On our second team
assignment we researched how Finnish rock band Softengine used social media for
community building and promotion during Eurovision 2014. Softengine was Finland’s
representative in 2014 Eurovision song contest. They got to the final from the second
semifinal and reached 11th place on the competition. They currently
have a record deal with Sony Music.
On our research we
tried to find answers to following questions:
- Does Finnish representative, Softengine, have campaigns in Facebook and Twitter?
- Does Softengine’s record company have campaigns in Facebook and Twitter?
- Are there some fan communities in other coutries, which countries and what are they doing in order to attract the audiences?
Both the band and the
record company have their accounts in Facebook and Twitter, and the band is
very active also in Instagram. Most of the promotion was done by the band themselves;
before and during the Eurovision competition active promotion focused in
Twitter and Instagram. Record company on the other hand seems to save their marketing
efforts to later date.
In Facebook the band
has their band pages and closed fan community. In Twitter majority of their followers are outside
from Finland, mainly female in their teens or early 20’s. Some individuals and
groups in Twitter actively promoted the band during Eurovision, for example “Echelons”
in Finland and Russia asked all fans to vote for them. In Russia the main
platform for support has been Russian social network, Russia vk.com, where currently
15 fan communities for Softengine can be found.
As conclusion we can say, that while there seems to
be very little active fan communities around the band regarding Eurovision, it
is clear that the band has received international attention in various social
media. Their 24000 likes in Facebook or 14000 followers in Twitter are proof of that. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Russian social networks are platforms
for discussion among the fans and show clear signs of community building in general.
Link to complete
report: Final Report of Team Finland
First of all, very good blog post. It is very informative and makes you want to read more (which I'm about to do now!)
ReplyDeleteI love your examples! Though it would have been nice to include links to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook into the text in the beginning but that is only a minor flaw as one can find the links in the end of the text.
There are some layout problems but so do our team, Drive is not the best place with long reports...
What was you source from record label? And btw, weird they are not promoting the band considering they could break in UK at least. And Ireland. And there is new single coming out.
I think you did great job! The report was interesting an informative, enough pics and stats and examples and the following questions were really interesting at least to me who is interested in working in field of social media possibly promoting traditional media via it. Thanks!
Thank you for your effort Team Finland! Your report was full of interesting content!
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw your research questions I was a bit worried, since they way formulated in a slightly shallow manner. For example the research question “Does Finnish representative, Softengine, have campaigns in Facebook & Twitter?” could be answered by simply “yes” or “no”. To my relief this didn’t stop you for going deeper in your analysis.
You use a lot of statistics to support your report which is great. I also liked the fact that you referenced your sources inside the text. Having the number of tweets and likes from different points of interest was great. I also liked the interesting statistic about the geographical division of Facebook followers and the key word analysis.
It’s great that you included VK in your analysis, because it shows that you have a broad understanding of different social media platforms. Russia is an important trade partner for Finland and understanding their social media environment can be a great benefit.
You asked some interesting questions in your final chapter!
To summarize, your research questions could have been formulated in a better manner, but the actual report was good! Thank you for your work!
Here some feedback from Team spain:
ReplyDelete+ The Team gives accurate information supported by official datums. It talks in an orderly way about the whole contest, starting with the activity in the Social Media weeks before Eurovision, and ending with the days after it.
+ The analysis if the record company activity is very complete.
+ Interesting history analysis when talking about Russian communities.
+ Illustrative pictures.
+ Interesting future questions, thinking about the real importance of social media.
+Interesting research question, they are completely related with the subject and with the band.
+Is very well organized.
+Deep analysis about Twitter and the way they have use it.
+Charts really nice, they describe perfectly what happened in the social places in accordance with the time.
+References and sources in the text.
+Interesting the ‘key words’
+Very complete the analysis about the fans in other countries.
+ The first question is very well organized and summarize.
+ They always supported the analysis with data and statistics.
+ Good to mention the lack of interest by the record company that proves that Eurovision is not as successful as the other artist.
+ The analysis of the fan russian communities is very interesting and surprising. I think is the best part of the project.
+ Intelligent future questions focusing on the social media instead of the band itself.
+ Very interesting the Russian communities part in the Fan from foreign countries part. I found it a very good idea and very well explained.
+ Also liked the amount of details about the followers of the band.
+ Good idea to make the most tweeted tweets, however I didn’t understand the way they were written and put.
+ A good range of links where they looked for the information.
+ Photos very well organized and with clear subtitles and explanations.
+ The summary is very well structured and somehow it makes you want to read the full report.
- The team makes a huge quantitative analysis but sometimes forgets about a qualitative analysis. For example: they don’t explain which kind of campaign does Softengine have in each social media.
- Some more research questions would complete the work. Maybe a question relating some of the ones already there.
-At the beginning, in the first page they only wrote three research questions, but then they have six.
-They did not talk about the way that they try to sell the team/band.
- The analysis is very focused on the results of the campaign in the social media, they should have talk more about the campaign itself.
- Maybe it could be better analysing more active account, such as the broadcasting channel, instead of the record company.
- I’d say that there is almost no mentions on other countries but from Russia.
- Maybe it would have been interesting some more research questions.
- Maybe there is not so much information about the use of the platforms during the performance of the team in the Contest.