as much as possible when they’re releasing their albums, but for the rest of the time they just focus on producing their albums or other stuff around their music.”

Allday, aka Tom Gaynor has a background in comedy and is renowned for his unique interaction with fans. Earlier this year Jim McKinnon,head of artist management firm and label teamtrick,told TMN Gaynor’s social media presence is one of the integral elements of his success.

“Early on he was posting witty and clever posts on social media that were cleverly devised to get a reaction from people, positive or negative,” he said. “[…] That conditioning means that regardless of what a label does or doesn’t do, it gives the artist the strength and flexibility to control their output.”

While Allday's engagement level is higher than peers charting in the high reaches of the ARIA Albums chart, it'sdwarfed by Australia’s radio networks, despite his audience number. When compared to Hit 105 Brisbane, BrandData reports that although Allday's audience is30% larger, Hit 105 Brisbanehas the highest percentage of their audience engaged at92.2%.

Nova 100 Melbourne is engaged with 86% of its audience, and while its reach on Facebook is higher than Allday’s (Nova Melbourne’s Facebook account ranks 5th in Entertainment on BrandData), Allday has a bigger reach on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Summerhayes told TMN radio stations generally get high engagement with their audiences. “People just share and comment and retweet the things that are happening on those stations,” she said. “Likewise with other brands that are pushing out interesting content, so bloggers for example get that as well.”

Summerhayes said if given the proper tools, artists can manage their own digital footprint more effectively. At the AdNews Media Summit on May 22, Summerhayes offered a few tips for ‘brands’ looking to up their influence level.

“One of those things was: transparency is key,” Summerhayes told TMN. “Given that the democratisation of content distribution and production has enabled the consumer to be so powerful – in terms of being the ultimate purveyor of content online and producer – it makes ‘brands’ have to become more honest and transparent and in tune with the way that the world is going.

“Any form of digital conversation does need to be honest, even if it’s just a quick ‘here’s a shot of me in the studio,’ whatever it is, just to keep the interest up and the conversations going.”

Opportunely, industry veteran and artist manager Gregg Donovan (Airbourne, Grinspoon, Pete Murray, Josh Pyke, Boy & Bear, The Paper Kites) is hosting a free online lecture next Tuesday (June 30) called ‘How To Successfully Self-manage Your Music Career And Thrive In The Music Business’. Go to www.musicbusinessfacts.net/webinar to secure your spot.