Kendrick Lamar's 'Control' Feature Yields Huge Twitter Followers Jump
After calling himself the "king of New York," the Los Angeles MC bounded back onto the Social 50.
Kendrick Lamar re-enters Billboard's Social 50 chart at No. 15 after creating one of the biggest news stories in hip-hop so far this year.
The Social 50 ranks the most popular artists on YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, Wikipedia, Myspace and Instagram. The chart's methodology blends weekly additions of friends/fans/followers along with artist page views, song plays and reactions as measured by music analytics company Next Big Sound.
On Aug. 12, Big Sean released the song “Control,” featuring Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica, a track Big Sean says is not scheduled to appear on his forthcoming album "Hall of Fame." The Los Angeles-born Lamar got people talking after he claimed to be the “king of New York,” while also calling out nearly every big act in the game right now. Lamar cited J. Cole, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, Meek Mill, A$AP Rocky, Drake, Big Sean, and more.
The resulting buzz on social media was great: In the week ending Aug. 18, Lamar saw a 122% rise in conversation on Facebook, which translated into the addition of over 88,000 new fans on the platform (up 138%, according to Next Big Sound). On Twitter, he added over 208,000 (a massive 510% bump in weekly acquisition). The heavy news item also generated 200,000 page views to his Wikipedia page (a 277% increase) for the week.
The artists Kendrick Lamar mentioned received online gains as well. Below is a breakdown of the amount of Twitter followers gained in a week by the artists he called out in “Control.”
Artist; Percentage Gain over previous week; Follower Gain:
Kendrick Lamar; 510%; 209,000
Jay Electronica; 533%; 5,000
Pusha T; 304%; 30,000
Big K.R.I.T.; 154%; 10,000
Mac Miller; 153%; 87,000
Meek Mill; 127%; 41,000
Big Sean; 100%; 67,000
Wale; 96%; 34,000
J. Cole; 84%; 63,000
A$AP Rocky; 78%; 10,000
Drake; 51%; 78,000
Tyler, The Creator; 38%; 10,000
Source: Next Big Sound, for the week ending Aug. 18
Switching gears, Enrique Iglesias re-enters the Social 50 at No. 33 after spending the week promoting the release of the official video for his single “Turn The Night Up.” Iglesias took to Facebook and Twitter to hype the new clip, which generated a 94% increase in fans for Iglesias (up by 280,000).
Back to the top 10, One Direction bounds 4-1 to reclaim the Social 50 throne from Justin Bieber, who tumbles 1-2. Katy Perry remains steadfast at No. 3, as Shakira once again posts massive gains (jumping 10-5) due to posting pictures of her baby, Pique, one of which has received a staggering 1.6 million post-likes during the charting week.
Miley Cyrus dips 5-6, while Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez remain steady at No. 7 and No. 8 respectively. Britney Spears returns to the top 10 with a 12-9 jump, with more activity expected to follow in the coming week: A countdown clock recently debuted on her website, and rumors are flying as to what it is counting down to. Closing out the top 10, Justin Timberlake slides 9-10.