Burning September: Content Review of Eight CIS Organizations

Every day, eSports organizations post dozens of posts at various venues. Who does this cool and effective, and who is not? Let’s look at the example of the social network “VKontakte”.

September is one of the most interesting months in the e-sports field. In such popular disciplines as Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, a transfer window opens, which promises big changes in the composition of eSports clubs. September really burned this offseason: ending the CS: GO legend career Danila Zeus Teslenkomoving Novel RAMZEs Kushnaryova overseas reorganization Virtus.pro and Gambit esports.

In addition to quite loud and unexpected transfers, this month was a sad event: Vega Squadron announced financial difficulties and the suspension of activities in Dota 2 and CS: GO for an indefinite period:

The financial crisis does not spare anyone and eSports is no exception. It’s sad enough to realize that clubs with a history like Vega Squadron can disappear in no time. It remains only to keep fists and believe that the “sharks” can overcome all financial difficulties.

Audiences of organizations in September

Our regiment arrived: the G-7 is expanding to the G-8 and now eight cyber-sports clubs from the CIS will be analyzed: Natus vincere, Virtus.pro, Winstrike team, Gambit esports, Team empire, Team spirit, Vega Squadron andforZe. Content will be evaluated as part of the VKontakte social network.

September came out quite abundant on transfer events and I don’t see any reason to list them. It is worth noting that a little less than half of the clubs from the list in question did not make any replacements: Team Empire, Vega Squadron and forZe.

Over the past month, only Natus Vincere and Team Empire managed to attract a new audience to their publics. All other clubs, compared with August, have lost subscribers. It is worth noting that Gambit Esports, forZe and Virtus.pro sank slightly: -0.002%, -0.03% and -0.02% in relative terms, respectively.

But Vega Squadron, Team Spirit and Winstrike Team have been losing their audience for the fourth month in a row, which is primarily associated with sports success, or rather in their absence.

Most likely, such a significant increase in the audience of “born to win” by 2.05% is associated with changes in the composition of CS: GO. Moreover, the matter is no longer in the arrival of the Slovak Ladislava GuardiaN Kovacs, and in the departure of Danila Zeus Teslenko from the professional scene. Such a major event in the world of e-sports, few people ignored and, as a result, a total of 13,245 new subscribers. The relative success of the new roster at the past also plays a role. DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019, where the “born to win” were able to take 4th place.

Team Empire was able to increase the number of subscribers by 1.24% due to the introduction of branded sets in Rainbow Six Siege, where the “Imperials” continue to dominate successfully.

The newcomer to the review in the person of forZe slightly lost the audience, which looks rather strange, given the way to the finals at the tournament BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019.

Activity of organizations in September

September was relatively calm, especially considering the fact that half of the teams analyzed did not make any replacements. There were practically no tournaments in September. Thus, the activity of e-sports clubs over the past month amounted to:

But an interesting story came out with the number of publications: all the teams analyzed made fewer publications in September than in August.

The degree of memes in Team Empire dropped significantly, apparently the full-time SMM-box was sent on a well-deserved vacation. As a result, the Imperials made 48.53% less publications than last month.

Team Spirit, forZe and Natus Vincere have a decrease in activity within the margin of error: -1.84%, -3.86% and -2.5%, respectively. Absolutely not critical.

Content managers Virtus.pro, Winstrike Team and Gambit Esports slowed the pace a little more: -11.76%, -16.11% and -21.24% respectively. According to the events, the calendar for the teams turned out to be less saturated than last month, so a decrease in performance can also be forgiven.

And here Vega Squadron’s problems begin to appear: a decrease in the number of publications by 66.36%! From a fairly wide arsenal of disciplines, the “sharks” left only the composition of the League of Legends, which generally affects the activity of the public. At some point, I even thought that Vega was all – for too long there were no publications in the group. But everything worked out and so far the “sharks” remain afloat.

Publication Performance

The number of publications does not mean their quality. The quality of publications can be assessed using the engagement rate (ER), which is calculated as the ratio of all activities (likes, comments, reposts) to the number of views of the record. The higher the ER value, the more interesting the laid out content for the audience.

But with the involvement of Vega Squadron, by tradition, everything is fine: the third place in ER among eight teams. The composition of the League of Legends sharks was so popular with the audience that involvement in relative terms increased by 30% compared with August.

In general, the situation with ER teams is stable, plus or minus, changes from the previous month are not particularly critical, except, perhaps, Virtus.pro, which lost 0.38% ER in September. But this is understandable: in August there was a lot of content from The International, including video content, which collected fairly solid statistics. In September, “the bears did not have such an abundance of events that August gave us, and as a result, the drawdown by ER.

I was surprised by the newcomer of the analysis in the person of forZe, who displaced the sole leader of the previous three months – Team Empire by this indicator. It should be noted that the content of these two teams is quite different: if the Empire is dominated by memes in the public, and I recall that on average memes gain ER 2 times higher than for all other publications, then in the public forZe there are practically no memes. What is the secret of such a large involvement, is that a cheat? Not at all. Forza is dominated by the so-called “activity check” posts, when subscribers are asked a discussion question.

Due to this, a lot of comments are being gathered, and the forZe SMM-box makes such publications for a reason: thanks to such posts, subscribers will get to know their idols better, understand the intricacies of game mechanics. The concentration of posts in the style: “Which card do you like most?” approaching zero, and I have not seen anything like this in eSports publics. This is really cool. Also, do not discount the success of forZe at the September BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019, which also contributed to the statistics of publications.

Post Views

You can do it as if on a publication conveyor, have crazy engagement rates, but nobody will care about it without views.

Traditionally, two media giants in the person of Virtus.pro and Natus Vincere are fighting for the first place in viewings, where the Bears win in September, even despite a drawdown of 13.88%.

In this month, which was not rich in sporting events, only the “born to win” managed to increase the statistics of views due to changes in the composition of teams.

The drawdown in views of the Winstrike Team is due to the lack of new releases of the brilliant show “Bright Boom”, which perfectly entered the community.

Vega Squadron’s very modest view rate is associated with low activity in the past month.

All other teams slipped through the views because of the calm in the schedule.

Review Summary

● September was not rich in e-sports events and, as a result, statistics compared to August fell slightly

● Despite all the difficulties, Vega Squadron manages to collect just crazy statistics. You can’t just let such a team leave the face of the eSports scene.

● The forZe SMM box is OK. I would even say in full

By tradition, 5 facts for dessert:

Like, leave comments and subscribe to my twitter if I read the article to the end.