EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony have always seemed to lead the way in terms of how music is marketed and which platforms work best for getting the artist’s music to the audiences, but it was only in the last few years that social media and the online digital revolution has led way for artists to take a lead in the game. But how are the major record labels coping in the world of social media? Are they fully utilizing its capabilities, or like many musicians are they still not fully convinced that social media is an optimum platform for music?

Well, the signs show that the probably are convinced of its power (all four majors are active users of Twitter and also run frequently updated blogs) but as the following statistics collected by The Musician’s Guide shows, only one record label is actually using Twitter well – EMI.

Twitter Followers

@Universal_Music are clearly in the lead with 43,000 followers, while EMI are a long way behind with just 4000 followers. However, this means nothing as quantity of Twitter followers does not reflect interaction or quality of those followers – for all we know all 43,000 of Universal’s followers could be bots or inactive Twitter accounts!

Number of retweets

Retweets are one of the best metrics on Twitter to work out how much your followers agree with or enjoy your tweets. Interestingly we found that EMI are by far in the lead with an average of 24 retweets per tweet! See what I mean about quality of followers now? :)

Number of clicks per link

As well as being a great branding opportunity and reputation management tool for the four major record labels, Twitter is also a way for them to refer visitors to their website and the websites of their artists. EMI are once again in the lead with an average of 197 clicks per link posted – which is not too bad when you consider they only have just over 4000 friends!

Conclusion

Based on these three metrics I would argue that EMI are using Twitter the most effectively by a long shot – but Twitter is not just about traffic, Retweets and followers, it’s also about interaction and reputation management – which are both areas that all four major record labels could improve on.