Student name: Claire Norton Student no: s4355177

Title: Game of Thrones Facebook Page Analysis

Introduction
The things we do for television. Game of Thrones, a fantasy-drama television series airing on
Sunday nights, has gained countless viewers and won many awards for its storytelling and
epic battles (HBO, 2017). This success has resulted in over 20 million people liking and
following the show’s Facebook page (Game of Thrones, 2017). Game of Thrones stays in the
public eye by frequently posting links, photos and videos of past, present and future seasons
on social media. Game of Thrones also uses its Facebook page to get in touch with fans and
hold competitions, which always gets public attention. Recently, Game of Thrones released
a new trailer. This broke many viewing records after just a 24-hour time period (Stolworthy,
2017). This quantitative analysis will study the public engagement of the Game of Thrones
Facebook page over the last six years and to find out when the best time to post is. It will
also study the popularity of the show’s trailer posts. This study will be addressed by using
data collected by Reaper. The data will then be analysed by using Microsoft to find out
whether or the length of the post, the time or day it was posted and the type of post all
affect engagement from the public.

Method
The Game of Thrones Facebook page was searched using Reaper and 2043 posts were
found and collected (Smith, 2017). The search included what type of posts they were,
the time they were created and how much public engagement each post had. This
would give an insight to how popular each post is and why. Public engagement was
measured by the amount of likes, comments, shares and reactions to posts. These
were chosen because it shows how people were responding to the posts the page
made. These posts also ranged from when the page was created in 2011, to May 2017.
Therefore, all of the posts that page had ever created were collected for analysis. This
was done because in order to get a full glimpse into what the public engagement was
over time. The data was then scraped and cleaned, then opened using Microsoft Excel.
Several calculations including the sum, average and median were found. Excel was also
used to find out calculations like which day of the week, type of post, hour, had the
most likes, reactions and overall public engagement. This was done to gain an insight
into The release dates of each trailer was found using the lookup function on Excel.

Results
The results show that Game of Thrones has a widely popular Facebook page with having an
average, of 21,548 likes, comments, shares and reactions on each post in appendix 1.
Student name: Claire Norton Student no: s4355177

Average of Public Engagement

110000 106875 107116
Average total of Public Engagement

100000

90000

80000

70000
61276
60000

50000
40651
40000

30000
Video Photo Link Status
Type of Post

(Figure 1: Bar graph of the average of public engagement for each type of post)

It was found that Game of Thrones receives more public engagement from posting photos.
However, links and status updates seem to lack in this area.

Hours vs Average of Likes

140000

120000 123,375
Average Number of Likes

100000

80000

60000

40000

20000

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Hours in the Day

(Figure 2: Line graph of hours in the day versus the average of likes)

This graph shows, 3 am UTC time is noticeably more popular with having an average of
123375 likes. However, the television show does not seem post on Facebook at 6, 9 and 11
am as the graph shows these hours have an average of zero likes.
Student name: Claire Norton Student no: s4355177

Days vs Average of Total Public Engagment

95000
92444.55752
91113.44944
Avearge of Total Public Engagement

90000 88195.51136

85000 83229
81895.81742

80000 78414.69419

74427.79522
75000

70000
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
Days of the Week

(Figure 3: Bar graph of the most popular days to post)

The most popular day for publishing posts is on a Wednesday. Whereas, the public seem to
not engage well with Tuesday. The table in appendix 1 shows that even though Tuesday is
the least popular, Saturday has less posts. So overall the best time for Game of Thrones to
post is on a Wednesday at 3 AM.

Trailer vs Total Public Engagement

Total Number of Likes, Shares, Reactions &

2500000
2310344

2000000
Comments

1500000 1510318

1000000
797785

500000
416314
204186
72485
0 1201
Trailer 1 Trailer 2 Trailer 3 Trailer 4 Trailer 5 Trailer 6 Trailer 7
Trailer

(Figure 4: Line graph of the trailer versus total public engagement)

This chart shows how the rate of public engagement over the release of each trailer. There is
a steady incline from trailer 1 to trailer 4. Whereas it declines for trailer 5, then picks up for
Student name: Claire Norton Student no: s4355177

trailer 6.

Discussion
The data shows that posting photos at 3 am UTC time on a Wednesday is the best way to
receive the most public engagement. This being said, when calculating which hour receives
most likes, each country has a different time zone and can collect posts for a lengthy amount
of time. The best day for Game of Thrones to post on Facebook is Wednesday as it has the
most people liking, sharing, reacting and commenting. Whereas the worst day to post is on a
Tuesday, as it shown to have the least engagement from the public. However, there are less
posts published on a Saturday so it is interesting to see that even though Tuesday has more
posts, it has the lowest rate of public engagement. It is also interesting to see that even
though Game of Thrones airs on a Sunday, followed by a trailer for the next episode, that
Sunday isn’t the most popular day. If the Facebook page were to promote their Tuesday
posts, they may receive more public engagement. It is not surprising that photos are most
popular amongst the public as they posted more frequently by the page. It is also easier to
engage with a video since it instantly gives you its message unlike a video or link. However,
videos still remain more popular than links and status updates since Game of Throne’s videos
usually give a tease about an upcoming episode or show the best clips from the current
episode. Every trailer seems to gain an increasing amount of public attention each time a new
one is posted on Facebook. The first trailer has the least amount because it was the first post
on the page and therefore would have the least likes, as not many people would have liked
the page at this stage. There is a significant decrease of public engagement for the fifth
trailer. Since the trailer was posted on a Wednesday, which was stated before, it should have
received more public attention. There are a few limitations in this analysis. For instance,
public engagement is unpredictable and so it is difficult to exactly pinpoint what the public
will react to. Another limitation is that it is unknown how many likes the page had at a
specific time and therefore would be a factor into why certain areas received more public
attention.

References
Game of Thrones. (2017). Game of Thrones. Retrieved from Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GameOfThrones/?fref=ts

HBO. (2017). Game of Thrones. Retrieved from HBO: http://www.hbo.com/game-of-

thrones/about/index.html

Smith, A. (2017). Reaper [Computer Software]. Retrieved from:

https://github.com/ScripSmith/reaper

Stolworthy, J. (2017). Game of Thrones season 7 trailer breaks viewing record after just 24 hours.
Retrieved from Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-7-trailer-breaks-record-hbo-release-date-
trailer-a7756576.html
Student name: Claire Norton Student no: s4355177

Appendix

Appendix 1: Table of Findings

Public Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesda Thursday Friday Saturday

Engagement Posts Posts Posts y Posts Posts Posts Posts
Sum 2310344 178 374 293 339 356 327 176
Average 21548