With rise in smartphones and increasing technology of the connected consumer, organizers of the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival are pleased with the share with the social buzz created by fans, listeners and concertgoers during last week’s event.
The Sept. 19–20 festival generated more than five billion social media impressions, according to iHeartMedia. That’s more than double from last year, and puts the festival ahead of 2014’s major events such as the football “Big Game Halftime Show,” in terms of related social media activity, and on a par with the Academy Awards, say organizers.
This was the fourth iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Twitter emerged as the dominant platform of choice for fans at this years’ event, representing two-thirds of the overall social media activity and resulting in #iHeartRadio trending worldwide on both days. After Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr were the next most popular platforms.
Within the content of the posts, Taylor Swift was the most discussed, followed by One Direction, Five Seconds of Summer, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj.
The 18–34 year old Millennial demo originated some 80% of the posts. Thirty-seven topics related to the event trended across local, U.S. and worldwide on Twitter over the course of the two days, including #iHeartRadioMusicFestival, #OneDirectionAtiHeartRadioFestival and #NickiAtiHeartRadio
IHeartRadio has some 50 million registered users, and reached that goal faster than Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, according to the company. The digital service delivers access to more than 1,500 radio stations, including user-created custom stations inspired by a favorite artist or song. The multiplatform service also offers thousands of curated digital stations and the new iHeartRadio Shows & Personalities feature giving users access to on-demand news, talk and entertainment content.