Rihanna endorses drink, closes in on Eminem in battle for Facebook fans

(AFP PHOTO / Robyn Beck)

Rihanna's rapid accumulation of Facebook fans has seen the Barbados-born musician become more popular than Lady Gaga on the social networking site. This week, following her endorsement of a drink, she continued to move ever closer to Facebook's number one celebrity Eminem.

Over the week prior to August 9 Rihanna's Facebook page gained over 974,000 new fans, giving her a total of 42,975,502 fans on the social networking site. In terms of people, not brands, Rihanna, having overtaken Lady Gaga, is second only in Facebook popularity to rapper Eminem, who is currently the most popular person living or dead with over 45 million fans.

According to data from social media monitoring site Famecount, Rihanna could soon over take Eminem.

Famecount data shows that over the past seven days Rihanna's Facebook page experienced the largest increase in growth, above footballer Leo Messi and JK Rowling's Harry Potter franchise. In comparison, in terms of weekly increase in growth Eminem's Facebook page ranked tenth.

Rihanna recently endorsed the drink Vita Coco Coconut Water with Tropical Fruit, which carries her signature. The drink, which is available to buy on Amazon, has been heavily promoted on the star's Facebook page since its launch of August 3. To date, the four comments mentioning the drink on the star's Facebook page have attracted over 150,000 ‘likes' and 24,000 comments.  

The launch of the drink has undoubtedly led to increased interaction between the star and her Facebook fans and has most likely contributed to Rihanna's rising popularity.

Other popular pages over the past week included the Harry Potter page, Justin Bieber, The Smurfs and musician Shakira.

The top ten Facebook pages with the largest increase in fans over the past week, according to data from Famecount.com, are:

01.   Rihanna (+974,906 fans this week)  
02.   Leo Messi (+726,391 fans this week)  
03.   Harry Potter (+661,855 fans this week)  
04.   Justin Bieber (+654,450 fans this week)   
05.   The Smurfs (+595,811 fans this week)   
06.   Red Hot Chili Peppers (+594,583 fans this week)  
07.   Shakira (493,397 fans this week)   
08.   Eminem (+475,940 fans this week)   
09.   Katy Perry (+442,852 fans this week)   
10.   Texas Hold'em Poker (+439,901 fans this week)