Halsey, Run The Jewels & Miley Top Twitter's Most-Shared During SXSW
In 2007, South By Southwest gave Twitter the perfect self-contained and tech-savvy biosphere in which to become the must-have app to communicate with friends and keep abreast of the events on the ground. The event would become a turning point for the company, hastening its use across a key segment of influential techies. Nine years after its founding, the company is now -- as we're all aware -- so successful that its stats on the event's most-tweeted provides a comprehensive accounting the week's biggest takeaways.
From March 17-23, the company reports over one million tweets about SXSW and SXSW Music as being posted.
Twitter counts among the fest's most high-profile moments the appearance of Miley Cyrus (which ratcheted her onto the most-tweeted artist list, below), Earl Sweatshirt's performance at Pandora's Discovery Den, Raekwon's cameo during Ghostface Killah's set at the Fader Fort and an onstage scuffle involving Run The Jewels (which contributed to their being one of the week's most-tweeted "emerging" artists, also below).
The top five most-mentioned artists from Austin hardly needed the extra exposure; Halsey, the week's most-mentioned, has a deal with Astralwerks. Cody Simpson, No. 2, has over seven million followers on Twitter and a stateside deal with Atlantic. Japanese pop group Perfume have a deal with Universal Music Group and a high profile in their home country. Miley Cyrus, in a somewhat surprising fourth place, needs no introduction. Korean rapper Tablo has been active in the business for sixteen years, and associated with "Gangnam Style" parent company YG since 2011.
Four out of five of the most-mentioned "emerging" artists on Twitter's round-up are also fairly well-known; from Halsey (who perhaps should have been allowed to top only one of the two top five lists that Twitter is releasing) to the much-covered (and much-loved) Run The Jewels, James Bay (whose Oct., 2014 single "Hold Back the River" has been watched 13 million times) and Rae Srummurd, the hotly tipped rap duo from Tupelo.
Los Angeles-based Kehlani, fourth on Twitter's emerging artist list, may be the one to see the most benefit from the attention; the singer and songwriter boasts a modest SoundCloud following and an equally (relatively) modest audience on Twitter.
The stats speak to SXSW's firmly mainstream profile as they do attendees' trend antennae, which were steadfastly tuned towards the most-buzzed of the week.
The company has also made available an interactive graphic of the week's most engaged posts, as well as a list of hashtags (with "live," "party" and "amazing" scoring high) and originating countries (South Africa, Italy, Japan and Australia among them).
Most-mentioned artists:
1. Halsey
2. Cody Simpson
3. Perfume
4. Miley Cyrus
5. Tablo
Most-mentioned emerging artists:
1. Halsey
2. Run the Jewels
3. James Bay
4. Kehlani
5. Rae Sremmurd
