Social Media Wars: Eminem gaining hold, takes down Lady Gaga on Facebook

Eminem, the rapper on 'Recovery' from drug addictions and a hiatus from the music scene over the past couple of years, is seizing the spotlight for more reasons than just brutal honesty in his new albums. After he reemerged as a force to reckon with in the music scene with Grammy nominations in races of album, record and song of the year, the 38-year-old's increasing popularity is reflecting on the social media front.

Just days after it was reported that Eminem has surpassed the one billion views mark on YouTube, the rapper has managed to take down pop singer Lady Gaga on Facebook. With 28,883,000 'likes' on the social networking site, Eminem overtook Lady Gaga with 28,872,000 to be termed the most 'Liked' living artist.

Famecount, which keeps a tab on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Social Media statistics, said Eminem is currently averaging over half a million 'likes' a day. If he can sustain the current rate, the rapper will soon surpass Michael Jackson as the most 'liked' artist on Facebook. The King of Pop currently sits at 29.1 million 'likes'.

On Monday, February 26, Famecount said that Eminem was the third person ever to have more than one billion views on YouTube, after Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. Eminem had 1,000,163,659 YouTube views, while the Canadian teenage pop sensation had 1.3 billion views and Lady Gaga 1.189 billion views.

At Famecount, we have watched Eminem's social media fame explode over the last 6 months, Daniel Dearlove, founder of Famecount, said in an statement.

However, Eminem, who gave Lady Gaga a stiff challenge at the 2011 Grammys with his album of the year nomination, still has a long way to go before he beats the pop star in totality. Although Eminem is on Twitter, he trails behind Lady Gaga by over 5 million followers.

After his struggle with addiction to prescription medication and near death to methadone overdose in 2007, Eminem returned in 2009 with 'Relapse'. The Grammy award winning album was followed by 'Recovery' in June 2010, which became the biggest selling album of the year in the United States. The comeback really hit a new height on his collaboration with R&B singer Rihanna on the track 'Love the way you lie'.

Rihanna is also close to hitting the one billion views mark on YouTube.

Social media platforms have emerged as huge marketing and PR tools since 2009. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube among other sites have redefined the way marketing, PR campaigns, damage control works today. When it comes to celebrities in particular, these platforms provide the grounds for fans to directly follow their celebrities eliminating the need to rely on reports and rumors. Therefore, the sites that satisfy the fans, stalkers as well as news junkies have become one of the prominent markers to assess popularity of celebrities, politicians, athletes, companies as well as non-profit organizations and campaigns.