For the last two months we featured an interview with Mr. Andrew Levey, Director of Customer Relationship Marketing for Cirque du Soleil, about Cirques efforts on social media. As part of our research homework, we wanted an idea of how often the various Cirque shows use social media, specifically Facebook. So we did what we love doing, gathering the facts and doing an analysis!
For our analysis we looked at entries between March 1 and December 31, 2013. This was just after Saltimbanco closed, followed in the next month by closure of the resident show IRIS, and was when the Facebook page for Michael Jackson ONE had first started up.
We didn’t measure just the sheer number of entries. Instead, we didn’t count repeated content (one piece of news posted over multiple shows pages, such as posts pushing One Night for One Drop for example). We also didn’t include posts whose only purpose was to encourage ticket sales. So our totals are more curated, but the same culling process was made equally across all the pages.
Let’s go to the numbers!
Here are the results for all of Cirque’s shows, organized by type of show. (We include Varekai in Big Top Touring Shows because it wasn’t converted to the Arena format until 2014.)
Cirque du Soleil (corporate page) – 83 total, 8.3 average per month.
Resident Shows:
- Zumanity – 8 total, .8 per month
- KA – 9 total, .9 per month
- Criss Angel BeLIEve – 11 total, 1.1 per month
- La Nouba – 17 total, 1.7 per month
- O – 17 total, 1.7 per month
- Mystere – 24 total, 2.4 per month
- The Beatles LOVE – 26 total, 2.6 per month
- Zarkana – 35 total, 3.5 per month
- Michael Jackson ONE – 63 total, 5.30 per month
Big Top Touring Shows:
- Varekai – 23 total, 2.3 per month
- OVO – 53 total, 5.3 per month
- Amaluna – 60 total, 6 per month
- Corteo – 60 total, 6 per month
- Kooza – 74 total, 7.4 per month
- Totem – 154 total, 15.4 per month
Arena Touring Shows:
- Quidam – 31 total, 3.1 per month
- Alegria – 84 total, 8.4 per month
- Michael Jackson Immortal – 87 total, 8.7 per month
- Dralion – 100 total, 10.00 per month
By Type of Show:
- Resident Shows – 192 total posts, 24 group average, 2.4 average per show.
- Big Top Touring Shows – 424 total posts, 70.67 group average, 7.07 average per show.
- Arena Touring Shows – 302 total posts, 75.50 group average, 7.55 average per show.
Breaking down the numbers, we find that Resident shows post half as much as Big Top shows and Arena shows post 30% more than Big Top. The touring pattern is a large factor why; Arena shows visit a new city every week so need to produce content applicable to the latest local market more frequently (which also explains the frequent posting of load-in pictures). Big Top shows nest in a city for six weeks or so at a time so have less need for frequent content. Resident shows don’t tour so they have even less opportunity for content.
KÀ, La Nouba, Zumanity (which due to its mature nature finds it harder to create content for a family-friendly web) and Believe post on average less than twice per month. (Though it needs to be mentioned that since the artist death last Spring, KÀ has been silent, not posting anything since July. Before that, it had kept to an average of 2.3 posts per month. If it had gone back to that average in August, it would bring the show right into the middle of the pack of resident shows in terms of total Facebook postings. As it is, we have heard nothing from the page in five months.) The Big Top shows mostly keep to the average of 5-6 per month (except Totem which way overachieves at 15). And the Arena shows come in at an average of 8 per month (except Quidam which underperforms at an average of 3). The Cirque du Soleil corporate Facebook page is also busy, though it frequently reposts interesting things from other shows pages.
If we recalculate the averages to not include the one show in each category that either out- or under-performs the others, we come up with this:
By Type of Show:
- Resident Shows – 147 total posts, 18.4 group average, 1.8 average per show. (Michael Jackson ONE removed)
- Big Top Touring Shows – 270 total posts, 54 group average, 5.4 average per show. (Totem removed)
- Arena Touring Shows – 271 total posts, 90.3 group average, 9 average per show. (Quidam removed)
Now the posting disparity is starker. Here Resident shows post one-third (not one-half) as much as Big Top Shows and Arena shows post almost double Big Top shows (not 30% more). Quite a difference!
When we mentioned our findings to Mr. Levey, (as first quoted in our interview) he replied, “It’s a tough balance and we don’t think there’s a perfect equilibrium. They’re different situations. With the touring shows, if it’s an arena show you’re in a different city every week. So [in order] to be relevant you really have to post a lot. You want to tell people – ‘hey you know what we’re in Brazil now’, or ‘we’re in Minnesota now.’ With the resident shows there isn’t that traveling activity so sometimes there’s not a lot of news. And honestly sometimes there’s nothing to update.”
“And sometimes there’s content that is repurposed or we find that we just posted [something similar] a month ago and people are going to know. [It’s] something that we’re trying to figure out because we know that there’s that discrepancy between shows that post 2 to 3 times a week versus some shows where you don’t have any updates.”
It will be interesting to see if Varekai’s postings become more frequent with its conversion to an Arena format. And how will the new KURIOS show perform? We’ll have to wait and see.
