Last week I took a deep dive into how E! News engages their followers through videos, witty captions, and gossip worthy content. This past week I decided it’d be pretty interesting to take a look at how one of E! News biggest competitors, TMZ engages with their followers. Is the experience similar or different than that I had with E! News. TMZ is known for having the juiciest news and usually is the first to know about the latest chatter.
Post Mania
Not only is TMZ known for getting the dirtiest of dirt on celebrities and other important entertainment figures, they are known for being unfiltered. Much like E! News, TMZ is extremely present on Twitter. They post anywhere from 50 to over a 100 times within 24 hours. This is almost twice as much as E! News depending on the day. It only makes sense that TMZ would overload its followers and viewers with content on the latest gossip. I didn’t find this surprising because they are an entertainment news outlet and although they are competitors with E! News, they often find themselves exposing people poorly and unprofessionally more often than E! News does. For example, E! News seems to keep their content more PG. It won’t surprise some of you that E! News is considered a little bit more creditable than TMZ by the comments people leave on majority of their posts.
Make Room for the Haters
As mentioned, TMZ posts anywhere from 70 to over 100 times a day. This leaves room for trolls and other negative people to weasel in their opinions on not only the content but who is providing the content. This is much more than their counter part, E! News. Again, much like E! News, TMZ talks mostly about click worthy or gossip rich content. Their captions are pretty straight forward and are clear on what their message is. Because TMZ tends to be a little more open with their content (unfiltered) compared to E! News, they generate a lot of negative comments and hateful remarks on their posts. Speaking of captions, their captions do not seem as as meticulously grammatically correct compared to E! News. TMZ often has run on sentences and makes their news articles resemble that of a scam or fake news.
Fake News
With that being said, TMZ also finds themselves promoting fake news much more often than E! News. The two both post about controversial topics and gossip worthy content. However, TMZ is known for not fact checking or making sure their content is credible. This is something I have noticed E! News has done a fantastic job of double checking. If news is posted to E! News, it is pretty much solid.
Best Practices
According to Sprout Social TMZ, much like E! News, also lacks the amount of video being shown. If TMZ was more conscious about this kind of thing they might have a higher level of engagement, especially on story that might not be as click worthy or gossip heavy. According to Bonfire Marketing, caption length is extremely important when looking at social media presence and follower engagement. Keeping it short and simple is the way to go. TMZ tends to make their captions longer and wordier than E! News. This can prove to be a problem because readers stop reading before they are even aware of what the story may be about. However, they still do a pretty good job of keeping it brief and concise.
Overall, TMZ does lack in areas that E! News flourishes. This can be seen with credibility and follower loyalty. E! News definitely appears to have much more credibility than TMZ by the comments that are being left and it’s only fair to understand why. TMZ tends to be a little more unfiltered with their content and lets face it, some people can be a little sensitive. TMZ also overloads viewers with content and most likely lose followers because of it. This could also effect their ability to have their content seen at all, especially the important posts because people are tired of scrolling – I know I am. Comment below and let me know what you think. Is TMZ too much to handle sometimes? Is E! News more credible in your eyes? Join me next week to take a deeper look into what people are really saying about E! News and TMZ.
Annie Posillico 
Good points! When I see that much content on Twitter from a brand or publication, I unfollow.
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Great post, I really enjoyed all your points. 50 to 100 posts a day is total overload! I would not be able to keep up. It seems like E! News does a lot better of a job at picking and choosing what to share. Which in turn, definitely boosts their credibility and overall engagement. I also liked your point about how E! News seems to post less gossip rich/ troll bait/ fake news than TMZ, could be the reason why E! News has more than double the followers than TMZ!
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Great post! I’d choose E! News over TMZ any day of the week!
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Analysis on point! I don’t want any of my feeds saturated with TMZ posts. It makes their outreach seem desperate – the amount over quality. If TMZ wants to get to E! News level, they’re gonna need to go back to the drawing boards and rethink their social media strategies.
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great take on comparing the two! Your writing shows personality and makes reading this post easy and fun and its an interesting topic at that!
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Great points on TMZ and E! Seeing a rampage of tweets from companies is already annoying. On top of that, no one wants to see negativity. I would definitely unfollow. Like you said, TMZ should focus on their important content that is more relevant to their followers. Overall, you did a good job comparing the two media networks.
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No one likes fake news! TMZ really does need to change their game. I really loved the set up of this article, you made it easy to read and your language was very enticing! I fully enjoyed this!
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Great post! I didn’t realize how bad TMZ sucks! I would definitely unfollow them and pay more attention to E’s better social media presence.
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