14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter has made a name for itself as an elemental tool for news disseminating and it has even established itself as an important tool for TV networks to tell which shows are popular.
Now, the company has signed a partnership with Billboard to launch the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts, a site where you can check out the most popular tracks according to members of the micro blogging platform.
“These new, interactive charts redefine how fans interact with, and influence, popular content by ranking the most popular songs being shared on Twitter in the U.S.,” reads the announcement.
The first of the real-time charts, the Trending 140, takes into account the songs shared in the United States, measured by acceleration over the past hour. Users can filter the chart to display a real-time view of the most shared track in the US over the past 24 hours, as well as with a weekly summary. Where possible, there’s a Spotify button to take people to the popular music service where they can listen to the track as well.
Another chart available on the new site indicates which Emerging Artists are having a great day. Here, entries are ranked by the number of times the song was shared over the past 24 hours.
The song shares are tracked and integrated into the Billboard Twitter Real-time Charts by the use, or inclusion, of a link to the song via a music listening platform, such as Spotify, Vevo and iTunes, or through the tracking of sharing notations, such as the hashtags #nowplaying or #np, along with the song or artist name.
“The charts are specifically designed to work with how users share and interact with music on Twitter, which is the most discussed subject on the platform in the U.S. with more than one billion Tweets sent about the topic in 2013. One-hundred million of those Tweets came from music accounts, and seven of the top 10 most-followed accounts on the entire platform are musicians,” the announcement reads.
For the launch of the new site, Billboard has signed a partnership with Austin Mahone to showcase how the sharing of a track by fans on Twitter can drive popularity and chart ranking. Sure enough, Mahone’s “Shadow” leads the chart of the most popular tracks in the past 24 hours.
These new charts and the Billboard partnership are part of Twitter’s efforts to help the music industry become more integrated with social media and the trends taking over the world.