Twitter, Beyonce Rock the VMA’s

MTV set a ratings record on Sunday night with its broadcast of its Video Music Awards, drawing 12.7 million viewers, per Nielsen. But it was on the Web, in mobile and particularly in social media where the memorable show — which saw Lady Gaga dressed as a dude and Beyonce announce that she and Jay-Z are expecting — delivered some eye-popping numbers.

In fact, during the show, just after Beyonce performed, Twitter set a new volume record, peaking at 8,868 tweets per second. Among the many mini-missives fired off by viewers around that time were EsiMagic’s “can’t stop starring at Beyonce’s belly, lol. #vmas.”

The VMA’s also drove a record audience to MTV.com (close to 2 million unique users, up 33 percent versus last year, according to MTV’s internal numbers). The site also handled 2.3 million streams for the day, up 41 percent compared to 2010.

The huge volume of Twitter chatter was a major driver of traffic to MTV.com during the show. Per MTV officials, the site saw the highest level of referrals from Twitter ever. Overall social networks drove 76 percent more traffic than a year ago.

Meanwhile, MTV’s mobile site also enjoyed its biggest traffic day ever, generating 2.7 video views.

Of course, TV networks are increasingly looking to embrace social viewing, which they believe only enhances TV viewership, particularly for big events. That would seem to be what happened with the VMAs.

“We shattered digital records across the board,” said MTV digital gm Kristin Frank. “Our goal was to provide an additive, fan-activated, cross-platform experience that collectively amplified and complemented the main stage viewing on television.”