What's the most important factor of measuring a group's success?

You need a holistic approach

BEG4DAWIN opinion.

It depends where my faves are good so I can cherry pick where my faves are the best

Touring mostly. I think It's the metric people can manipulate the least lol

everything, all of the above. there's no one metric that can determine a group's success, and a lot of them are going to be great in some areas but poor in others.

imo touring is the ultimate way to measure how successful a group is just because you can't bulk buy or zombie stream physical audiences

Relevant:

- Touring

- Album Sales

- Streams

Real metrics for success, either by measuring fandom, casual fans or casual listeners

Not really relevant:

- Youtube Views

- Social Media following

Social Media seems irrelevant as most of idols don't get endorsements on social media. Youtube views are the poor cousin of streams, with ridiculously low average payment and inflated because of ads and mass streaming projects

Completely irrelevant:

- Charting

- Brand reputation lists

- Awards based on sales or voting

Those are redundant and mostly useless metrics. It's only a reflection of sales and streams, fandom size, spamming, etc which can be already measured by the 3 mentioned above

Quote from Bpsosoro

social media following.

No album sales

Delusional

Quote from Minazuki

Touring mostly. I think It's the metric people can manipulate the least lol

even touring can be manipulated by bringing friend or family to it who does not care about kpop

Charting.

Everyone says touring but i'm looking at the attendance figures and i'm wondering just how profitable touring actually is. There's a lot of costs involved with holding concerts thousands of miles away. How much money are you really making from 4k venues?

I think album sales are far more profitable but they're heavily fanbase dependent, it could literally be 30k people buying 33.33 albums each to get to 1M.

Quote from kirishiki

even touring can be manipulated by bringing friend or family to it who does not care about kpop

Quote from Minazuki

can manipulate the least

1st gen = album sales

2nd gen = Japanese tours

3rd gen/4th gen= western validation

Quote from Bpsosoro

It’s giving bg stan.

WBK GG stans are the most delusional, it's a given

Quote from Bpsosoro

It’s giving bg stan.

Just because it's easier for bg doesn't mean the primary means by which these groups make money isn't important.

Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

Relevant:

- Touring

- Album Sales

- Streams

Real metrics for success, either by measuring fandom, casual fans or casual listeners

Not really relevant:

- Youtube Views

- Social Media following

Social Media seems irrelevant as most of idols don't get endorsements on social media. Youtube views are the poor cousin of streams, with ridiculously low average payment and inflated because of ads and mass streaming projects

Completely irrelevant:

- Charting

- Brand reputation lists

- Awards based on sales or voting

Those are redundant and mostly useless metrics. It's only a reflection of sales and streams, fandom size, spamming, etc which can be already measured by the 3 mentioned above

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I think Youtube is relevant because kpop is really visual centered genre. You can stare your faves by watching your albums, but I bet more people enjoy visuals by watching Youtube videos.

all of the above

touring, charting both in Korea and internationally, streams, album sales, popularity in social media, but the most important thing is having constancy in all honestly that's where both blackpink and bts do better than other groups.

Quote from kirishiki

I think Youtube is relevant because kpop is really visual centered genre. You can stare your faves by watching your albums, but I bet more people enjoy visuals by watching Youtube videos.

While I agree a good MVs are very important to make a group successful, getting big Youtube views aren't. Firstly, not all songs of a group will get a MV release as we could see recently for Treasure, TxT, and Enhypen a good examples of how get attention for a song without a MV.

I actually doubt most of the people listen to kpop on Youtube only because they enjoy watching the videos, rather because it's free and available everywhere unlike let's say Spotify. In Korea people uses stream services (Melon, Genie, etc) far more than watching videos.

Quote from Bpsosoro

Girl album sales is so outdated it’s a 90s metric

Your the one saying that charting is irrelevant

It is streaming era nobody is listening to music on CDs

But ok call me delusional

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Charting is irrelevant because the charts has no practical meaning, it's a reflection of sales and streams. Saying charting has any sort or relevance is like saying a table of the top sellers are as important as the sales themselves, do you see how this makes no sense?

Something can be sold as a collectible, it's like vynils. People buy them because they are big, fancy and nice to decorate their rooms. Did you know Pokemon brand makes more money from merchandising than from game sales? Albums are like kpop merchan, nobody is listening to them, but they are a relevant metric nonetheless.

The only reason why you don't want to accept that is because you're a butthurt girlgroup stan who hates boygroups because they enjoy bigger longer careers thanks to... urgh, album sales and touring, who would have thought? I know your type well enough.

Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

Charting is irrelevant because the charts has no practical meaning, it's a reflection of sales and streams. Sells charting has any sort or relevance is like saying a table of the top sellers are as important as the sales themselves, do you see how this makes no sense?

Something can be sold as a collectible, it's like vynils. People buy them because they are big, fancy and nice to decorate their rooms. Did you know Pokemon brand makes more money from merchandising than from game sales? Albums are like kpop merchan, nobody is listening to them, but they are a relevant metric nonetheless.

The only reason why you don't want to accept that is because you're a butthurt girlgroup stan who hates boygroups because they enjoy bigger longer careers thanks to... urgh, album sales and touring, who would have thought? I know your type well enough.

You talk about which charting Spotify, melon, or gaon ?

Also charting is important it saved many groups to disband or totally flop.

Length of the shaft from base to top of the head

Quote from killthisfenty

You talk about which charting Spotify, melon, or gaon ?

I understand charting as = The positions in you are in a table

Like, saying getting number ones, top 10, 100, 1000 etc

But what truly matters, in the end, is the number of sales and streams

Charting are cool stuff to follow, I personally enjoy following them, but I'm well aware they are a subjective and circumstantial metric. For instance, if Drake comeback with a 25 songs album filling the top 25 spots and you debut at number #26 doesn't mean you flopped, only means Drake did better and you would be #1 if it was not him.

the thing is, you can't measure only on one factor.

All of the above.

U need all inorder to truly be the top ✔️

Album sales as after all that's what it was back in the day before streaming and youtube were even conceived.

All of the above and none of the above.

The bottom line of a groups success is just that. The bottom line.

Are they making a good bit of money then they are a success and doesn't matter if it comes from youtube views, concerts or even just CFs. The person that tanks with streams but sells 20,000,000 albums will be laughing at your "But they don't chart" comment as they drive by in their Bugatti Chiron.

All of the above

Health and Happiness.

OP... you left out the "my opinion" option

Depends, popular artists with popular songs will be remembered even if hey can’t get good tour numbers, you’ll hear their name and will remember a couple songs and that’s success

But there’s something different about artists that can pull worldwide stadium tours so I choose touring lol

Toruing, album sales and streams

All of the above but I would say touring if choose one, since kpop is niche genre, streams and charts are more so measure of "mainstream" success. I don't think for kpop companies that's the priority at least for boygroups.

Quote from GrayCrow

All of the above but watching smaller groups grow cb after cb is so heart warming and you can really see the visible growth

this.

Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

Charting is irrelevant because the charts has no practical meaning, it's a reflection of sales and streams. Saying charting has any sort or relevance is like saying a table of the top sellers are as important as the sales themselves, do you see how this makes no sense?

Something can be sold as a collectible, it's like vynils. People buy them because they are big, fancy and nice to decorate their rooms. Did you know Pokemon brand makes more money from merchandising than from game sales? Albums are like kpop merchan, nobody is listening to them, but they are a relevant metric nonetheless.

The only reason why you don't want to accept that is because you're a butthurt girlgroup stan who hates boygroups because they enjoy bigger longer careers thanks to... urgh, album sales and touring, who would have thought? I know your type well enough.

Honestly yeah, the album sales metric seems to go against their narrative. Hence why they dismiss them. Like, okay yeah sure. They don't matter at all. Whatever you say /s

If this is exclusive to Kpop then rank will be album sales>>touring>>youtube views. Kpop industry moves differently from mainstream and more on fandom-focused. I would say that these three are the metrics to see how huge is the group's fandom which indicates 'success' whether profitable or longevity.

But looking at these metrics- just wanna appreciate how BTS topped all of these. I hope more groups can have the success of BTS.

IMO, the most important factor is one that's not on your list.

Money made.

Every other metric can be impacted by context. e.g.

• Album sales - cheap vs expensive, bulk buys, economic climate
• Views/Streams - ads, bots, fandom streaming
• Charting - someone had a great example above using Drake, No 1 in 2022 is probably not the same as No 1 in 2013.
• Touring - comp tickets, venue capacity, tour location
• Social Media - paid followers, multiple accounts

I think there are then tiers to it.

To start with, if you aren't getting paid, you aren't successful.

Then you've got those that just scrape by.

Then you've got those who could be considered successful and have income in line with average non-celebs

Then those who are rich by normal standards

Then those who are rich rich, who buy buildings, businesses, fancy cars etc.

There are obviously levels within levels here but you get the gist of it.

Other - the only metric that we will never know

the $$$ or ₩₩₩ in their bank account...

Quote from selfmate

Other - the only metric that we will never know

the $$$ or ₩₩₩ in their bank account...

Quote from citron-icy

I did say bank account and not wallet...