Grammy Artists See Massive Online Engagement Boost
Data published by Musicmetric has revealed the surge in digital engagement received by Grammy winners this week.
Big winners Daft Punk gained over 46,200 new fans on social media on Monday - almost four times the average amount added daily the week before.
New Zealand pop starlet Lorde experienced a significant lift, adding more than 123,300 new fans, surpassing her average of 40,709 new fans per day last December.
Taylor Swift increased her total fanbase by in excess of 108,000 the next day – a 40% bigger increase than the average number of new fans recorded for the week earlier.
Following their spat with Grammy producers, Nine Inch Nails acquired over 7,500 new social media fans – almost double the average daily increase the previous week.
Speaking to BBC World Business Report this week, Jeremy Silver, executive chairman of Musicmetric owners Semetric, said: "The importance of knowing where artists are trending and where fans are being added is growing, as more and more advertising is focused around social media and more transactions take place online. The Grammys remain one of the world’s premium showcases of talent for the entertainment industry, so it’s natural that bands performing or winning will see an impact."
Gregory Mead, CEO and founder of Semetric, said: "Live events are increasingly turning to data to help plan concert schedules and produce festivals. Musicmetric’s data allows promoters and managers to identify the stand-out acts by seeing who’s trending and who’s outperforming the market. The core function of big data is to sit alongside the traditional music business and add a layer of evidence to decision-making that was not previously possible."
Reflecting public opinion?
People often question whether awards reflect genuine pubic sentiment, so Musicmetric’s team of data scientists examined how the nominees for the Best New Artist category had performed since the Grammy eligibility period began on October 1st 2012. Looking simply at the numbers of social media fans, audio and video plays and Bit Torrent downloads they gained, our results are pretty clear.
Table: Activity for artists nominated for Best New Act
Source: www.musicmetric.com
October 1, 2012 – January 23, 2014
Artist Plays Fans BitTorrent
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 1,021,000,000 10,630,000 1,400,000
Ed Sheeran 341,000,000 9,450,000 1,740,000
Kendrick Lamar 306,000,000 6,330,000 980,000
James Blake 32,000,000 700,000 480,000
Kacy Musgraves 12,000,000 270,000 80,000
Based on analysis of plays and social media fans added, the clear leader in fan popularity for Best New Artist was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. In a spectacular showing, this year’s winners of four Grammys gained over 1 billion online plays, and more social media fans than the rest of the nominees combined.
The only metric category which they hadn’t managed to dominate was Bit Torrent activity, coming a second to Ed Sheeran’s 1.7 million downloads since 1 October 2012. However, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis still reached a significant 1.4 million release downloads.
Digging a little deeper into the data yields some more positive points for the other nominated artists. Whilst untouchable in the total numbers, the rate of growth for both Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lamar has been outpacing Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for a good few months. So these artists have more momentum going into the awards than the total figures suggest.
Gregory Mead added "It would of course be fascinating to know how the judges ranked the nominees and to see just how far ahead Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were. Based on the data the online platforms don’t overlap – each having its own favorite. Facebook ranked Macklemore & Ryan Lewis neck and neck with Kendrick Lamar, whereas the Twittersphere backed Ed Sheeran, who gained more Twitter followers than all other nominees combined."
"YouTube and Vevo also had their own winners: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Kendrick Lamar respectively, with Ed Sheeran placing second in both these competitions. Unfortunately for James Blake and Kacey Musgraves, if the Grammys were up to social media, they would be going home empty handed."