How the #MOBOAwards took Twitter by storm

Thursday, 23 October 2014

Urban music fans came together on Twitter last night to celebrate the #MOBO2014 Awards - and voted live on Twitter for the Best British Album.

According to Audience research specialists Kantar Media (@KMUKSocialTV), the ITV2 (@ITV2) show racked up more than 128,000 Tweets as fans and artists alike shared their votes, celebrations and commiserations. Tweets reached more than 1.2 million unique Twitter users in the UK. 

The peak in mentions of the show came as Stormzy (@Stormzy1) won the award for best grime act, with 2,614 Tweets per minute:

Stormzy’s heartfelt reactions became some of the most shared Tweets of the evening:


The Awards are now in their 19th year - and it was the first time the organisers have organised a social vote on the show, powered by @Spredfast. It gave viewers a unique chance to pick the winner of one of the most prestigious awards - Best British Album - and spread the word about the ceremony to music fans on Twitter in the UK and beyond.

As the hashtags were announced live on air, the nominees took to Twitter to rally their fans:




The winner was Sam Smith (@samsmithworld), who took a moment to thank his 800,000 followers for their support:

He also celebrated with a selfie featuring hosts Mel B (@OfficialMelB) and Sarah-Jane Crawford (@DJSarahJane) from live on stage:

The organisers live-Tweeted the event and announced the winners live on Twitter throughout the evening from the @MOBOAwards account, and @ITV2 provided a unique perspective for fans with behind-the-scenes pictures and videos.

After an evening of MOBO founder and Entrepreneur Kanya King MBE (@KanyaKing) ended the evening with this Tweet, celebrating the evening’s winners and inspiring a future generation of music-makers: