Insights

Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” reveals how music fans show up on Twitter

Thursday, 20 October 2022

Music is…kind of a big deal on Twitter.

Every day, more than 30 million Tweets are published about music around the world. That’s more than 20,000 every minute. A couple thousand have probably even been added since you started reading this article. 

In honor of Taylor Swift’s massively anticipated Midnights album, we thought we’d give you a peek under the hood at the different ways music fans (like “Swifties”) show up on Twitter for their favorite artists. 

And scroll down for updated numbers on how "Swifties" have responded to Midnights on Twitter.

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The Swift Report

There’s a kind of poetic logic to examining music on Twitter through a “Taylor Swift” lens. We’ve quite literally grown up together — her self-titled debut album was released in 2006, the same year Twitter was created.

Since 2010, Taylor Swift has been mentioned in 329 million Tweets. That’s an average of more than 75,114 Tweets every day for the past, oh, 4,380 days. In fact, when Red (Taylor’s Version) was released in November 2021, there were more Tweets about Taylor Swift than about football and basketball combined.

😳😳😳

Swifties are loud and proud on Twitter, too. The word “Swiftie” or “Swifties” has been Tweeted more than 18 million times over the past 12 years, usually accompanied by emojis like the red scarf (🧣) which saw a 25x increase in use on the day All Too Well (Taylor’s Version) was released. 

Speaking of All Too Well (Taylor’s Version), since 2019 it’s the most Tweeted about Taylor Swift song alongside Love Story (Taylor’s Version) and Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version).

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Swifties' response to Midnights

The response to Midnights from fans on Twitter has been, well, swift. 

Since the album's release, there have been about 5 million Tweets about it, and nearly 4 million of those were published by the end of October 22. To put that in some perspective, Taylor Swift generated 2x more Tweet volume than NFL football on Thursday, October 20!

Fans can't get enough of three songs in particular: Anti-Hero, Lavender Haze, and Snow on the Beach, which make up the Top 3 most Tweeted-about songs since the release of Midnights. And there's lots of love to go around for Taylor's collaborators, as well. Mentions of Jack Antonoff, for example, grew 14x compared to the day before the album release!

Music: The largest community on Twitter

It’s true: music is the largest community on Twitter. With 441 million unique followers, people are more likely to follow a music-related account than any other type of account on Twitter.

It’s no surprise, then, that major music releases tend to be top events on Twitter. Take Harry Styles, whose Harry’s House album was Tweeted about more than 10 million times around the time of its release in May 2022. The conversation around music spikes on Fridays, when new albums usually drop.

So what will the conversation look like this Friday when Midnights is finally released? Keep your eyes here to find out, and follow @TwitterMusic to keep up with what’s happening with your favorite artists, albums, and more!

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