By Brian Anthony Hernandez For Mashable
While Justin Bieber rallied fans Thursday to donate to charity: water for his 18th birthday, his fans were also busy trying to break the Guinness World Records mark for most social media messages sent in a 24-hour period.
Early results from AgencyNet, the creators of Bieber’s official website, show the fans’ attempt appears to have already broken the previous record of 209,771 mentions set by the Beat Cancer Everywhere campaign in 2009.
Twitter account @JBworldrecord tweeted that Bieber fans reached 214,900 mentions at 12:53 p.m. ET with 11 hours to go at the time. The tally at 7:27 p.m. was 292,069 mentions, which included this phrase that was first sent when the clock struck midnight on March 1:
Pattie Mallette — Bieber’s mother who inadvertently catapulted his music career into super stardom in 2007 after uploading a video of her son performing Ne-Yo’s “So Sick”– even got in on the action.
AgencyNet organized more than 40,000 Bieber Fever victims through a birthday landing page, which lets them RSVP via their Facebook accounts. The event description instructed participants to tweet or retweet on Twitter, or post to Facebook the above message.
Guinness World Records still has the verify the messages after March 1 ends before a new record is set.
Until that confirmation surfaces, the official record still belongs to Everywhere for its #BeatCancer campaign, which raised $70,000 for cancer charities.
“I’m pleased and frankly shocked that our record stood for nearly two-and-a-half years, given the rapid evolution of social media,” Everywhere managing partner and cancer survivor Tamara Knechtel told Mashable. “We really set a precedent in proving that social media could be used for social good and we raised $70,000 along the way for cancer-serving non-profits.”
Bieber has built a massive fan base across social networks — particularly on Facebook and Twitter — so it should come as no surprise that his fans assembled to give him a world record as a birthday gift. Bieber has 17.8 million Twitter followers and 40.8 million Facebook “Likes.”
BONUS: The Road to Bieber Fever [INFOGRAPHIC]
In January, Bieber celebrated his fifth YouTube anniversary. His official YouTube channel has 2.3 billion views. For a quick glimpse at Bieber’s high-profile YouTube ride, check out the fun tidbits below thanks to Danish social media agency Crisp Social, that created the infographic for Mashable in January.
