Billboard and Twitter have announced a multiyear partnership to create a new set of real-time charts measuring music conversations across Twitter.
The Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts will track which songs people are discussing and sharing across the social network. They will also highlight emerging artists generating unusual levels of attention.
The partnership gives Billboard another data source beyond traditional sales, radio and streaming activity. For Twitter, it turns millions of daily music conversations into something the industry can measure more easily.
Twitter Conversations Become Chart Data
The new charts will measure music discussion both in the moment and across longer periods of time.
Billboard plans to publish the charts on Billboard.com and share results through Twitter. The companies are also working together through Twitter Amplify, which will allow Billboard to distribute chart information and music-related video directly inside tweets.
Twitter head of music Bob Moczydlowsky said the platform had already become a place where listeners discover songs and artists.
“Twitter is where the music of the moment is discovered and discussed,” Moczydlowsky said.
The new charts attempt to turn that conversation into a measurable signal.
Billboard Keeps Expanding What Counts
The Twitter partnership continues Billboard’s effort to account for changes in how people find and consume music.
Billboard launched its Social 50 chart in 2010. Since then, the company has also incorporated additional streaming activity into its charts, including data from Spotify and YouTube.
The Twitter charts add another dimension. Instead of measuring only whether someone bought, streamed or heard a song on radio, Billboard will also be able to track whether people are actively talking about and sharing it.
That distinction could be particularly useful for emerging artists. A song can create significant conversation before those listeners generate enough sales, streams or radio activity to appear on more established charts.
It can also create plenty of noise. Twitter attention does not automatically equal lasting popularity, but it gives Billboard a new way to see which songs are moving quickly through public conversation.
The Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts are expected to launch in the coming weeks.