Global Awards shows, national ceremonies and events always attract a great amount of online conversation. So how did Sunday night’s VMAs stack up on social media?

The VMAs first showed us how social media plays a huge part in bringing coverage to hotly anticipated events. 2013 saw the awards show achieve a record amount of online engagement, with 74 million social media interactions- likely helped by Miley Cyrus’s infamous performance with Robin Thicke.  This year broke the record though, with over 110 million social interactions, of which Instagram recorded 64 million on its platform alone. This was thanks to a handful of celebrity attendees with huge followings: Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian, who all generated the greatest amount of activity via the app. On Facebook too, engagement was high at around 39 million interactions, with the top conversation points being Kanye West’s acceptance speech (in which he announced his plans to run for Presidency in 2020!), Miley Cyrus’s, Justin Bieber’s, and Tori Kelly’s performances, and Nicki Minaj’s win in the “Best hip-hop video” category. The event also boosted Spotify engagement, with Justin Bieber for instance, generating the biggest spike in listeners- streaming of his latest song, “What do you mean?” was up 32% following his performance.

Leading up to the Awards, MTV partnered with Twitter to create an exclusive emoji version of the event’s “Moonman” logo and mascot, designed by fashion designer Jeremy Scott. Any tweets which contained the #VMAS or #VMA hash tag were able to unlock the icon so that it would appear in a tweet after the hash tag was used. And there were clearly a lot of Moonman emojis appearing on Twitter over the weekend- Nielsen Social (part of research firm Nielsen), stated that this year’s VMAs had been the most tweeted programme since the organization began tracking Twitter TV activity back in 2011. And there were certainly a lot of “tweetable” moments this year. From the very public feud between Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus, to memes and jokes following Kanye West’s announcement to run for President, to hilarious outfit and styling comparisons, audiences didn’t hold back when it came to charting every detail of the night.

In fact, research revealed by The Drum via Crowdtap marketing platform also revealed that a staggering 88% of all VMA viewers followed along or participated on social media during the show, with smartphone usage the most popular method of interaction as the event unfolded. And interestingly enough, 20% of all 600 people surveyed said that they followed the action on social media despite not even watching the show, leading us to believe that the surrounding conversation online held as much importance as the event itself. Clearly, this was also true as demonstrated on Facebook, with 42% of people admitting that they gained most information and recaps after the show from their friends’ posts and status updates.

Did you watch the VMAs, and follow the action before and during the event on social media? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this year’s conversations, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.