(Billboard) – Thanks no doubt to her unrelentingly active online audience, Rihanna once again tops Billboard’s Social 50 chart. She reaches No 1 for the first time since July 30, 2011, dethroning Adele, who had sat atop the chart for 11 straight weeks. Adele slips to No 2 this week.
The Social 50 chart ranks the most popular artists on YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, using a formula that blends weekly additions of friends/fans/followers along with weekly artist page views and weekly song plays.
There’s no real mystery as to why Rihanna continues to soar in online popularity. She has two singles in the top 10 of the On-Demand Songs chart: “Take Care” (Drake featuring Rihanna) at No 6 and her own “We Found Love” (featuring Calvin Harris) at No 10. Combined, the two songs collected well over 950,000 listens last week online. As the bulk of these listens are happening on streaming services that feature extensive social integration — such as the use of Facebook’s open graph — they contribute greatly towards sustaining conversation and become a strong driver of online social activity.
