RCA Records is currently one of the world’s most recognizable record labels.
A flagship label of Sony Music, RCA’s roster boasts a wide range of internationally-renowned and critically-acclaimed musicians, including Britney Spears, SZA, Shakira, and Justin Timberlake. The label’s contemporary outlook, sleek branding, illustrious artists and admirable legacy have made them a fierce competitor in the modern recording industry, alongside giants such as Interscope, Atlantic, and Capitol.
As a media-based business, RCA relies heavily on online content propagation in order to stay afloat in today’s tumultuous digital landscape. Thus, the label maintains an extremely active social media presence on three primary networks: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Pictures and videos are constantly posted via each of these sites on the label’s respective profiles, reaching countless followers with each message.
I’m going to take a quick analytical look at RCA’s online presence and summarize what I think are the brand’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to social media communication. In order to suggest methods of improvement, I’ll share a few thoughts on other record companies that are effectively engaging with their audiences online and compare their strategies. Ultimately, I hope to shine a critical light on how RCA stacks up against other brands in the same digital space.
RCA’s Instagram account has a tremendous reach of approximately 222,000 followers. Peculiarly, this does not seem to be proportionate with the amount of audience engagement. In fact, over the past five posts, the average amount of likes was a meagre 160. That’s less than 1% of their follower base. Across the same range of posts, the mean comment count was a miserable nine per item. Cringe-worthy.
Despite RCA’s terrible Instagram like-to-follower ratio, the pictures and videos shared on their profile are remarkably vibrant and high-quality. Take a quick scroll through their virtual grid and you’ll find a collage of multi-coloured content, from music video excerpts to live concert clips to flashy tour posters. Every single post seems to be thoughtfully curated to adhere to the brand’s visual aesthetics, featuring clean, sans-serif typefaces and vivid, crystal-clear images. It comes as quite a surprise to me that the aforementioned ratio is so embarrassingly low.
RCA’s Instagram engagement pales in comparison to that of Stone’s Throw, an independent alternative R&B imprint based in Los Angeles. With about 218,000 followers, Stone’s Throw’s profile reaches about the same number of people as that of RCA. However, comparatively, Stone’s Throw’s past five posts have accrued an average of approximately 5,916 likes, adding up to 2.7% of their follower base. The mean comment count was a more impressive 130 per item.
So why isn’t RCA, a world-famous major label, stacking up against an indie imprint like Stone’s Throw on Instagram?
The answer, in my opinion, lies in the content. Compared to RCA’s extremely curated Instagram grid, Stone’s Throw’s page displays an organic, less corporate aesthetic. The latter profile features images and videos of artists that are often clearly taken on a mobile phone. For instance, check out this recent post of Homeboy Sandman, a rapper signed to Stone’s Throw:
I believe this creates a much more intimate, natural feel compared to RCA’s array of highly polished content. Stone’s Throw’s posts seem casual, effortless, and are sometimes quite funny, reflecting a light-hearted mentality that I think young people gravitate towards. Since our close friends pretty much only post smartphone photos on Instagram, we associate the quality of those pictures with familiarity, friendship, and nonchalance. Stone’s Throw is thus more successfully engaging with their followers, as the numbers will show.
Perhaps if RCA were to alternate between their current output of professional content and some intimate smartphone pictures, they could cultivate a more organic aesthetic that Instagram users gravitate towards. My suggestion to them would be to stop posting so many corporate-looking high-quality photos and videos and start integrating some casual content into their grid. I think people generally engage with things that they can relate to, and right now, RCA’s Instagram profile isn’t really relatable for the average user.
RCA’s Twitter page faces a similar dilemma. With a follower count over 449,000 strong, it is safe to say that they have a pretty sizeable reach. But it’s not often that these followers actually interact with their tweets.
The most recent ten posts have amassed an average of 52 likes and 19 retweets — that’s cumulatively only 0.016% of their massive follower base. Although they have maintained a consistent stream of messages through Twitter, there is clearly some room for improvement.
