Report on Social Media Analytics

W2: DATA4500 User Composition, Behaviour & Monetisation

A look at the force of positive feedback in a social network, the network effect and strategies for developing monetised channels.

DATA4500 Roadmap

Week 1 A Brief History

Week 2 User Behaviour &

Monetisation

Week 3 Methods of

Analysis

Week 4 Commercial

Opportunities

Week 5 Sentiment

Analysis – Part 1

Week 6 Assessment: Case Study 1

Week 7 Sentiment

Analysis – Part 2

Week 8 Insights Mining

Part 1

Week 9 Insights Mining

Part 2

Week 10 Ethical

Considerations Part 1

Week 11 Ethical

Considerations Part 2

Week 12 Assessment: Case Study 2

Lesson Learning Outcomes

1 Develop an appreciation of social media user trends.

2 Examine the user composition of social media sites and draw conclusions about their behaviour

3 Evaluate the efficacy and impact of various monetisation channels.

4 Analyse the integration of SMA with traditional and digital transformative business models.

5 Consider the social aspects of online gaming and its synergies with social media.

Celinne Da Costa Writer, speaker & freelance journalist

“should the business just be a product or service provider, or a vision that an audience believes in and subscribes to?”

Stories and identity…

Lecture Roadmap This is what we will cover…

Trends in content

eCommerce & spend behaviour

Facebook monetisation

Youtube monetisation

LinkedIn’s business model

Gaming & Streaming

Class Activity

Pull up your search history from your phone, laptop or tablet.

1. Which sites do you regularly visit?

2. What do you use the site for (e.g. news, social, eCommerce)?

Access More than half the world’s population have persistent access to the internet and almost as many are mobile internet users (2019).

Source: Hootsuite (??)

Popular Sites World’s most visited websites – based on number of visitors and total page views from Alexa (2019).

Time Spent How internet users engage social media – survey based results (2019).

Music #1 Top Youtube search queries (2018).

Content Content streaming activities* (% of internet users who stream each type of content, 2019).

More than 1 billion people around the world now stream games over the internet each month, with games like Fortnite becoming global phenomena.

* Note that the above is derived from survey results.

Penetration Social media penetration by country as % of total population (2019).

Ranked by Size… Social media growth rankings – absolute (2019).

Ranked By Growth… Social media growth rankings – relative (2019).

Gender Skews Social media demographics – countries with the most stark gender skews (2019).

eCommerce The world’s first online sale was recorded by Pizza Hut in 1994… Pizza Hut’s PizzaNet had one problem – can you guess what it was?

eCommerce E-Commerce spend vs. total retail spend (2019).

eCommerce Proliferation of E-Commerce amongst internet users (2019).

Class Activity Do you spend more more buying things online or offline in physical stores?

If you buy online, what is your most-used website to make purchases?

How would the following features affect your likelihood of making online purchases:

Closing Down More than 2,200 stores are closing in 2020.

Follow the link to the article. What are the reasons for these closures? How is social media contributing to retail’s future?

Pier 1 Imports: 450 stores Papyrus: 254 stores

Gap: 230 stores Walgreens: 200 stores

Chico’s: 200 stores Forever 21: 178 stores

Destination Maternity: 183 stores A.C. Moore: 145 stores

Bose: 119 stores

Olympia Sports: 76 stores Sears: 51 stores

Earth Fare: 50 stores Kmart: 45 stores

Bed, Bath & Beyond: 44 stores Lucky’s Market: 32 stores

Express: 31 stores Macy’s: 30 stores

Hallmark: 16 stores JCPenney: 6 stores

Time Spent How internet users engage social media – survey based results (2019).

Music #1 Top Youtube search queries (2018).

Conclusions • Growth in social media access highly correlated with internet access

and smartphone usage.

• China, India, Indonesia and Brazil are strong markets. However most rapid growth coming from other developing nations.

• 25 years after the first online sale, eCommerce remains a rapid and transformative force in defining retail competition.

• Time spent on social media for personal and work purposes makes it an integral part of narrative shaping.

Activity 1 Group activities:

Q1. How does the internet and social media stimulate business and commercial activity? Use figures from previous slides to justify your position.

Q2. Is there any correlation between how users spend their time on the internet and the sites they visit? Use figures from previous slides to justify your position.

Q3. Imagine you’re running a social media platform (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok etc). Based on the information and statistics from the previous slides, what should you do to try and expand your business?

Monetisation Monetisation in social media is the process of deriving revenue from content.

