The hyper-engaged fanbase of BTS, a Korean boy band, and a handful of other popular K-pop groups are bringing American publishers off-the-charts Twitter numbers.
The big picture: BTS has a more engaged following than any other entity on Twitter — and it isn't even close. The group's main account generated 400 million interactions from its tweets in the last 3 months, compared to just 105 million from President Trump, according to data from CrowdTangle.
Details: A tweet about the group will often result in thousands of retweets and likes. The list below — linking out to the tweets — shows some of the publishers for which posts about BTS have resulted in their most-engaged tweet in the last 3 months.
- Axios
- Billboard (at least 10 biggest tweets have been about BTS)
- Buzzfeed (3 biggest)
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Chicago Tribune (2 biggest)
- Elle (2 biggest)
- Entertainment Weekly (5 biggest)
- Forbes (3 biggest)
- Hollywood Reporter
- Houston Chronicle (4 biggest are K-pop, though the top tweet is NCT 127)
- LA Times
- Mashable (3 biggest)
- MTV
- MTV News (3 biggest — top 10 are all K-pop)
- New York Magazine
- New York Times Music
- New York Times Arts
- People (3 biggest)
- Rolling Stone (4 biggest)
- Seattle Times
- Time (at least 10 biggest)
- Us (4 biggest)
- Vanity Fair (2 biggest)
- Variety (2 biggest)
- Vogue (4 biggest)
- Vulture (2 biggest)
Why it matters: While much of the engagement on tweets about BTS are coming from abroad, the band is pioneering a bigger footprint for K-pop in the United States.
- BTS has appeared on Ellen Degeneres and Jimmy Fallon's shows, as well as Saturday Night Live, and will visit Stephen Colbert this week.
- The band is wrapping up the U.S. leg of its world tour.
- Earlier this year, Mattel announced a deal to make a BTS line of toys.
- K-pop girl group Blackpink performed at Coachella this year.