The five piece juggernaut that is Britain’s One Direction is unwavering in its march up the Billboard Social 50 chart. Striding to two spots to No. 2 this week, the group is now nipping at the heels of the social king himself, Justin Bieber (No. 1). One Direction has yet to hit the top of the Social tally, but has swiftly moved 6-4-2 in the past three weeks.
The Social 50 chart ranks the most popular artists on YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, using a formula that blends weekly additions of friends/fans/followers along with weekly artist page views and weekly song plays.
A litany of buzzworthy activity following the group’s “Saturday Night Live” performance on April 7 launched One Direction into a very active week. On April 12, the group announced via a YouTube video (370,000 views and counting) a 2013 North American Tour. Tickets go on sale April 21. In the clip, Harry Styles urged fans who want to get their hands on tickets before anybody else to keep an eye on One Direction’s Facebook page. No surprise, the group gained 341,908 Facebook fans (58% over last week) during the charting week, bringing their total audience on Facebook up to a 4.7 million.
The decision to reveal its tour to fans through a video and over Facebook is consistent with the band’s promotional strategy that relies heavily on using videos to communicate to fans and social platforms to spread the message.
On April 13, the act posted an interview with “first verse man” Liam Payne (400,000-plus views on YouTube), who talks about what it’s like to perform in front of millions of fans and offers a tip to aspiring performers, “don’t forget the words!
”One Direction’s 74% increase in overall social activity from the previous charting week was due in part to a 150% increase in YouTube views (no doubt due to the releases already cited above), a 19% jump in VEVO plays (the band’s channel that features official videos, clips and interviews) and a 20% rise in Twitter followers.
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