In the same week when Rihanna trumped Lady Gaga to become the woman with the most fans on Facebook, RiRi also takes over the No. 1 slot on Billboard’s Social 50 chart.
Rihanna Takes Lady Gaga’s Facebook Crown
The chart ranks the most active artists on the world’s leading social networking sites — YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and iLike — using a formula blending weekly additions of friends/fans/followers along with weekly artist page views and weekly song plays.
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Rihanna now has 41,002,000 Facebook fans while Gaga (who falls 2-5 on the Social 50) rests at 40,874,000. In the tracking week, Rihanna’s fanbase grew by 650,000 Facebook fans, with Twitter (114,000) and MySpace (6,000) also showing gains. In total, she has 6,184,000 Twitter followers and 2,301,000 MySpace friends. In contrast, Lady Gaga has 11,736,000 Twitter followers and 1,639,000 MySpace friends.
Amy Lee: New Evanescence Album Is ‘Much More of a Band Collaboration’
As anticipation mounts for Evanescence’s first studio album in nearly four years, the band debuts on the tally at No. 50. The band started previewing album tracks on MTV.com on July 11 and has since revealed several snippets of songs. Fan reaction on Facebook and Twitter is positive and in the week, Evanescence saw growth across both networks (up 114,000 fans at Facebook and 4,000 at Twitter). Perhaps most interesting though is that a spike in MySpace views also occurred, hinting that fans may have searched there for new songs.
The return of Demi Lovato, who herself ascends ten spaces (32-22), has fueled fan activity online, too. With the July 14 debut of the video for her latest single “Skyscraper,” it quickly drew in 2.1 million Vevo views. On YouTube, fans have liked the song 108,000 times.
Demi Lovato Stays Strong in ‘Skyscraper’ Music Video
According to the real-time search Topsy, the phrase “Demi Lovato Skyscraper” has received over 67,000 Twitter mentions. On July 18, Jordan Sparks uploaded a cover of “Skyscraper” to WhoSay.
In support of her latest album “Goodbye Lullaby,” Avril Lavigne (who slips 13-8) appeared on the NBC series “America’s Got Talent” on July 13, performing her singles “Smile” and “What The Hell.” Her Black Star Tour also kicked off July 18 in Caracas, Venezuela. The excitement surrounding her performance and the build-up to her tour launch helped break her into this week’s top 10. Additionally, since debuting on May 18, the video for “What The Hell” has accumulated 14.5 million Vevo views.
Avril Lavigne Gets Warm and Fuzzy in ‘Smile’ Video
Among the top 50 artists, 15,078,000 fans opted to like, follow, friend, and subscribe to their favorite artists this week, adding up to a total of 12,734,000 Facebook friends, 2,016,000 Twitter followers, 150,081 MySpace Friends, and 86,829 YouTube channel subscribers. This number of fans added across monitored sites is down 2.6% from 15,477,000 fans added in the previous week.
For the rest of the top 10, here’s where the remaining acts move: Shakira (4-2), Justin Bieber (1-4), Lady Gaga (5-2), Eminem (7-6), Lil Wayne (7-12), Beyoncé (8-9), and Michael Jackson (5-10) mix up the order while Katy Perry holds at No. 3.