The Billboard Social 50 was a popularity chart which ranked the most active music artists on the world's leading social networking services. Its data, published by Billboard magazine and compiled by Next Big Sound, was based collectively on each artist's weekly additions of friends, fans and followers, along with artist website views and streaming media. Bill Werde, the former editorial director of Billboard, called the Social 50 "yet another step" in the evolution of the magazine and an "important response to our changing times". The chart initially only retrieved its data from YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and iLike to create its ranking, but in November 2012 was expanded to include SoundCloud and Instagram. Data from Vine and Tumblr was added to the chart in June 2015.

The Billboard Social 50 was launched on December 11, 2010. The first artist to reach number one on the chart was Barbadian singer Rihanna. Since debuting, she had spent a total of 21 weeks at the top of the chart. In October 2016, South Korean boy band BTS landed the number one spot on the chart, becoming the second K-pop act, after Psy, to reach first place on the ranking. They set the record for the most weeks at number one, with 210. Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Bieber followed with 164 weeks at number one. BTS also set the record for the most consecutive weeks at number one, with 180. Following her death in December 2012, American singer Jenni Rivera became the first and only artist to top the chart posthumously. Since its launch, 20 artists had reached the top spot on the Billboard Social 50. Three of these artists—Rivera, Skrillex and Justin Timberlake—had only reached the spot for a single week.

On December 26, 2020, Billboard announced its suspension of the Social 50 chart for an undisclosed period of time in order to facilitate their transition to a new data partner. While this would also impact the Artist 100 and Emerging Artists charts—both include social metrics in their formulation—Billboard stated that neither chart would be disrupted. The Social 50 was to resume activity sometime early in 2021, but remains inactive to date.

Number-one artists

+Key nth artist to top the Billboard Social 50 re Return of an artist to number one

20102011201220132014201520162017

Artist Reached number one Weeks atnumber one Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (December 18–25, 2010): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (January 1–15, 2011): Billboard Social 50 (January 22 – February 12, 2011): Rihanna Lady Gaga Billboard Social 50 (March 5–12, 2011): Lady Gaga Billboard Social 50 (March 19 – April 16, 2011): Billboard Social 50 (April 23 – May 14, 2011): Lady Gaga Billboard Social 50 (May 21 – June 18, 2011): Billboard Social 50 (June 25 – July 9, 2011): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (August 6, 2011 – January 14, 2012): Adele Billboard Social 50 (January 21 – March 31, 2012): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (April 14 – May 26, 2012): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (June 2–30, 2012): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (July 14–21, 2012): Skrillex Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (August 11–18, 2012): Rihanna Psy Billboard Social 50 (September 8 – November 10, 2012): One Direction One Direction Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (December 8–15, 2012): Billboard Social 50 (January 5 – February 2, 2013): Shakira Beyoncé Billboard Social 50 (February 16–23, 2013): Rihanna Billboard Social 50 (March 2–9, 2013): Billboard Social 50 (March 16–30, 2013): Rihanna Psy Billboard Social 50 (May 13 – June 29, 2013): One Direction Billboard Social 50 (July 13 – August 3, 2013): One Direction Billboard Social 50 (August 10–17, 2013): One Direction Billboard Social 50 (August 31 – September 14, 2013): Billboard Social 50 (September 28 – November 2, 2013): Billboard Social 50 (November 16 – December 21, 2013): Beyoncé Billboard Social 50 (January 11 – February 1, 2014): Shakira Billboard Social 50 (February 8 – March 15, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (March 22 – July 12, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (July 26 – September 13, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (September 27 – October 4, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (October 11 – October 25, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (December 6 – December 20, 2014): Billboard Social 50 (December 27, 2014 – February 14, 2015): Billboard Social 50 (February 28 – April 25, 2015): Billboard Social 50 (May 9 – June 13, 2015): Billboard Social 50 (July 11 – July 18, 2015): Billboard Social 50 (July 25 – August 13, 2016): * BTS * BTS * BTS * BTS * BTS * 1 * BTS * BTS BTS BTS *

See also 2010 in music 2011 in music 2012 in music 2013 in music 2014 in music 2015 in music 2016 in music 2017 in music 2018 in music 2019 in music 2020 in music

References

Social 50 history

External links at Billboard at Next Big Sound