Radio stations with the most social network listeners
"When did they add social to RAJAR", I semi-screamed at Dave on Friday afternoon. "Er last quarter I think".
I was creating a demographic group when I'd noticed that Dave had added a whole social section to Octagon CrossTab (the excellent software from Hallett Arendt that I use to do RAJAR things). The nuts and bolts of RAJAR are, of course, radio listening - but it also asks lots of other questions from the newspaper people read to how much TV they watch. Octagon CrossTab allows me to create demographic groups which are usually things like 'people aged 20 to 39' or 'Guardian readers' but now I could create demos based on people's use of social media.
It allows me too look at social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, MySpace, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr and Vine and sort use by listeners from 'never' through to 'several times a day'.
So, I thought it might be interesting to have a look at stations with the most active Twitter and Facebook users in Q2/2014.
This doesn't look at active users of a station's Facebook/Twitter account, but the listeners who state they use the social networks AND listen to each of the stations. Why bother with this when you can look at the follower/like numbers? Well, I think this is more interesting it shows the radio stations that have really engaged social media users. If your station is high up the list then by concentrating on your social output you could actually start to have a meaningful effect on reach and hours.
Now, I can cut this a number of ways. Firstly we're going to look at Heavy Twitter use and sort it by the total number of people per station who state they use it 'a few times a week' or 'several times a day/daily'. In other words a list of the stations with the highest Heavy Twitter users. For this I've stripped out corporate groupings but left in networks.
Heavy Twitter Users (‘000) | |
| BBC Radio 1 | 2,831 |
| BBC Radio 2 | 1,872 |
| Capital Network | 1,725 |
| Heart Network | 1,368 |
| BBC Radio 4 | 1,187 |
| Kiss UK | 1,136 |
| BBC Radio 5 live | 1,088 |
| talkSPORT | 801 |
| BBC 6 Music | 562 |
| Capital London | 547 |
Now I'm going to look at Heavy Twitter use as a percentage of reach. So this shows the percentage of a radio station's reach that are Heavy Twitter users.
% Heavy Twitter Use | |
| Kisstory | 36.0% |
| 1Xtra | 31.9% |
| Kiss Fresh | 31.6% |
| BBC 6 Music | 29.7% |
| Capital XTRA (London) | 29.5% |
| XFM London | 29.0% |
| 107.6 Juice FM | 27.5% |
| City Talk 105.9 | 27.4% |
| Capital South Wales | 27.3% |
| Kiss West | 27.2% |
Up next is good old Facebook. Again, I've removed corporate groupings and ranked by the number of listeners who use Facebook 'a few times a week' or 'several times a day/daily'.
% Heavy Facebook Users ('000) | |
| BBC Radio 1 | 7,219 |
| BBC Radio 2 | 6,739 |
| Heart Network | 5,164 |
| Capital Network | 4,736 |
| BBC Radio 4 | 3,320 |
| Kiss UK | 3,114 |
| BBC Radio 5 live | 2,404 |
| Smooth Radio Network | 2,003 |
| Magic UK | 1,951 |
| Classic FM | 1,779 |
And then by percentage of total reach...
% Heavy Facebook Users | |
| XFM Manchester | 73.9% |
| 96.3 Radio Aire | 71.8% |
| Kiss Fresh | 71.7% |
| Kisstory | 71.4% |
| Key 103 | 71.2% |
| Kiss East | 71.2% |
| Kerrang! | 70.7% |
| Capital South Wales | 70.6% |
| Heat | 70.2% |
| The Hits | 70.0% |
The North West clearly loves a bit of FB!
I think this may be the first of a few posts looking at social. But if you want to investigate it yourself, and your station is an Octagon CrossTab customer - just add a bespoke demo in the 'Demographics Editor' and then you can use it in any column, row or layer in any type of analysis.