Percent Growth
The percent growth value for each network is the growth of the metric for artist profiles we track. Call the total number of Facebook fans on January 1st "X", and call the total number of Facebook fans on December 31st "Y". Then the percent growth of Facebook fans is (Y - X)/X. X and Y are calculated by summing up the total values on those days for each artist for whom we have data for the beginning and end of 2011. If data collection started or stopped for a profile during 2011, it is not considered in the network level sum on either of those days. Because the values used to calculate the growth percentage are necessarily totals, a value cannot be provided for Wikipedia, as the lifetime page view totals for are not available.
Breakdown by Day
For a single artist, the breakdown by day would be calculated as the normalized averages of the number of fans, plays, or views that that artist accrued on each day of the week. The values for each day of the week are averages because there are different numbers of each day in the year (365 is not divisible by 7). The values are normalized afterwards so that they can be expressed as percentages. The percentages shown in the report are the averages across all artists for whom we have data for that metric for the entirety of 2011. If data collection started or stopped for a profile during 2011, it is not considered in the network level average.
Social 50
On any given week, the Social 50 is calculated by producing a composite artist score based on a combination of the metrics in the days leading up to the chart. The actual combination method is proprietary. The 2011 Social 50 chart is produced by summing up the composite scores for each artist on each week in 2011. The results are the top 50 ordered by 2011 aggregate composite scores. The peak position is the highest position at which an artist has ever appeared on the weekly Social 50 chart published in Billboard magazine prior to 2012.
VEVO versus YouTube
It is important to note the distinction between VEVO and YouTube. The play counts on VEVO are an aggregation of all of the plays of VEVO content syndicated across the web, which includes the VEVO channels on YouTube as well as many other sites. For this reason, we do not consider any VEVO channel on YouTube as a YouTube play, but rather a VEVO one. This choice prevents double counting when aggregating values across networks for a single artist, but also means that no VEVO channels were considered for the "Top 5 Artists" on YouTube.