Social media integration became a very important part of the EDM and music world ever since artists became able to reach out to fans directly. Twitter gave artists and producers an outlet that probably made their management cringe with the possibilities. (Just look at the Twitter-fueled rants of Zomby.)
As many of you might know, hashtags on Twitter allow the public to keep an up-to-the-minute live view on what is “trending,” or popular, in the Twitter-sphere. Billboard Magazine, who has been charting music since 1936, has decided to take advantage of that built-in mechanic and has teamed up with Twitter to allow users to create their own charts, so to speak. 
The Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists chart is a ranking of the most shared songs on Twitter in the U.S. by up-and-coming artists ranked by the number of times each song was shared over the past 24 hours. Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists is presented as a seven-day/weekly round up on Billboard.com and in print in Billboard.
Song shares are tracked and incorporated into the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts by:
* the use of, or the inclusion, of a link to the song via music listening platforms, such as Spotify, Vevo and iTunes.
* the use of various track sharing notations, such as the hashtags “#nowplaying” or “#np,” along with song/artist name.
* the use of various terms associated with the song and song playing, such as “music,” “song,” “track,” “listen.”
This sounds like a fantastic idea, honestly. My only concern is in how the chart will be influenced by how many followers any specific artist has. Then again, the charts have never been about quality as much as popularity.
Check out the rest of the story on Billboard.
