BVMI and GfK develop new category: “Best Interactive Act - German Artist"

The German Federal Music Industry Association (Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. (BVMI)) and GfK Entertainment have developed a new category for ECHO. This reflects the rapid development and growing strategic importance of social media for the artist-fan relationship paradigm as well as for the music industry as a whole. The “Best Interactive Act” will be awarded for the first time this year for the best social media performance by a German artist.

 “Social media has become essential in communication with fans. For music labels acting as partners to artists, it now plays a key role in positioning and marketing. It is therefore a relevant part of market development,” says Dr. Florian Drücke, CEO of the BVMI. “For this reason, these activities have their own award. Just as with musical performances, there is great variety in the way artists interact on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The ‘Best Interactive Act’ takes into account the many different aspects. In this segment, it can be viewed as a kind of seismograph for the artist-fan interaction paradigm.”

Dr. Mathias Giloth, Managing Director at GfK Entertainment: “Social media allows music artists to establish authentic, direct and immediate contact with their fans. In designing the assessment basis for the ‘Best Interactive Act’, it was important for us to represent the increasing relevance of this interaction channel, which has become a key component of artists’ 360 degree communications. The inaugural prize winner for this new category is still a closely guarded secret. Yet this much is known: They have delivered impressive performances across all platforms.”

In determining the “Best Interactive Act”, GfK Entertainment measured the number and increase in fans during the assessment period. In addition, the artist’s activities and the intensity of fan reactions were evaluated. This data was combined with music streaming data according to a specially developed algorithm. The reaction of fans is crucial in the process of rating the relevance of artist posts whether it be likes shares, retweets or comments.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and audio streaming platforms form the basis of GfK Entertainment’s ratings, in which the performances of the 200 most successful national artists in the official German album and single charts for the assessment period were analyzed.

The award ceremony will take place during the ECHO charity dinner on March 25, 2015.