Disney - Social Media Monitoring Project 1

Disney's Story 

Disney Studios has been the foundation of the Walt Disney and Company for over its 90 years history. It all started when Mr. Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney decided to come to California  from their hometown in Kansas with a short film they made called Alice's Wonderland. In October 16th, 1923 a New York distributor M. J Winkler contracted to release the Alice comedies making that day the official starting point for Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. The Alice comedies ran for four years before Mr. Disney decided to try an all cartoon series called, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.



The Disney’s most beloved character Mickey came to fame in 1928 with the release of Steamboat Willie in November 18th. Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the walk of fame. Success upon success Disney Studios soon became a household name in family entertainment. Not only on the TV screens and movie theaters, but also as a magical place called Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Even today Disney magic hasn't failed  to dazzle us with stories like Pirates of the Caribbean, Toy Story. Though the Company has expanded quite a bit since 1923. Today, Disney's mission is to become one of the world's leading providers of entertainment and information though its verity of media channels, interactive platforms and movie studios.Walt Disney and Company divides into five main business  segments;                                                                                                                                     

Studio Entertainment

Consumer Products

Parks and Resorts

Media Networkds

Disney Interactive

                                                                                                              

Disney Social Media Strategy

Disney social media strategy is focused on (discounting social media accounts from ABC, ESPN and Marvel) 469 Facebook pages, 116 YouTube channels, and 78 Twitter accounts mostly dedicated to Disney's beloved characters like Disney Princesses, Jack Sparrow, Big Baby from Toy Story. Disney Facebook account lone has 46 million "Likes" and Disney Twitter handle @Disney has 3.5 million followers as of now. Its fair to say Disney's track record deserves a  "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious " rating.

Amanda Grant, the Director for Disney Interactive shared some of the Disney social media magic on an interview with Digiday. Their main goal is to "reach families and Disney enthusiasts and share content that our guests are compelled to talk about and share".  Also, instead of simply promoting a product they infuse personality to the social media accounts. For example, @DisneyMemories is a Twitter handle created by giving each of the Parks a personality and asking, "if Disneyland and Walt Disney World could speak, what would they say?"

Saving Mr. Banks Social Media 

I decided to narrow down  my social media monitoring project into one particular movie, Saving Mr. Banks. The movie is unique to the Disney Studios in many ways. First, the story revolves on the making of Mary Poppins, the crowning jewel of Disney Studios. Second,  it is focused on Walt Disney, the founder of the Disney studios. Finally, the movie strays beyond the Studios' regular slate of movies that centered on family entertainment to cater an adult audience in the drama/comedy category.   

The Studio mainly used Facebook and Pinterest social mediums to promote and connect the movie with the groundswell. The movie also has a website and most video promotions such as trailer releases and video content releases were made on the Disney movie trailers Youtube channel.

 Website

The website is made to be very interactive with the movie's sound track playing in the background and number of automatic carousel elements included in the website design. The content of the website strongly establishes ethos, pathos and logos. First, the home page creates movie's credibility by prominently displaying reviews, and award nominations. Second, it connects with audience using pathos by using Micky and Mary Poppins in the main poster.  

Facebook

According to the Facebook Insights, the movie's page is most popular among  34 - 44 age group and has accumulated over Two hundred and fifty thousand Facebook "Likes" as of first week of March. In the week of the official movie DVD release announcement, Facebook engagement peaked nearly 200% compared to the following week.

I was curious as to what drives people to interaction with the Saving Mr. Banks Facebook page. Specifically, how amount of interaction changed type of post content that the marketing team post on the movie's Facebook page.

Post with a Quotation

I analyzing 119 Facebook posts made between September 2012 through February 2014 by content type. First, the posts were categorized into six segments;
Links to  articles, reviews --> Article links
behind the scenes and  featurette videos --> Other videos
photos of promotion events --> Photos
post that with quotations --> Quoted Posts
Trailer posts --> Trailer
Other posts --> Posts

Second, the median was calculated for the above six segment by the interaction options offered through Facebook; Shares, comments, Likes.

It is clear  most people interacted through the Like option possibly because the "Like" does not display on their timeline. Comments were the least utilized interaction feature regardless of the content type. Trailers has the highest amount of interactions (shares, comments, likes). Out of all the segments, trailers generating over three times more interaction than any other type of posts. Video contents, trailers and other videos are responsible for over 60% of the interactions made with the Facebook page.

Pinterest

The official Saving Mr. Banks Pinterest board has 121 pins and over 16, 823 followers as of first week of March. Following chart analyze 103 pins by first diving them into three segments; pins with a quotation, regular pins and a pint with a trailer video attached Second, the median was calculated for each interaction options offered through Pinterest; comments, Likes and Repins.

Pin that generated highest interaction

                                                   

Pin that generated the least amount of interaction

Over 60% of the interactions by every segment came as repins. Quotes from the movie clearly generated the most interaction while trailers related content generated the least amount of interaction. This is a complete opposite of the Facebook interaction data and a perfect display of how people use the two social interaction mediums differently.

The pin that generated the most interaction quotes a line from the trailer, which might have resonated with people resulting more Repins and Likes. On the other hand the pin that generated the least amount of interactions stresses the movie has holiday spirit, though after watching the movie I think the description does not quite capture what the movie was about.

Youtube Trailer Release

Source: YouTube Stats

The official Youtube trailer release on July 12th  by Disney Movie Trailers channel drove nearly 500,000 views before August. etcML sentiment analysis on 402 Youtube comments  for the official trailer release shows that people were in general excited for the movie. Negative comments were not as accurately recognized by etcML sentiment analysis. Though most of them have similar pattern as the following comments; either the trailer reveal too much of the movie, or the movie is not realistic, factually accurate.

The last comment by DeepThought42 is an example of how the vast reach of Disney trickle down to a Disney movie when the A&E Duck Dynasty star was "suspended due to controversial remarks".

Saving Mr. Banks on Twitter

Disney Studios does not have an official movie twitter handle so the handle @SavingMrBanks was taken by as a fan-run account. However, @DisneyPictures  has created a hashtag #SavingMrBanks. The sentiment analysis on the hashtage filter out the following positive Tweets.

Other Social Media Reaction for Movie Reviews

There are number of websites and YouTube channels that are dedicated to movies and movie reviews by average movie goers. IMBD.com, the 28th most popular site in U.S according to alexa.com ranking is the best example for true groundswell for movie reviews. The site also offers further demographics details in comparison to an average internet user. IMBD users are mostly college graduates or people with some college education mostly using the site from home or school compared to an average internet user.
     

IMDB.com Demographic Compared to Avg. Internet User Source: Alexa.com

Saving Mr. Banks scored 7.7/10 ranking on IMBD based on 37,677 user reviews, while the movie critics' review aggregate, RottenTomatoes shows 220 movie critics averaged 7/10 rating.

Conclusion

Overall Saving Mr. Banks had a positive social media reaction. It is also mirrored in the Academy award and Golden Globe award nominations and estimated over 100 million earnings the movie generate so far. Social media can be an effective marketing tool for movies and at the same time a very effective tool to evaluate a movie's potential performance.