hahninator Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 With the release of each album, there are obvious highlights and peaks of interest such as the first single coming out, a tour announcement, the first show of the tour, an album leak, etc. On the flip side, when the band is in the studio writing an album, not much is going on with the online fanbase. We recently ran across some statistics from the past few years for the website. While our social media numbers have steadily increased since 2009, we noticed something peculiar about 2015. 2009: 35,243 Posts | 5,660,678 Views | New Registrations 616 (+ 732 from 2008) 2010: 71,485 Posts | 9,259,857 Views | New Registrations 873 2011: 30,148 Posts | 3,280,684 Views | New Registrations 323 2012: 26,253 Posts | 2,685,574 Views | New Registrations 694 2013: 28,278 Posts | 2,605,300 Views | New Registrations 528 2014: 32,779 Posts | 1,722,832 Views | New Registrations 852 2015: 18,976 Posts | 737,579 Views | New Registrations 433 Just glancing at the numbers, you'll immediately see one REALLY big year (2010) and another higher-than-normal year (2009). 2010's explanation is that it was the first studio album since 2007, and a highly anticipated album after the monstrous MTM world tour + New Divide release. Every single piece of news from the ATS era attracted quite a bit of attention. With 2009, the Summer Tour, New Divide, and the release of She Couldn't all brought a lot of visits to the site. 2012 and 2013 remained about the same during the Living Things album and world tour, even with Linkin Park taking MOST of the year off in 2013. Stone Temple Pilots ended up touring in fall 2013, but we can't count too much of that since the overall interest in the STP project was low amongst LP fans. 2014 was surprisingly lower than 2013, even with a full world tour starting and a release of The Hunting Party. Carnivores Tour was the biggest tour in years for Linkin Park but the year brought the lowest amount of visitors to our website in 6+ years. 2015 was even worse, bringing less than half of 2014. Linkin Park even played more shows in 2015 than 2013, a year that saw almost 2,000,000 MORE views to the site. And the Fort Minor comeback was also in 2015. So what could be the reason? Why the lack of interest? Obviously LPLive isn't the only place to get news about Linkin Park, but our site trends and visitor numbers tend to reflect the overall interest in the band by the online fanbase at the time. We don't have an answer for anyone here, we're just opening a discussion. For example, the band not rotating setlists on the world tour for The Hunting Party couldn't be a reason for people not visiting LPLive. Was the album less interesting to you as a fan than Living Things? Was it the band not playing much of THP live? Was it the world tour not visiting several large regions of the world? Or did the canceled tour play a part? Or was it none of these things?What do you think? Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yucker Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I think this is not related so much with the band. I'm seeing in the past couple of years a low activity in the forums that i visit regularly. Twitter and fb have a lot to say about that. The absence of news around LP's world probably count and i heard in my circle that the people interest in the new LP album is very low compared to other albums. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263805 Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygolfer Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) Personally, THP cycle just wasn't very interesting. The marketing wasn't good, and interaction between the band and fans just wasn't there like in the past. The band barely hyped the album up at all, and just sorta threw GATS out there, which didn't help cause it was a terrible choice for a single commercially. Although, it was a good choice for an introduction to the new album. The album just wasn't meant to be a huge album, and really that's the problem. Not many people are excited to hear a heavy rock album anymore. That ship sailed long ago, as it is evident in the interest and sales numbers. Moving forward, I hope the band decides to make things more interesting with the fans by coming up with something to build hype similar to the ATS era. The buildup in that cycle was so much fun to be a part of. Edited April 20, 2016 by crazygolfer Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263806 Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeysToTheLinkinPark Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I know that from my friends. I look at the Linkin Park's FB page and 64 friends like them too, but I know that only 3 of them bought THP and 2 went to a concert in Germany. There are definitely many fans who know one song and no one cares about news and the rest. It looked from concert to concert different. The show in cologne (16.000 people) was so much better than the show in Berlin 2015 (35.000 people), cause in cologne you could say "Look everybody here are hardcore fans, they like them, they watch out for news". In Berlin it was a huge crowd, where like 50 % were really into it. It feels like LP need diehard fans, who want every news about tours, new album etc. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263807 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mesck547 Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) As mentioned here, I feel like the marketing for THP wasn't very successful. Even though the band seemed very excited about the album, there was barely any promotion done prior to its release, both on their side and Warner Brothers'. I think the lack of music videos, THP album-related LPTV episodes, a proper lead single (with the whole disaggrement between them and the label about the lead single, and the way GATS was released, it didn't feel like there was a proper lead single for this album), and to some extent, the lack of THP songs at live shows, lead to a lack of interest from casual fans during the THP cycle. If you ask me, this is how they should've done it: April- Final Masquerade + music video May- Rebellion + music video May/June- Release GATS, UIG and Wastelands on iTunes June- Album release September- GATS music video (a proper one) January- UIG music video +Play 5 songs from THP at every show. Edited April 20, 2016 by Mesck547 Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263808 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonR24 Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I really think it's the social media takeover. Forums just aren't as crazy as they used to be. Also I think the hype for the last album was weak. I liked the idea of putting GATS out to the public out of nowhere, but after that there was really nothing to hype up people outside of the fanbase. Then the music video came out and it was a video game nobody cared about. I think the momentum died quickly. I recently got a new job and I have my autographed vinyl of The Hunting Party hanging in my office and people see it and go "Who is that?" I say Linkin Park and automatically they go "Aw crap I love them! They are one of my favorites! I jam In the End and Faint all the time." I'm like, well they must be fans of the first two records. So I ask if they have heard of The Hunting Party, and one time I literally got the answer, "Didn't they break up when the rapper went solo?' So I have the feeling they just don't have the appeal right now. So not many people venture out to Linkin Park sites to discuss something they aren't noticing. If LP wanted to get back into the limelight I think they could, but I really think they just do what they love rather than just appeal to a bazillion people. (Although I was surprised that Final Masquerade didn't shake up the billboard charts.) Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263809 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hahninator Posted April 20, 2016 Author Share Posted April 20, 2016 The album as a whole was underwhelming. The rock sound was good in the beginning and I still enjoy Keys, AFN, GATS, Rebellion, ALITS. Five quality tracks. Tossing in UIG and the interludes took away from it and the band didn't deliver that great start-to-finish product like they're capable of doing. For me, THP and LT are a bit subpar with their previous efforts. With MTM and ATS they delivered excellent back-to-back albums that were creative and stand the test of time. The last two I feel don't do that. And I guess a few of the other smaller things... the North American Tour getting cancelled and no mention of it ever again by the band to make it up when they had a significant portion of 2015 off AND Chester announces an STP tour directly after it...ouch. Lack of multiple sets on this tour probably took some interest away from the band by the online fans. I don't know how accurate it is to say that the dynamic is shifting to just social media from forums. We can easily get many viewers here per article we post, or way more if it's huge news. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263811 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coizu Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 Forums in general are getting less and less attention. Before the rise of social media forums where the place to gather people for a certain topic. Nowadays internet is mostly Facebook and other social media for a lot of people. It's one condensed space where they get everything they want: social interacting, updates about stuff they care about and funny cat pics. There is no need to create an account on multiple platforms just to follow a certain topic. For the lower numbers in regards of facebook follower I guess the reason is: people don't care about a random fansite they have no other connection with. So if the site is not growing the social media around it won't grow as well. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263812 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hahninator Posted April 20, 2016 Author Share Posted April 20, 2016 I agree with your statement but our Facebook followers have actually gone up more in the past 6-12 months than they have in years. Our social media is doing great. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263813 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coizu Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I agree with your statement but our Facebook followers have actually gone up more in the past 6-12 months than they have in years. Our social media is doing great. I guess that reinforces my first point. Just pretend my second paragraph is not there :-D Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263814 Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueSoul Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I don't know how accurate it is to say that the dynamic is shifting to just social media from forums. We can easily get many viewers here per article we post, or way more if it's huge news. You have to question how many of those views are attracted from people clicking links from social media, though. I find it hard to believe we'd get 3000+ views on any news post without posting a link for it on social media, maybe 1000 if we're lucky. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263815 Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygolfer Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) Linkin Park's social media has been doing great as well. Their Facebook stats are still pretty healthy. I really think it was just a case of terrible marketing, and lack of interest in THP's material overall. The sound of that album caters to such a small group of people, even within the fanbase. I really hope that they come up with a great strategy this time around in order to get the new album out there, and release a strong single that's both creative and has some commercial appeal. WFTE is a great example of a song containing the best of both worlds. Edited April 20, 2016 by crazygolfer Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263816 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpplus Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I think it's not something about LP or LPL. people attached to their phones these days and for a lot of them Internet = Instagram, Facebook, telegram and other places like this. I think an android app or ios app could help this situation. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263817 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coizu Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I think an android app or ios app could help this situation. What's the upside of having an extra app? I don't see any benefits while it increases the amount of workload the team has to handle. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263818 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLAME-XIII Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 coz ATS is the best album this views stats almost looks like a LP sales. now forums is for elite ppl only, all others in Instagram, Twitter, FB. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263820 Share on other sites More sharing options...
