Internet data collection and analysis specialist, Webtrends, has revealed how individuals within social media sites have been discussing Michael Jackson and his music since the ‘King of Pop’s’ untimely death last month.

Using Webtrends social measurement powered by Radian6, a social media monitoring and analysis solution, Webtrends has brought to light the peaks and troughs in mentions of Jackson’s name over the last few weeks, which of his songs and albums have been discussed most and what words fans have been using to describe their late hero.

Top of the King of Pops
Webtrends measured the number of name checks that Jackson’s albums and singles have been receiving over the last few weeks.

Christian Howes, digital solutions architect at Webtrends said: “Thriller is by far the most mentioned album or song, with over twice the amount of posts than all but its nearest rival, Bad. In order of mentions received, HIStory, Dangerous, Off The Wall and Invincible are the next most popular Jackson albums among social media users.”

Discounting the singles that also share a name with an album, Billie Jean and Beat It lead the way, with fan favourite Man in the Mirror a potentially surprising third: “Man in the Mirror is a curious anomaly considering it is still currently in the Top 10 in the charts but not in terms of social media mentions. As a song it is perhaps not as wide reaching as Beat It or Thriller, but to the record buying public its seen as an autobiographical piece; a lasting memory in the short lived world of pop. It has become something to remember Jacko by, in the same way that Leonardo da Vinci’s self portrait has become synonymous with his name.”

 The Jackson buzz
Howes has also been using Radian6 to track the number of posts before and after Michael Jackson’s death: “Michael Jackson is the first megastar to die in the broadband era, and fans of his music have used social media sites in the first instance to share rumours of his death, and subsequently as a vehicle for the huge outpouring of love for Jackson we witnessed over the past weeks. Elsewhere, discussions have sprung up all over the net regarding which were the best tracks from Jacko’s impressive discography.

“Looking at the number of posts regarding Jackson in the lead up to his death, there was actually relatively little social media buzz around the star, despite his impending ‘This Is It’ tour. However, the moment reports of his death started to disseminate over the net the number of posts rocketed within a matter of hours to more than 240,000.”

Jackson superlatives
Finally, Webtrends used social media measurement to track what phrases and superlatives were being used to describe Jackson. Howes reports: “As tributes and discussions continue on social media sites, it has been interesting to see exactly how Jackson fans choose to describe their hero. By far and away the most popular term is ‘King of Pop’ – a title given to Jackson by himself yet that few people would argue with.”

Webtrends social measurement powered by Radian6 uses a spider which trawls over 4,500 social media sites in real time, these include YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, popular blogs and forums, it is then possible to perform keyword analysis on the particular topics and specific words to track.