How do the world's top DJs score on social media in 2020?
They are all in the DJ Mag Top 100, but on social media, each DJ handles it in his or her own way. Marshmello goes like crazy, Daft Punk hits the mark completely. This and much more is revealed in our analysis of all the social channels of the DJs in the Top 100 since 2016.
Market-wide, DJ social behavior - and success - is highly seasonal. The winter months do a bit worse structurally: less is posted and interaction is lower. When festival season starts in April, all metrics rise: the flood of new content and the collective enthusiasm for a festival summer manifests itself in higher rhythms and interaction. Despite that difference, the number of followers simply increases even in the quiet months.
But not every channel is equal.
One particular trend is the sharp decline in the use of Facebook. Whereas until 2017 people were still very actively posting content and thus achieving good engagement scores, that collapsed considerably in 2018. For corona time, the top 100 was at a steady 50% of what it once performed - actually posting half as much and interaction and engagement also halved. Mar with 2.3 billion users, it is still the largest social medium. There are still plenty of opportunities here to maintain your relationship with fans worldwide.
YouTube
At the same time, YouTube began to grow stronger and stronger. In four years, the average number of followers for a DJ from the Top 100 actually increased 2.5x. We all know Major Lazer's world hits "Lean On" and Marshmello's "Happier. A billion views used to be a world record, today it is an achievable goal for top artists. This great relevance of YouTube is also evidenced by how eager fans are to interact by liking, commenting and subscribing. By no means a channel to be ignored, the Top 100 is smart to post content with growing regularity.
Instagram & Twitter
A bit more in the background - but certainly not irrelevant - are Twitter and Instagram. As a growing channel, Instagram has more and more users and features. Consequently, the average number of followers has more than doubled. Moreover, interaction is significantly better than on Facebook, and this also seems to motivate DJs to post something more often. It is no empty expectation that Instagram will become even more important in the digital public domain in the future.
Twitter has been losing users for years, but DJs notice little of this. Their follower numbers haven't gone up or down in four years. Interaction is still high, although posting content has become a lot less impulsive than it used to be. So don't let those declining users fool you: the target audience is fine on Twitter as well.
TikTok
And then, of course, we have the booming TikTok. A platform on which many children discover new music and make creative videos with it. The platform is now being used more and more by an older target group and more and more artists are also slowly starting to discover this platform.
The corona bubble
And then the pandemic broke out. In the fall of 2019 - in the middle of the usual winter dip - the news reports came in. Not much later, Asia went on lockdown, DJs posted massive messages about cancelled shows. It led to a slight uptick in socials but two months later, things went on lockdown worldwide. There was motivation, optimism and opportunism: countless DJs and events started livestreaming. The post rate was never higher and views were skyrocketing.
Other socials were also used to keep fan relations strong in the crisis. But it turned out to be unsustainable. The longer the crisis lasted, the more DJs dropped out and stopped posting content. In the festival-less summer, things didn't get better. On all channels, the number of new posts dried up. Releases were delayed and there were no livesets, aftermovies, Insta Stories or brutal photos.
Last September reached the deepest point yet. Despite the channels bulging with followers, few DJs are managing to keep their online reputation high. It is a kind of power vacuum: those who want to grow can take advantage of the inaction of the greats just now.
Want to know more about digital reputation?
Soon we will publish research with the individual performance of the best and least performing DJs on social media. NXTLI is also going to publish a new index every week. Starting with Eredivisie, Formula 1 and all Michelin restaurants in the Netherlands.
See how the Digital Reputation Index is created. Want to know what your company's (or your own) digital reputation looks like within that of your competitive landscape? We would be happy to set up your own Digital Reputation Monitor for you as well.
