Last week, Billboard and Twitter announced a new ranking chart based on Twitter conversations.
The most talked-about Twitter topic. According to Sarah Rosen, Twitter’s head of entertainment partnerships, music is the most popular topic of conversation. No surprise there, big album releases feel like events on Twitter, which are always fun to be part of.
Watch the skew. But Twitter, like all platforms, has its demographic skews. Twitter is the sweet spot for 30-40+ year olds. It’s older than Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok—the driving force behind the Billboard Hot 100. It also skews heavily male, nearly 70%! Most other apps are majority female. Twitter is also Blacker than most apps at 24% of all users.
As a Black male in his 30s who loves music and works in media, I’m at home. These are my people, as ridiculous as they are. But I can see the blind spots, especially in hip-hop:
-young rappers who appeal to young fans. For instance, Lil’ Uzi Vert is one of the biggest rappers in the world right now. Huge fanbase. But his influence is understated since his audience isn’t really on Twitter like that
-women in hip-hop. Need I say more?
On the flipside, Twitter over-indexes on old head rappers. The Griselda artists will resonate much more on Twitter than any other platform.
I’m still intrigued by the results! It makes sense for Twitter to track this. This Billboard partnership can generate good ad dollars if the stats are compelling.
Let’s hope we never see a LinkedIn Billboard chart though! I’m good on all that.
