Weekly Furniture World Media Note #151 from Lance Hanish: How Does Social Media Compare With Television?
Furniture World News Desk on
5/24/2016
By Lance Hanish
There are opinions everywhere. Steve Jobs perhaps gave the most lucid view on opinions when he said, 'Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.’
Considering the noise about television’s fall (as it continually looses viewership vs SD 2015), and the movement to social media within business integrated marketing planning, the question is, ‘How Does Social Media Compare With Television’ today?
There is little doubt that video is a key to drawing increased engagement today. As we all know that people watch television and they visit various websites each month. We all know that video builds bigger engagement on social media than just type and a picture. But how can we compare them the two? As Bill Cromwell suggested in MediaLife (042716), ‘Nielsen and comScore are working on cross-platform measurement. But that is still in the developmental stages. The Video Advertising Bureau has released a study that does make direct comparisons between the two. By using a formula for calculating average audience per minute, combined with time spent, frequency and reach, it is suggested that this allows for TV viewing, video starts, page views and streams to be measured on an equal basis.’
The study found that in measuring by average minutes, television has the biggest audience, including among Millennials.
Surprise #2: 95% of all video consumption happens on television, with 4% on PCs and 1% on smartphones.
Now while all of this seems to be favoring television (and consider that the VAB was formerly known as the Cable Television Advertising Bureau-has a vested interest to show that television delivers the biggest audiences), if we measure individual television shows against social media, it is not that evident that television is the dominator.
Facebook, the leading social media platform, averages the television equivalent of 4.4 million viewers, equal that of NBC’s entire Sunday lineup (Sunday, May 15, 2016 which finished #2 network on that day). It was greater than ABC, FOX, Univision and Telemundo’s Sunday lineup individual network viewership.
Facebook’s next closest web rival is Pandora which is second with an average of 2.14 million. That is equal to the top cable network, ESPN’s average primetime last year.
YouTube is third with an average 2.104 million.
Those are the Big Three in the digital world. If you want to compare apples to apples, Facebook, Pandora and YouTube dominate.
Search engines? Google.com is #1 with an average 930,800 viewers and Yahoo.com is
#2 with an average 668,100 viewers.
Among other social media sites, Instagram (457,400 viewers); Spotify (444,500 viewers); Snapchat (244,000 viewers); Pinterest (178,900 viewers); Twitter (167,300 viewers); Tumblr (100,000 viewers); LinkedIn 45,200 viewers). Remember, this is in comparison to television today with Adults 18+.
Is this definitive in measuring one against another? Absolutely not.
But, it does put your mind into a space where the comparison of something we know so much about equates to that which we are not so familiar and for many, are struggling to figure out.
It is accepted, among brands and retailers, television has been king since it sent newspapers to their demise decades ago. But now, digital/mobile plays a MAJOR part in drawing the attention of the targeted audience AND it is superior in developing engagement NOW with the prospective customer.
In measuring all of this, compared to this past Saturday, Facebook was bigger than any network on television. If ranked on that day, it would have been #1. The ranking would have looked like this:
- Facebook would have finished #1 with an average 4.400 million viewers. CBS would have finished #2 with an average 3.688 million viewers.
- ABC would have finished #3 with an average 3.435 million viewers. NBC would have finished #4 with an average 3.278 million viewers.
- FOX would have finished #5 with an average 935,000 viewers, less than Pandora or YouTube.
This past Friday, it would have looked like this:
- CBS finished #1 with an average 7.645 million viewers. ABC finished #2 with an average 4.431 million viewers.
- Facebook would have finished #3 with an average 4.400 million viewers. NBC would have finished #4 with an average 3.461 million viewers.
- FOX would have finished #5 with an average 1.720 million viewers, less than Pandora and YouTube.
- The CW would have finished #6 with an average 937,000 viewers, less than Pandora and YouTube.
We live in a new world. It is a digital/mobile world. And if you were advertising on Friday, Saturday or Sunday this past week, Facebook would have been a very good media buy.
In other words, don’t believe everything you read in legacy media stat bias. Do your homework and understand that you just have so many dollars to get that person would should, would or could purchase your products and/or services into your business and buy that brand. Now you know.
MOBILEFirst is a trademark of CNA|SOPHIS Integrated Marketing Innovation 2016
For more information regarding Integrated Marketing Innovations, read Media Notes Canonical at http://www.cnasophis.com.
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Lance Hanish is Co-Founding Partner in CNA | Sophis Integrated Marketing Communications.
He can be reached at:
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