External Influence on Music Popularity: Google Trends as an Indicator of Virality and Success on Spotify
Abstract
The contemporary music market, driven by the rise of streaming platforms, reflects new consumption dynamics influenced by trends from various social platforms. To deepen the understanding of these phenomena, this study investigates the relationship between public interest, measured by Google searches, and musical popularity on Spotify through correlation and Granger causality analyses. The results show occasional evidence of a statistical relationship between both phenomena, although not generalizable to all songs, reinforcing that musical performance is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.References
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Bertone, F. et al. (2021). The stock exchange of influencers: a financial approach for studying fanbase variation trends. In ASONAM, pages 431–435. ACM.
Fuller, W. A. (2009). Introduction to statistical time series. John Wiley & Sons.
Granger, C. W. (1969). Investigating causal relations by econometric models and cross-spectral methods. Econometrica: journal of the Econometric Society, pages 424–438.
Guerini, M. et al. (2011). Exploring text virality in social networks. In ICWSM. The AAAI Press.
Hauke, J. and Kossowski, T. (2011). Comparison of values of pearson’s and spearman’s correlation coefficients on the same sets of data. Quaestiones Geographicae, 30(2):87–93.
Kwiatkowski, D. et al. (1992). Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root: How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root? Journal of econometrics, 54(1-3):159–178.
Mondelli, M. L. B. et al. (2018). O que os países escutam: Analisando a rede de gêneros musicais ao redor do mundo. In BraSNAM, Natal.
Moura, F. A. S. et al. (2024). Characterization of the Brazilian musical landscape: a study of regional preferences based on the Spotify charts. In WebMedia, pages 80–88. SBC.
Okanovic, I. and Trouchaud, A. (2023). TikTok: A Modern Spotlight on Emerging Artists: Understanding Why and How TikTok Users Take Part in Viral Behaviors Towards Musical Artists on the Platform. Master’s thesis, Jönköping University.
Oliveira, G. P. et al. (2024). Analyzing the temporal relation between virality and success in the Brazilian music market. In SEMISH, pages 157–168. SBC.
Pereira, F. S. F. et al. (2018). That’s my jam! uma análise temporal sobre a evolução das preferências dos usuários em uma rede social de músicas. In BraSNAM, Natal. SBC.
Schedl, M. et al. (2018). The effects of real-world events on music listening behavior: An intervention time series analysis. In WWW (Companion Volume), pages 75–76. ACM.
Seufitelli, D. B. et al. (2023). Hit song science: a comprehensive survey and research directions. J. New Music Res., 52(1):41–72.
Published
2025-07-20
How to Cite
FONSECA, Gabriela A.; OLIVEIRA, Gabriel P.; SILVA, Ana Paula Couto da.
External Influence on Music Popularity: Google Trends as an Indicator of Virality and Success on Spotify. In: BRAZILIAN WORKSHOP ON SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS AND MINING (BRASNAM), 14. , 2025, Maceió/AL.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 93-105.
ISSN 2595-6094.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/brasnam.2025.8784.
