That boy from Ipanema? Maybe!
Social media is more valuable than Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, or at least that’s what Wall Street says. The people love to stare at each other’s pics and read each other’s witty comments!
Last week, our wonderful friends at empireave.com dug into the stats and did an amazingly exhaustive study looking specifically at the Instagram numbers of the surf brands. Not just which is biggest but which has the greatest engagement, which posts the most, which posts get the most likes etc. It’s sabermetrics for the rest of us!
The results? Read them HERE! But basically, Quiksilver, Billabong and Those Mad Hueys did very well. You love!
This week, our wonderful friends turned their computer skills toward the professional surfers themselves. Who is your favorite? Let’s throw it over to Lincoln and see!
Gabby topped out at 47million likes with JOB coming in second, but way back with 13m. From there it’s a run of Slater, Mick and Julian all playing around the 6/7mill mark.
Interesting to see the type of imagery that’s winning here too. For Gabby there wasn’t one action shot of surfing. It was more family, winning and lifestyle with the world title shot taking home the honors. Whereas with JOB all of his shots are based around the ocean in way or another, he’s just playing on humour a lot more to get his double taps.
The fact that Slater, Mick and Julian all came in behind JOB is interesting. On paper they’re either in front or on pace with him in total followers, but JOB pretty much doubled them in total likes. That’s huge, but you’ll have to take into consideration that JOB threw up double, sometimes triple the amount of posts that the others did. Quantity vs quality vs popularity..
Was a little surprising to see Taj not even crack a million, coming in with just under 800k. Also surprising was seeing Shane Dorian shoot up the board with a very nice 2mil hits. Can’t not give him love, surely? Every post is winner in my eyes… (especially the ones borrowed from BeachGrit!)
But what about cold, hard numbers? Gabby again and in a landslide! His personal Instagram account is four times bigger than the largest surf brand’s. You love the boy from Ipanema! You can’t get enough!
BUT!
Who get’s the most engagement per follower?
It’s JOB! Jamie O! The longtime social champ keeps that ball rolling and good on him!
Go here for more facts, figs, and fun!
And I be out here trying to keep insulting shit classy…
Pfft don’t worry about it. That’s Negs job.
You’re only allowed to insult your own mum here Wigg…. All these rules….
I feel like I was insulting Pyzel not Mom John…. her ‘fulfillment’ is important to me. I apologise for crossing the line again Negs.
(PS regarding my Mums. She will probably be more offended than Mom John but who cares right?)
im saving my best insty shit till #clichemay
I wonder if Ryan Burch gives a shit about likes, comments and endorsing energy drinks…
He didn’t even used to write captions to his posts.
That was rigged!!! IG conspiracy!!! I demand a recount!!! JOB shoulda won it by a mile! Maybe if Gabby posted a video of himself charging Chopes holding his flaming cat with the a title reading “World Champ shaves pussy w/ FIRE inside giant Teahupoo keg (brought to you by Gillette)”… then he would have deserved this win!
Seriously, the only thing in surfing that is more boring than surf contests, is competitive surf Instagraming. I can’t even honestly get worked up and say casually racist things about this result.
Since you guys are hurting for any content, why not go after, and tell the best stories in surfing?
Yes, we know Dez bent Chas over the sink on the Mick Fanning brother article (never mind there are a zillion comparisons to real sports journalism and Chas was right and Dez was just choking on his own chest hair).
How about this:
1. Interview Grubby Clark. Last anyone checked, he’d be the very best person to talk to about the true audience of surfing. Kelly says something like 60 billion people surf. Other sites say a few million. Grubs sold ALL the foam for decades.
2. Interview Michael Tomson. Last anyone checked, he has the only story that would make for an interesting screen play/ movie / book that could cross all sorts of genres. And he’d be happy to do it for a few sniffs.
3. Interview Eddie Rothman. For real. Not pretend. He’s smarter than Slater (not hard) and has an overarching point that will make everyone who failed to take him seriously look like the typical Surf Media InertiaLite writer.
Yes.
That’s all this place is. Inertia with a few bad words and a tit here and there. If we’re being generous.
Step up your game Chas. Don’t let Dez water you down with his talentless bullshit.
truer words never spoken i want to read real shit, not ok magazinetoilet paper.
i’ll do anything for a few sniffs.
Nail. Hammer. Bang.
Beth Hamilton is the most famous surfer in the world. She is also the most talented, most compelling, inspirational and likely the most intelligent surfer.