Like their Instagram, RCA’s Twitter timeline is full of professional-quality pictures and videos, along with some links to curated Apple Music or Spotify playlists. They are all neatly composed and well-designed, aligning with RCA’s visual standards that we saw on their Instagram. There is certainly a good diversity of content that should keep followers entertained and engaged, but alas, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
In comparison, let’s take a look at the Twitter page of Island Records, a major record company owned by Universal Music Group — one of RCA’s prime competitors.
Island’s Twitter page reaches a notably larger network of people, with 669,000 followers. Regardless, their engagement stats come out stronger when stacked up against RCA’s profile. Over their past ten tweets, Island’s social media team has attracted 252 likes and 58 retweets, adding up to around 0.046% of their follower count. While this percentage is still rather minuscule, it dwarfs that of RCA by about three times.
Here’s a recent post on Island’s Twitter that I think exemplifies how RCA can do better:
Island’s tweets aren’t just full of promotional jargon. Occasionally, they’ll make room for some whimsical humour that reflects the behaviour of the average Twitter user. These types of tweets definitely aren’t hilarious, and they don’t appeal to everyone. But if they make a few people laugh, they’ll start a few conversations, as indicated by the above post’s 107 likes, 27 retweets, and 5 comments.
RCA could surely benefit from a little bit of fun. As illustrated, purely-professional posts don’t draw the kinds of engagements that keep you relevant in the infinite Twitterverse. In my opinion, RCA’s team should take a more light-hearted approach to their timeline and perhaps spend some time educating themselves on current memes in order to boost their Twitter interactions.
Okay, I think we’re onto something here.
Despite a Facebook follower count of a whopping 109,572, RCA’s past 5 posts on the site have gotten 0.6 likes on average. Yes, you read that right. Less than one like per post. That’s nothing short of heartbreaking. And don’t even ask about the amount of comments or shares.
It’s no secret that corporate Facebook engagement has been on a steady decline for years. People are simply becoming less interested in what the site has to offer, opting instead for the two aforementioned networks, Instagram and Twitter. That being said, the network still has a colossal user base, and thus I believe there is still hope for businesses who publish Facebook posts to engage them.
A label that’s doing a little better on Facebook is 4AD — an indie imprint that’s home to alternative artists like The National, Grimes, and Future Islands.
With 155,477 followers, 4AD’s Facebook reach is quite a bit larger than that of RCA, but yet again their numbers indicate a proportionately higher level of interaction. 4AD’s last 5 posts received an average of 21 likes and 1 share — 0.014% engagement, belittling RCA’s negligible 0.0005%. This isn’t incredible by any means, but it’s certainly a step up from RCA’s Facebook page.
In my opinion, RCA could improve by learning from one straightforward principle of 4AD’s posts: write different messages for specific social networks.
A quick perusal of 4AD’s last few Facebook posts will illustrate this. The social media team at 4AD composes longer messages on Facebook, recognizing the potential for users to take in more information than on Twitter, for example. In fact, the exact same message was propagated via a concise tweet:
RCA does not do this. Check out the image below, then scroll back up to see the exact same text and video disseminated through both Facebook and Twitter.
In short, I think RCA should identify that people don’t consume content the same way on every single social network. Facebook posts can serve more text to users, and thus should be written to present more information than that minimal, thoughtless, emoji-filled platitude that you’re seeing above. This, of course, isn’t always the case, but I do believe RCA’s team should at least be more aware of the unique attributes of each platform, and should compose messages accordingly.
Conclusion
Every brand’s digital presence always has some room for improvement. The ephemeral nature of social media ensures that people’s behaviour on each network is ever-changing, and should therefore be continually studied. As illustrated, there is no one turnkey solution that will boost engagement metrics across all platforms.
In RCA’s case, I do think they need to revisit their antiquated strategies and think of new ways to engage with new and existing followers.
