How Powerful Is a Taylor Swift Mention?

I love Taylor Swift. I think she is one of the most talented young singer/songwriters in music history AND she's really nice in person. She's also one of the most influential and powerful women in music.

Just how powerful? Swift, the fourth most-followed person on Twitter with 54 million followers (just behind Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and President Obama), has often thrown her support behind new artists.

According to a story from the Washington Post last week, she does it fairly regularly, from exalting singer-songwriters such as Vance Joy and Borns to her buddy Ed Sheeran. Nicki Minaj even thanked Swift for helping her send “Super Bass” into the stratosphere after Swift talked about how much she loved the song.

So when Swift tweeted about Ballerini around 2 p.m. Monday, just how did it affect the sales ranking and buzz effect at 2 p.m. on Thursday? What happens 72 hours after Swift tweets about your music?

Ballerini had about 8,800 followers on Monday. Now she’s close to topping 11,000. As illustrated below, her follower count trickled upwards until it took a huge spike after the Swift tweet.

Impact: Nothing too tangible, but a few thousand more followers can’t hurt when you have an upcoming album to promote.