But more analysis of Brad Dumpkeister riding a lid at Jaws. Please.
Sigh, I guess you missed the 2 Beth articles last week…
So did everyone else. You have to work pretty hard to make her boring and drag your hits down.
Yeah you really gotta hand it to Beth… opps
Do you think it’s written into contracts theses days for surfers like Mason Ho that you have to do a certain amount of post per week? It’s also a great bargaining tool for the surfers if they are getting a shit load of engagement from instagram.
What would be really interesting is the comparison of sponsor-purchased likes vs actual human likes.
Only a few people know how to use Instagram properly.
1. You buy 10K or more followers.
2. You post heaps of stolen photos to make it look legit.
3. Without authorisation you post e.g. “Thanks QUIK for the new boardies!” (Quiksilver will be thinking “what the fuck?” but Billabong will be thinking “hey I should send these guys free boardies too”.
4. Receive DM “Hey could you please give us a shout out on your Instagram”
5. Reply to DM “Hi #### of course! We have a standard fee of $250 per post or $40 per like, please transfer $ to #### account”, or alternatively “we would love to, but we only promote products that we use”.
6. Reap all the benefits of fraud.
(*This by no means reflects the livelihood of Wigg’s over the last three years)
You’re over paying at $250 for a post.
There’s kids with big, real followings that will post whatever you want for $50 via paypal. Leads to sales.
Thanks I’ll reduce ‘my friends fraudulent Instagram’s” fee. You’d be surprised what people pay though.
It would be interesting to see the locations these likes come from e.g. Gabby got 47,699,995 likes from Brazil and 5 from the rest of the world.
I’d bet money that much of Latin America favors Brazil over USA/AUS in surfing, just like in football, MMA, boxing, tennis, etc.
‘Latin America” just didn’t have the same dramatic effect but I agree.
I’ve been meaning to ask: what adjectives would you ascribe to Wig’s paddling style? Does he get it from his mother’s broad shoulders (and…well, have you seen her)?
How to demonstrate Wigg’s Paddling Style.
First, grab a LEGO® man or woman (any color or clothing item will do!). Place the LEGO® man in the prone position, lying flat on a narrow piece of LEGO® or any household item that is narrow enough for the LEGO® man or woman to rotate his/her/its arms.
Now, rotate the LEGO® man or woman’s face so that his/her/its eyes are looking directly at one of his/her/it’s arms. Rotate each arm ferociously in turn while kicking each leg up and down.
Now here is where it gets tricky. Most people familiar with surfing have a tendency to bend the LEGO® man or woman from the waist so that the LEGO® man or woman can see where it’s going. However, if you want to have true Wigg’s Steez® the body must remain completely flat. Now you’re ready to paddle like Wigg’s at your local break!
For more helpful tips like this one visit the Inertia.
Sorry got carried away. To answer your question. Is “Shit” an adjective in this sense? Na whats she like?
She big. As in “you owe it to yourself to find a visual” big.
I don’t like to judge people for this sort of thing but if anyone finds this please post here. I don’t want to be on my death bed wishing I’d seen this. For the record, if Wigg’s didn’t have the Rothman connection I’d be a fan.
Cheap comment on my behalf, guilty as charged. Sweet lady, met her in ’07 on the Gold Coast.
I reckon she is “burly” not “portly”. She looks like a strong lady. Look how happy the Prince of Ubatuba is in that photo. So sweet!
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
She would ruin Mom John in any sort of bellicose encounter.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Depends which internet cafe Charlie is visiting that week..
You could put gabs’ huge amount of followers down to the huge Brazillian population and their love for sports success on a global playing field. I’d love to see a stat on how many followers he picked up that year. Likes, are irrelevant I think – how many times do you see a post from some random and think its cool but not double tap? If your me, every day! It’s really interesting that there’s no correlation between the surfer and the brand they surf for in terms of popularity. Do these guys sell product anymore? Maybe not directly, but you can’t argue that having a guy like Dane on the team gave Quik huge credibility as a brand that derives its whole ethos from surfing.
Huge Brazilian population? Compared to the US, for instance?
read the second part of that sentence.
Fuck how long does it take for Charlie to manage his 46.5m accounts?
Interesting re Dane, Ando, Mason and Noa. Probably more anecdotal evidence none are worth what they’re paid.
Interesting dichotomy…Quik scored well but it’s top two surfers didn’t. Gabs scored high but Ripcurl didn’t. What does that mean? Damned if I know.