The Billboard Music Awards introduced the Top Social Artist award in 2011. Justin Bieber became the category’s first winner at that year’s ceremony, which recognized music released and popularized during 2010.
The award measures an artist’s strength with fans across social media and other forms of online engagement. It is also one of the Billboard Music Awards’ fan-voted categories, making it distinct from many awards determined primarily by chart performance.
The category is sometimes associated mainly with BTS because the group won it repeatedly from 2017 onward and helped make it one of the ceremony’s most internationally visible awards. However, BTS did not create the category: Bieber had already won it several times before BTS’s first victory.
The year 2011 can also cause confusion because the Billboard Music Awards themselves returned that year after a multi-year break. The Top Social Artist award debuted as part of that revived ceremony, alongside the broader expansion of awards reflecting digital fandom and online music culture.