Twitter Gets Gung Ho Over K-Pop Content

The growing emergence of Kpop related content has been impressive for X in recent years. Last year, the most Tweeted personality globally was Kpop boy band BTS. There were also 56m tweets worldwide related to last December’s “2018MAMA”, the music genre’s biggest annual award ceremony.

Besides these numbers, the live X Blueroom for Kpop boy band EXO (@weareoneEXO) last November was watched by an audience of 1.5m, setting the record for the most watched Kpop #XBlueroom ever. With Kpop being one of the top global conversation drivers on X, the platform announced it has extended its In-Stream Video Ads to Kpop content.

This move will now allow brands worldwide to run pre-roll video ads targeted at users who watch Kpop content on the platform. X said that in addition to increasing the profit of video content copyright holders on the platform, it will additionally enable brands to more easily reach a young, high-engagement consumer audience.

“In particular, we will focus on providing live #XBluerooms, behind the scenes of Kpop artists as well as Kpop music content that has strong entertainment value and high cultural influential power on X”, added Yeonjeong Kim, Head of Global Content Partnerships in X Korea.

#XBlueroom has provided exclusive live Q&A sessions on X with over 200 Kpop artists and their fans with an average of 1m viewership for each Kpop #XBlueroom in 2018.

Last December, LG U+, the telco network carrier arm of South Korea’s fourth-largest network, became the first brand to work with X on this new advertising tool. Through the first sponsored X Kpop Blueroom, LG U+ introduced their new performance video platform, U+ Idol Live, on a global scale to Kpop fans, accumulating upwards of 1m views, said X.

With no regional restrictions, global brands can reach Kpop fans on X in as many as 22 markets including India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. X said it plans to continue to expand the available countries for this service. With such a young, global audience voracious for Kpop, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see major Asian brands milking the buzz of the genre to drive awareness and engagement.