How Engaged Are Katy Perry's Fans On Twitter?

During the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, Katy Perry introduced her new album and performed her new song ?Roar? live. Perry?s album ?PRISM? is set to be released on October 22, 2013. Initially, the hashtag #KatyNOW was made for fans who couldn?t wait to get the full lyrics of the song. Fans were also very curious about other song titles in her upcoming album. The hashtag trended well, containing several guesses from social media users on messages of future songs. At its peak, the hashtag even trended at 27,000 tweets (August 23), showing that, yes, Katy Perry's fans are, indeed, fully engaged online.It even trended well into her August 25 performance at the VMAs. A couple of new hashtags #DarkHorseNow and #WalkingOnAirNow were also made as the second part of the hashtag campaign. These conversations focused more on allowing fans to pick which song from ?PRISM? fans would like to be launched on September 17. Samples of ?Dark Horse? and ?Walking on Air? were also featured, keeping fans abuzz. Pepsi and MTV provided fans with snippets from the new album on pepsi.mtv.com. As we can see from the number of tweets each song generated, "Dark Horse" won. The use of hashtags by companies in the music industry is not particularly new as advertisers and promoters understand the added value of letting social media fans know more about upcoming songs and artists. Black Eyed Peas? Will.i.am also named his album #Willpower. He tweeted about the release of the record one month prior to keep fans excited. Mariah Carey also used a hashtag for a song in her upcoming album ?The Art of Letting Go? which was initially set to launch on July 23, 2013. The song is called ?#Beautiful? which climbed to the Top 15 spot on the pop charts. The album?s release was pushed back to an unspecified date. The success of the recent MTV VMAs both on television and social media shows that hashtags have become a vital component in major marketing campaigns. It also reflects what related topics users are interested in while tweeting and who among these tweeters are the most prolific.