DIGITAL AND MOBILE 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards Generates More Than 100 Million Tweets, Trends No. 1 Across 46 Countries

#2019MAMA highlights K-pop fans' ability to mobilize online voting & make an Asia-based awards show a global event.

The 21st edition of the annual Mnet Asian Music Awards was held on Dec. 4 in Nagoya, Japan, honoring the best in Korean-pop music and top artists across the continent, with viewers utilizing Twitter to turn the cable-network awards into a global conversation.

Even before the ceremony, the Mnet Asian Music Awards (or MAMA) was a hot topic among K-pop fans online, as main categories like Artist of the Year and Song of the Year were comprised partly by online voting. Meanwhile, the Worldwide Icon of the Year as well as the 10 artists honored in the Global Top 10 Fans' Choice award had online and social-media voting comprised as 80 percent of criteria.

As one of the most visible and biggest awards shows for the Korean music industry (a bit like the MTV Video Music Awards), the already ultra-competitive world of K-pop fandoms gets kicked into overdrive at the end of the year throughout Korea's awards season with more ceremonies opting to utilize social-media platforms for an extra boost of interest. Even a more critically focused show like Korea's Golden Disc Awards, taking place in January, teamed up with TikTok for voting in their upcoming ceremony.

Notably, this year's awards were held for only one day in Japan, a stark difference from the past two years when they were held in three cities across four days in 2017 and three days across three cities last year. This pushed nearly all #MAMA-related activity to trend real-time throughout Dec. 4, when every artist on the bill performed and accepted their awards, as opposed to past years spread over multiple days and time zones.

From Oct. 24 when voting started through the Dec. 4 ceremony, Twitter has shared that fans around the world generated 102 million tweets centered on hashtags like #2019MAMA, #MAMARedCarpet and #MnetAsianMusicAwards. About a fifth of all tweets came on the day of the show, with 21 million tweets and 2019 MAMA-related hashtags becoming the No. 1 Twitter real-time trend across 46 countries. The highest volume of tweets came from South Korea, followed by the United States. See the full list of the top 10 countries with the most tweets related to 2019 MAMA:

1. Korea

2. United States of America

3. Indonesia

4. Thailand

5. Japan

6. Philippines

7. Argentina

8. Mexico

9. Brazil

10. Malaysia

The top 10 hashtags related to MAMA were led by the universal #MAMAVOTE -- the official phrase required for fan-voted categories -- and eight top groups. Fans needed to use both #MAMAVOTE and the group's name as a hashtag to have votes counted for social-based honors. Notably, all the top-trending artists were awarded in one way or another and many performed during the night. The top 10 hashtags used on Twitter during 2019 MAMA were:

1. #MAMAVOTE

2. #BTS

3. #EXO

4. #GOT7

5. #2019MAMA

6. #SEVENTEEN

7. #X1

8. #MonstaX

9. #TWICE

10. #TXT

But the MAMA love didn't just take place during the show; it extended to pre- and post-show activities too.

Twitter added that streams from the 2019 MAMA red carpet and #TwitterBlueRoom "Thank You stage" drew a combined audience of 3 million viewers. With 140,000 retweets, 300,000 likes and a total of 2.2 million views, BTS' 360-degree, check-in video from the red carpet was the most retweeted post of the night.

All together, the 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards' team-up with Twitter proved the ability of an Asia-based award broadcasted on a Korean cable station show to generate a global conversation online.

Keep the chatter going by checking out the top-viewed performance from the show with TWICE's R&B remix of their World Digital Song Sales No. 1 hit "Feel Special," with 7.5 million views on YouTube, below: