A new record was set on Twitter this weekend for the most tweeted about moment in the micro-blogging site’s history. Registering a record jump of 8,868 tweets per second, Beyonce Knowles proudly showing off her pregnancy bump at the 2011 MTV VMAs garnered more mentions per second than any other incident, even Osama bin Laden‘s death.
MTV certainly had their finger on the pulse when I came to their social media strategy, with the VMAs also including a second-screen experience encouraging people to be talking online while watching on TV. And it looks like it worked, given that the 2011 VMAs scored the biggest television audience in MTV’s history with 12.4 millions total viewers.
Beyonce’s revelation is just one of many moments in the history of the VMAs that have caused a big buzz – from Madonna wearing a wedding dress to Lady Gaga wearing a meat dress, but in the last couple of years the awards show has been particularly prevalent on Twitter.
Here are some more stats from MTV: Sunday was the best day ever for MTV.com with 1.9 million visitors; upwards of 1.2 million live streams were served across MTV.com and on iOS and Android; social media traffic was up 76% on last year, and Twitter referral traffic to MTV.com was at its highest level ever.
So it doesn’t matter how big or well-known your organisation is, social media can still provide you with another massively influential route to market.
It just shows the power of the social media networks today!