Now you can Measure Artist Online Popularity

First it was airplay and sales charts, then came downloads and streaming, and now artists are being ranked according to their social media status.

The Music Network has launched the industry’s first social charts. And we have the Top Ten for you.

You’ll now have the  ability to track artists’ popularity, based on their ranking across the world’s leading social media channels. The two new weekly charts will rank the Top 50 local and Top 50 international musicians, according to 40+ weighted engagement events across website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.  

The Music Network’s publisher Mark Dalgleish told Radio Today:  “Today’s music fans and listeners are predominantly online and we need to reflect that. Social media is a valid indicator of an artist’s popularity and engagement, so it deserves to be recognised along with airplay, sales, digital and streaming result”.

Justin Bieber sits pretty at the top of the TMN International Social Media 50 this week.

Moving up from last week’s #2, Bieber has seen an overall engagement rate of 2.3% this week, almost doubling the average for all other artists in the chart.

This is no doubt a result of his long awaited single Sorry, the follow-up to his record breaking trackWhat Do You Mean?, both of which are taken from his forthcoming album Purpose. Sorry achieved Most Added to Radio last week whilst also debuting incredibly high at #26 on the TMN Hot 100. What Do You Mean? is at #2 on the Hot 100 after six weeks at #1.

Instagram is leading in engagement this week, marking the highest average engaging channel for artists. The platform maintains a similar engagement rate in other categories including the fashion industry. Even though Instagram is leading in engagement, Bieber actually excels the most in YouTube engagement, currently sitting at #1 while holding #2 for Twitter and #3 for Instagram.

Following Taylor Swift’s move to #1 last week, largely propelled by her announcement that she will be playing the Nova Red Room, the pop artist moves down to #2 and marks the last of the notable movement in the Top 10.

Meek Mill sees a small move up to #26 from #28, as does Ellie Goulding at #27 from #29 and Imagine Dragons at #30 from #33. Major Lazer hits #36 from #40 and we could see them rise in coming weeks with the lead up to the Stereosonic music festival later this month.

Various artists have debuted in the Social Top 50 chart towards the lower end of the spectrum this week, including the likes of The Script at #44, Mark Ronson at #46 and metalcore act Bring Me The Horizon who debut at #49.

Bring Me The Horizon have an average engagement rate of 3.67%, an impressive feat given its more modest fan base than most of the artists on the BrandData chart and the alternative genre of the band’s music.

YouTube is proving to be the source of the band’s largest engaged audience, their latest music video accruing over 6.5 million views since uploading two months ago.Various high quality recordings of live performances and a live session with BBC Radio 1 have kept fans on the channel. The most recent of which is a compilation of footage at their recent performance at the House Of Vans, which has clocked over 152,000 views since being uploaded last week. Overall they’ve tracked 482,383 engages on YouTube in the last seven days.

Twitter proves to be their largest overall audience while Instagram also yields a high engagement rating of 14.48% – a considerable rating compared to most of the artists on the chart this week. This could also be attributed to the recent speculation on the similarity between Coldplay’s reported new album artwork and Bring Me The Horizon’s album cover for 2013’s Sempiternal.

We’ll have to wait and see if Bring Me The Horizon can maintain a position in the chart over the coming weeks or if they will drop out until it gets closer to the dates of Soundwave 2016, where the group are exclusively performing their only Australian tour dates. 

Click here to access the full Top 50 for both international and Australian artists.

BrandData charts are based on 41 weighted engagement events across 5 channels – website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube – any social media that accounts for more than 2.5% of the worlds traffic. For further details and charts on radio and streaming, visit www.branddata.com.

Click here to view all this week’s charts, including our HOT100 national airplay (by genre & state), iTunes, Spotify, Shazam, ARIA, AIR & AMRAP.