Twitter has announced a partnership with Billboard to create an exclusive new music chart. The social media giant made the announcement this week at its Digital Content NewFronts presentation. Billboard and Twitter will highlight the most talked-about songs on the platform in an unprecedented chart they’ve named Billboard Hot Trending.
According to Billboard, its Hot Trending chart will encompass analytical data based on real conversations from Twitter. Tweets about new music releases, award shows, festivals, nostalgic threads, hashtags and more will be calculated to create the rankings. The chart will refresh daily opposed to many existing Billboard charts which update weekly.
While most Billboard charts are based on album-equivalent units sold or the amount of times a song is listened to, the Hot Trending chart will solely consist of songs people are talking about on the app. Surprisingly, music is the most talked-about topic on Twitter, according to the company’s head of entertainment partnerships Sarah Rosen. “I can’t wait to watch this chart come to life,” she tweeted.
Twitter is also emphasizing the unique advertising opportunity the new chart creates. In a statement on their blog, the company wrote, “Advertisers will be able to connect to The Billboard Hot Trending powered by Twitter through innovative ad formats that will live on Twitter and across Billboard. It will be supported with video content, consistent editorial coverage and organic support from some of music’s biggest stars.”
Twitter’s short lived Twitter #music app failed to capitalize on the platform’s influence among artists and never seemed to gain much traction. The company released it in app stores in 2013 and removed it the following year.
In Dec. 2020, Billboard announced it had paused its Social 50 chart. The Social 50, which launched in 2010, previously ranked engagement with musician accounts across several social networks. Billboard mentioned, at the time, it was “in talks to revive the Social 50 via a new data partner with a planned return set for early 2021.”