Fee for Service An example of monetisation is paid content. You may have a channel that provide free and premium content. Users may subscribe to premium content for a monthly fee.

User Productisation By far, the most popular method of monetisation is the insertion of advertisements throughout ‘free’ content. Users ‘pay’ for their content by agreeing to become products ‘consumed’ by advertisers.

Facebook Monetisation channels…

In-stream Ads Branded Content

Fan Subscriptions

Audience Network

Instant Articles

On Platform

Off PlatformNews Content

In-Stream Advertisements • Facebook’s in-stream video ads: 5-15 second video ads to people

watching videos on Facebook • Strict eligibility requirements to place ad breaks in their video

content. Community Standards- authenticity, safety, privacy, dignity etc

Why in-stream ads? • Deliver complex marketing messages. • Multimodal engagement – sound, video, captions. • Reach (1+ billion audience) and penetration (92% ad impression).

Branded Content What is it? A marketing technique of creating content linked to a brand that increases consumer connection with the brand

Why branded content? • Publishers create content for social feeds and mobile environments. • Build credibility with their audience – brand trustworthiness and

loyalty. • Business partners benefit from high-quality content shared with

audiences from trusted sources.

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Fan Subscriptions What is it? Exclusive access for "fans" to content for a subscription fee to be part of a community.

Why subscription content? • Earnings stability – predictable monthly recurring earnings, helping

you to plan ahead. • Supporter benefits – Reward your most loyal fans with exclusive

access, content and more. • Custom terms – Tailor the supporter experience in a way that's

authentic to your brand, style and community.

News Content News Feed is the first thing people see when they log in to Facebook. Its goal is to show people the stories they care about most.

Principles for effective distribution: • Deliver value through meaningful, informative content. • Ensure accuracy and authenticity. • Observe standards for safe, respectful behaviour.

News feeds track content, preferences and sentimentality: • Inventory – The collection of stories shared and pages followed. • Signalling – Detailed metadata on the content and its viewers. • Predictions – Recommendation algorithms for content choices. • Scoring – Rank content on consolidated signals.

Audience Network Audience Network takes the concept of Facebook ads and extends them to external apps and websites. Audience Network uses the same analytics and targeting tools as Facebook ads. Campaign optimisation and delivery is automated to reduce the advertiser’s overhead.

Why use Audience Network? • Targeted monetisation – AN ad optimisation is surgical and

selective. Ads are more likely to match up with audience interests. • Quality control – Pre- and post-campaign transparency, block lists,

keyword blocking and severity level controls for brand-safe ads. • Market-driven bidding process – Bidding provides an impartial and

open auction that driven revenue yield.

Activity 2 For the following questions, use your phone or laptop to search relevant statistics to support your conclusions.

Q1.Define Audience network, fan subscription and branded content monetisation channels. How could a furniture company like Freedom https://www.freedom.com.au use these channels to promote its products?

Q2. Why does Facebook maintain multiple monetisation channels if all of its cash generating capacity is in advertising?

Q3. In groups, identify Facebook’s biggest revenue stream. What is the biggest threat to that revenue stream. What could cause Facebook’s revenue composition to change in the future?

Youtube Monetisation channels…

Advertising Revenue

Channel Memberships Merchandise

Chat Flairs PremiumSubscription

Advertising Revenue TrueView Ads

Skippable ads (after 5 secs) that appear at the beginning of YouTube videos.

Cost effective – pay only when videos plays for more than 30 secs or played until end.

Non-skippable Video Ads

Max length 20 sec video that tells a deeper, more nuanced story with build up.

Skilful ad-targeting is essential to hone in on desired audience with willingness to listen and engage.

Bumper Ads

Non-skippable but max length 6 sec. Paid on cost-per-thousand-clicks basis.

Ideal for targeting mobile users and for recycling longer content.

Channel Memberships Channel memberships allow viewers to join your channel through monthly recurring payments (subscriptions).

Why channel memberships? • Create a loyal fanbase that generates recurrent revenue. • Forge brand stability through loyal following. • Use as launching pad for campaigns targeting broader audience. • Gather comprehensive data and metadata on users – far more

information comprehensive than regular Youtube users.

Most popular YouTube Channels: https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/most-subscribed- youtubers-channels/

Merchandising Content creators offering physical and digital merchandise alongside premium content. Adds a new feature ‘BUY’ to existing features ‘LIKE’ and ‘SUBSCRIBE’.

Why merchandising? • Once a side show, merchandising is now a significant revenue stream.

E.g. Star Wars - $9.31B worldwide box office. - $3B in toys, $3.5B in video games, $2B in book sales, $1.3B in

licensing deals. Similar figures for MARVEL’S Avenger series and DC’s Batman.

