Column: Numbers don’t lie

My two weekly guest column for This Is Our House. This time I dive in the data and numbers of the new number 1 and number 2 of the upcoming DJ Mag Top 100 of 2016. Why Martin Garrix will leave Belgian duo Dimitri Vergas & Like Mike behind in this year’s DJ Mag Top 100?

Reddit 100

If the voters on Reddit have their way, 56 deejays will drop out of this year’s DJ Mag Top 100. Reddit published its alternative list, comprising of 425 deejays, based on over 2,800 votes. Dutch deejays of repute that drop from the list are Angerfist, Fedde Le Grand, Radical Redemption and Sander van Doorn.

Martin Garrix, The Chainsmokers, Porter Robinson, Hardwell and KSHMR make up the Top 5. Belgian duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, taking over pole position in last year’s DJ Mag Top 100, rank a mere number 56 on the Reddit list. It’s time to take into account a different set of data*. How does Martin Garrix compare to his colleagues from Belgium, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike?

Facebook data

Considering the social media data of these deejays, the first thing that stands out is the difference in fan numbers. From November 1of last year till yesterday, over 13 million fans followed Martin Garrix as opposed to 8 million followers for Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. The number of engaging fans is 0.7 percent for Garrix and 0.4 percent for the Belgian duo. In absolute numbers, this means 75 percent more result (almost double) for less postings: 236 for Garrix and 287 for the Dimitri & Mike duo.

Engaged fans are fans that have interacted with a posting: clicking on, liking or reacting to the posting. It does not mean that all engaged fans have liked or commented on a posting. A fan counts as engaged just by clicking on a picture in the news feed. A fan that both clicks on a posting and comments on it still represents one engaged fan, not two. Considering this metric, Garrix gives the Belgian duo a run for their money on Facebook.

What does Twitter tell us

On Twitter, the gap between the deejay from Amstelveen and the duo from Antwerp sizes up to a canyon: 3.3 million fans for Martin Garrix versus 1.4 million followers of Dimitri Vegas. The other member of the duo, Like Mike, has close to a million followers. The Belgians use this channel in a more arduous fashion, the two of them sent over 2,100 tweets. The Dutchman twittered close to 800 messages. Still, the Garrix fans are more involved. The ratios show them to be 4 to 5 times more engaged. The number of followers that interact with the deejay from Amstelveen is bigger by a factor of almost 6.

Every picture tells a story

Obviously, the deejays post pictures on Instagram. Garrix has 8 million followers on this channel, over 3 times the number of followers of the Belgian duo. Also, the Garrix fans are more involved, the engagement ratio is twice that of the Belgians. The same applies to the interaction ratio. The Dutch deejay is slightly more diligent in making pictures as well: 523 photos compared to 498 shots by the Belgians.

What about moving pictures? The deejays have a YouTube channel. The number of subscribers ranges from 3.8 million for Garrix to 2.1 for Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. Both produced about the same number of videos: 51 and 49 respectively.  The numbers for channel views are slightly in favour of Garrix: 521 million versus 438 million. However, taking into account the view per video ratio, Garrix wins the day by a stretch. The average of 15.9 million views per video is 20 times that of the Belgians.

Music and the web

Let’s switch to the music. How are the deejays performing on Spotify and Soundcloud? Garrix’s page of the green music service numbers 1.6 million followers and has close to 21 million listeners per month. The Belgians have 635 thousand followers and 3 million listeners per month. Garrix has 1.4 million followers on the orange music service; he published 30 tracks. The Belgian duo has 930 thousand followers and posted 105 tracks.

Google Trends shows that Garrix is 3 to 4 times as often the subject of a web search in comparison to Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. Moreover, the stats of their respective websites are illuminating. Over the past two months, Garrix has slightly more visitors: 188 thousand versus 172 thousand on average per month. For Garrix, 60 percent of the traffic comes via the Google search engine, which generates 25 percent of the traffic on Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike’s website.

Notably, the Belgians generate more traffic to their website via social media. Facebook in particular is responsible for close to 40 percent of its traffic. Considered over a longer period of time, the website of the Belgian duo is ranked higher. The deejay’s bounce rate is equal, about 50 percent. The amount of time spent by fans is roughly the same: circa 2 minutes for both sites.

Winning votes

It appears that this year deejays are less active in winning votes via their digital channels. Are they fed up with the much discussed list? Earlier this year, I have concluded that the voting system of the DJ Mag Top 100 has run its course. Considering the overall digital presence of both acts, it would be very strange indeed if Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike rank above Martin Garrix in this year’s DJ Mag Top 100.

If Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are able to sustain their pole position, it is so because the digital supporters are not included in the votes—that much is clear to me. It reduces the poll to a contest of winning votes. The votes that will make the difference are the votes won via iPad, not by social channels. Martin Garrix should not worry, the numbers are clear. They indicate that the guy from Amstelveen outperforms the duo from Antwerp on a daily basis and numbers don’t lie.

PS. This year’s Top 3 of the DJ Mag Top 100 will be number 1 Martin Garrix, number 2 Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and number 3 Hardwell. No doubt about that.

Reddit explained

Reddit enables registered users (redditors) to add to messages by way of a link or a text, and to react to these messages. Using up and down buttons, users can increase or decrease the visibility of messages, thus judging the relevance of messages and reactions. Reddit offers the option to subscribe to various topics and interests, subreddits. The news site went online in 2005 and has proved its value in the spectrum of social media. Some 250 million unique reddittors are active.

* Data from Fanalists, Rankingz, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Fanpage Karma, Google Trends, Woorank en Similar Web.

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