[AndOne] Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 I think the main reason for a bad 2015 is the canceled tour. It really killed the vibe. Everyone was excited, the tour was about to hit many places they haven't been to in many years or never been at all. It started off great and then it got canceled. Nothing was happening for months. Just weird festival shows were coming up and you could tell that people were generally pissed that the tour didn't get reschueduled. 2014 started off huge, I don't think the music is to blame here. The THP touring cycle was handled in a weird way, previous tours always had changes that made it exciting and the THP failed to do that a couple of times when it was long overdue. What's the upside of having an extra app? I don't see any benefits while it increases the amount of workload the team has to handle. Exactly. That's what the mobile version is for. It would only distract us from working on real site updates. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263821 Share on other sites More sharing options...
JozM Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 As a few people have mentioned I don't think it has anything to do with LP, people are just getting into other forms of social media. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263822 Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeysToTheLinkinPark Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 I really liked the ATS tour cycle. I think bringing back Project Revelation would be a great deal. Big tour next summer with tons of bands would be cool. And not only in USA also In Europa Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263825 Share on other sites More sharing options...
loulax07 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 It's interesting to see these statistics from someone like me who has been following the band since 2000. They have changed their style a bit over the years and have also "sold out" it seems in the eyes of some people. In my eyes, they've only adapted and changed musically and developed their business model which I can appreciate. Back in 2000 when I first started listening to them, I was graduating college so I was in a different state of mind and time period in my life. As they matured, I did as well (in some respects lol). Only until 2014 during the Carnivores Tour did I really get into them via collecting which was spurred by meeting them and being on side-stage at one show on Long Island. Then it got me thinking, I'm not getting any younger, why not get into them more. Then I started to appreciate not only their music, but their individual talents such as art. So I'm not going to say that only a true fan will stick and grow with them, b/c everyone is different. But for me, I've change along with them over the past 16 years. And it's something that I appreciate, understand and love. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263827 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedamian58c Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 I see a few reasons why the site got less visitors etc. particularly in 2015. 2014 doesn't seem as bad as you described, it actually seems pretty good, the only thing that was a decline in 2014 was the amount of views. The rest of the statistics looks very good, 852 new registrations, the second most the site ever had, and the most posts since 2010. Anyway here are the reasons I think 2015 was such a decline for the site: 1. The kind of known one, the forums are less and less popular 2. Geki left, which made less and less discussions on the forum. Geki and his opinions drew a lot of attention to the site, I remember myself posting a lot more when Geki was still a member of the forum. He did often have a different point of view than others, which made more room for the discussion. 3. There wasn't really that much happening on the forum that year, for people who aren't fans of GD (because that was awesome, but most of the GD fans were already members on the forum). 4. 2014 and years before that year, were huge for LP IMO, so I think that maybe the disappointment that 2015 didn't have so much to offer, caused the decline. How good is the forum doing so far? Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263831 Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinez Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 2. Geki left, which made less and less discussions on the forum. Geki and his opinions drew a lot of attention to the site, I remember myself posting a lot more when Geki was still a member of the forum. He did often have a different point of view than others, which made more room for the discussion. I 100% agree with that. There were the times when you could see in almost every news, posts for example like this: "What happened with Geki?", "where is Geki?", "Why Geki get banned?" I think that was helped and that's why there was less discussion in threads where users ask such questions. When you have nothing interesting to say and just ask about why user x did something in various threads for a hundred times, that can be very annoying. Then users who have really something interesting to say, they simply withdraw. Also at some point I was a little nervous when it happened in one of thread that I created. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263834 Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZLP-Benningstrong Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Bring Geki back and bring me back to the shoutbox it was so unfair that I got banned there. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-263845 Share on other sites More sharing options...
AParallelogramInTheSand Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 I mean, I don't think LP's done much that's worth more effort than checking what you guys post on FB. I'm also friends with some of y'all on there, so the likelihood of me seeing something LP related increases.On the other side, I've lived in four places in three states in the past year, among other big things. Following a band's activity isn't as important as it used to be for me. I still pop in here and there to lurk - will always love LPL - but until the next album starts getting hyped up, I'm kinda meh. Side note, I listened to all 6 albums in a row while driving across the country this past weekend. Rock on lol Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-264140 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mau Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 People in 2009 didn't have smartphones, so they used the PC to enter lplive, now, everybody has a smartphone and frankly, It's uncomfortable to enter lplive from a cellphone, I'm all for a Android app. Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-264838 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coizu Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 I'm all for a Android app. I ask this question for the millionth time and I still wait for an answer: what's the benefit of a native app? Quote Link to comment https://lplive.net/forums/topic/12217-2015-and-the-hunting-party-era/#findComment-264845 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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