Chat Flairs Flair: Internet ‘badge of honour’ for a username or avatar. It can be text, icons / emojis or a combination of both.

They have no monetary value. Basic flairs are usually available free of charge. Channel members have access to premium flairs from their subscription services.

Why flairs? • Good question – nobody really knows. But they are very popular. • There is no evidence of causality between flairs and revenue. • Flairs come with subscriptions so channel members almost always

use flairs. Flairs are one type of artefact that help promote identity and belonging in a forum.

Youtube Premium Premium Youtube: Removes ads and allow users to download videos. Premium Youtube and standard Youtube have a cannibalising relationship – they are mutually exclusive and every additional premium user means one less audience member for advertisers.

Why offer premium? • Brand authenticity – Ad free content has value and it would be

disingenuous to not offer it when doing so is trivial. • More data points on users – it is important to understand and

differentiate: - users that prefer the ‘fremium’ model where they are subject to

ads and become the product; and - users that prefer a ‘fee for service’ model.

Part of Facebook and Youtube’s appeal is the straightforwardness of their value proposition and monetisation model (esp. Youtube)…

Revenue sharing agreements between the platform provider and content creators are open, transparent and market-driven.

Social Media - Business Model

Advertisers

Users

Influencer

Users

$$$ $

Premium

Fremium

Influencer 1. Which public figures are you most influenced by? 2. What makes them trustworthy to you? 3. What have they influenced you to do?

LinkedIn A multi-sided platform for multi-sided customer segments…

Hiring Learning & Development

HR Managers Professionals

LinkedIn LinkedIn’s primary growth tool is its freemium model. As a professional social network, anyone can join the platform thus enabling its viral growth.

Activity 3 Q1. Examine Facebook’s monetisation channels. How do they work and why do they work?

Q2. Examine Youtube’s monetisation channels. What similarities can you draw between Youtube’s and Facebook’s monetisation channels? What differences can you draw?

Q3. What are they key features of Facebook’s and Youtube’s business model?

Q4. In groups, look up LinkedIn’s business model. What are the key features? How can the platform be monetised?

Gaming & Streaming Historically, getting users to pay for content has been an uphill battle. ‘Free-to-play’ online games changed that dynamic…

League of Legends was the largest gaming category in December by hours watched at 74 million hours.

Gaming & Streaming The US gaming industry generated $120 - $180 billion USD in revenue in 2019. It was already a hot industry in the 1990s and 2000s, having gained traction with Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials. Social media helped to delocalise and unlock value in gaming by creating a platform that elevated gaming to a sport giving it an audience.

Social media gave gamers an identity from which to tell their stories.

Twitch (Amazon) 9.3 billion hours

(73.2%)

Youtube (Google) 2.7 billion hours

(21.2%)

Facebook 356 million hours

(2.8%)

Mixer (Microsoft) 353 million hours

(2.8%)

Gaming & Streaming Google and Amazon engaged in a bidding war in 2014 for Twitch. Amazon won the bid, shelling out $1 billion USD cash for the acquisition. Twitch was valued at nearly $4 billion USD in 2019.

Youtube maintains a formidable share of the gaming market thanks to the organic synergies between video streaming and game streaming. However, growth has stagnated in recent years.

Facebook and Microsoft (Mixer) are relative latecomers but growing fast. Facebook has the world’s largest social media audience and Microsoft has a rich gaming eco-system with a large number of titles (PC & XBox).

The social and monetary ecosystem of gaming…

Social Gaming - Business Model

Game Vendors

Advertisers

Gaming Community

Influencers (Product Partner)

Platform

Sponsorship $$

Sponsorship $$

Sponsorship $$$

$$$ Sponsorship

Streaming Content

Game Revenue $

Streaming Content

Subscription $

Ad Views

Activity 4 Q1. Look up a popular online game... how the game make money?

Q2. How and why are the tech giants diversifying themselves across a multitude of social media and gaming networks? Provide examples to support your response.

Lecture Roadmap (Revisited) This is what we have covered…

Trends in content

eCommerce & spend behaviour

Facebook monetisation

Youtube monetisation

LinkedIn’s business model

Gaming & Streaming

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Next Week Established Methods in Social Media Analytics

• Social Media Analytics (SMA) and its business impact.

• Distinctions between SMA and traditional (statistical) analysis.

• Capabilities introduced by Sentiment Analysis and Insights Mining.

• applications SMA in trend detection and its merits as an early warning system.