Social media standings: How Sydney FM stations fare in audience and engagement

On a daily basis, networks can gauge the reaction of their audiences to their content simply by monitoring accounts on social media such as Facebook or Twitter.

Through data supplied by Social News Desk, the social media ninjas at Radio Today have determined which Sydney station or show has the most fan growth, most posts published and most engagement in the first week of October (compared to the last week of September).

The data examines the Facebook pages for Fitzy & Wippa, Kyle and Jackie O, Em Rusciano with Harley Breen, as well as the Facebook pages for stations KIIS 1065, Nova 96.9 and 2Day FM.

Let’s crunch the numbers.

Biggest Facebook audience and most fan growth

Within the reporting period, there was one clear winner in terms of both overall number of fans, as well as the number of fans gained week-on-week – Kyle and Jackie O. But when we inspect the numbers closely, they may seem a little inflated. But we’ll get to that later.

Kyle and Jackie O’s Facebook page grew by 51,231 people to a total of 1,584,146 – over two and a half times more fans than the next-largest audience (KIIS 1065 with 616,935 fans). In terms of breakfast shows, the other pale in comparison, with Fitzy & Wippa and Em Rusciano with Harley Breen on 83,867 fans and 73,848 fans respectively.

Excluding Kyle and Jackie O, the average number of fans gained within the week was 11,213 – however these kinds of numbers were reserved for the station pages, rather than the individual show pages.

Most posts within a week

In an ongoing battle with Facebook’s algorithm, it’s hard to know how many times to post in a day without being penalised by the platform with a decrease in organic reach. However, when it comes to Sydney radio stations and shows, there is a HUGE difference in social media strategy.

2Day FM opts for the “more is more” approach, with a total of 268 posts published in the first week of October. At the other end of the spectrum was Fitzy & Wippa with just 11 posts. In this case, stations have the upper hand – they can get away with posting content from all of their shows, as well as widely-appealing meme style content. With the relevance Facebook places on video content, this also means that more effort is involved in the creation of content – which also means a longer turnaround time.

Most engagement on the content posted

No matter how often a Facebook page posts, the only thing that really matters is how many reactions, comments and shares that piece of content receives. This is the best indicator that the post is successful, and it is where some of the biggest differences between the radio Facebook pages begin to emerge.

In terms of engagement from Australian fans on pages, Kyle and Jackie O has the lowest response from Australian fans, with 0.009% engagement. This number reveals a lot, considering that they have the largest Facebook audience of the stations and shows we’re reporting on – namely, that the vast majority of their audience is likely to not be located in Australia.

2Day FM on the other hand has an engagement rate of 0.051% – the highest rate of any of the pages reviewed. Part of this is due to the high number of posts published, but also because they have built an authentic audience who resonates with the content.

But how does advertising impact these numbers?

There is no way of gauging how much money is spent by each of the pages boosting content to a larger audience in order to try and gain more engagement.

Advertising dollars can also be spent on gaining fans, with fans outside of Australia often costing far less than those living in Australia.

While boosting posts can fluctuate the results achieved, the advertising dollars still relies on the content resonating enough with the audience in order to achieve engagement.

This article is presented in partnership with Social News Desk.