By the numbers; JustGo crunches social data to determine dance music's most popular DJs
Call it a popularity contest or a sacred industry landmark, but breaching the ‘Top 100’ list has long been a top-tier agenda for the 21st century dance music artist. JustGo, a social media start-up based in London, has come up with its own quantified alternative to such popular and notably contrived attempts at establishing the top 100 DJs in the world. Tracking analytical data from Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and YouTube alongside leading piracy platform Topple Track, their results dig deep into the marketplace and the emphasis that digital fandom holds upon the electronic dance music industry.
Unsurprisingly, Hardwell could still be found holding the number one spot. Interestingly, previous DJ Mag Top 100 recipients Armin Van Buuren and Tiësto didn’t make the top 10, with the likes of Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia breaching the chart far higher than they do in the aforementioned poll.
With the total fan count of their top 100 artists culminating in excess of 295 million fans, more than 2/3 of fans were found on Facebook. It approximated overall fan growth of its top 100 being at 34% for 2013, with Soundcloud fans equating to 60% of new fan entries and eclipsing that of more mature platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
As well as spotlighting the top 100 DJs in terms of their social following, JustGo pinpoints the highest risers in the context of social dominance. Quintino and Dyro experienced the biggest fan growth on Facebook and Twitter respectively, with UK chart-toppers Disclosure dominating YouTube and Armin Van Buuren emerging as the artist with the highest peak in fans via Soundcloud.
JustGo unveils the results after a whirlwind year for the start-up company, which raised $1.7m in funds and employed former Beatport co-founder and CEO Jonas Tempel as its chairman. Whilst social media has opened the door to the world of fake-fandom, one in which artists could be found buying fans in order to appear of greater social relevance, JustGo CEO Justin Golshir suggests that the field has become far more secure in the wake of public exposure.
He explained: “Platforms have become a lot more intelligent about identifying fake fans. In the case where people are buying them we can immediately see through the data, as people can lose as many as 40k fans in one day. The reality is that on Facebook you can spend advertising money and get likes. Top DJs are not any different to corporate brands in terms of building audience online. People want to put an ad budget behind social media. They have the budget to tick both boxes – reaching new fans and advertising their product.”
A more detailed breakdown of their research can be found below. Do you believe that the quantification of social media presence means more to dance music fans than supposedly impartial polling?
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