Since his 2013 breakthrough hit single "Take Me To Church," Hozier has steadily built a passionate fanbase. His recent radio resurgence with the song "Too Sweet" and accompanying EP Unheard gives us an opportunity to see how new music can affect social metrics.
We built a Dataspace in RootNote for Hozier to help understand and visualize his data. And then we looked at some trends from the week immediately following the release of Unheard (March 22nd through March 29th).
Takeaways From Hozier's Social Metrics A Week After A New Release
- "Too Sweet" had already racked up an impressive 27.9 million streams on Spotify through the week following the EP release. The song also topped the charts in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, becoming his first No. 1 in all three countries. It peaked at No. 2 in the U.S., becoming his second Top-10 single there.
- Hozier's Spotify monthly listeners surged by 8.6 percent, increasing by 2.7 million listeners, while his followers increased 1.4 percent, adding 91,000 to his fan base.
- On TikTok, his follower count grew by 6.7 percent, welcoming over 100,000 new fans, while his likes saw a 3.2 percent uptick, totaling over 500,000 new likes.
- Instagram saw a 2.2 percent boost in followers, with over 60,000 new additions to the community.
- YouTube witnessed a steady rise as well, with his subscriber count increasing by 0.3 percent, bringing in over 30,000 new subscribers.
Does More Content Always Mean More Growth?
While Hozier's social growth around this EP release is impressive — especially for an already established artist who has a significant following — the trends aren't atypical. We often see direct correlations between new content and growth on platforms.
What makes Hozier's growth notable is that the effect across his accounts was likely due to the strategy in place behind promoting the new EP. It's not just that he had new music to consume — it's that he also made a lot of content to support it and posted across his different channels.
Plus, in addition to his content, Hozier had live events and new merchandise. Having a well-rounded, platform-agnostic approach to your content can lead to success across all of your channels
