We’ve previously noted how viral Facebook Pages can become, thanks in large part to the “Highlights” section of user homepages where you get notified when multiple friends become a fan of a given page. This lead to Ashton Kutcher reaching one million fans on Facebook before one million followers on Twitter (
) (during the infamous CNN race), and Vin Diesel becoming perhaps a bit disproportionately popular on the social network.
Now, this concept has gained a whole new meaning in the aftermath of the loss of Michael Jackson. The King of Pop has vaulted from a mere 80,000 fans prior to his passing to nearly 6.7 million as of this evening. In turn, that makes Jackson’s fan page the most popular on the entire site, surpassing Diesel and President Obama.
While the growth will probably start to slow after tomorrow’s massive memorial for Jackson, the huge following leaves the singer’s heirs (and his record label) with a massive network to communicate with fans and continue the massive resurgence of interest in Jackson’s music we’ve seen over the past week and a half; as of July 1st, there had already been 2.6 million downloads of the aritst’s music, and Jackson still currently owns the top two albums on iTunes, as well as three of the top 10 singles.
On the Facebook Page, there’s currently a simple music player with a number of Jackson’s hits and an option to buy them through Amazon. It’s also served as an enormous online memorial, with the Page still seeing dozens of new comments from fans every few minutes. In any event, if we needed yet another metric to measure the massive impact of Jackson’s passing, his Facebook (
) page is it.
