Share this article:

How social media predicted The UK X Factor winner 2011

Posted by: Elemental Communications

Date added: Fri 16 Dec 2011

How social media measurement and analysis predicted the first group Little Mix to the win The X Factor

Zoom

Independent social media measurement and analysis by communications consultancy Elemental correctly predicted The X Factor winner, girl group Little Mix, but how was this possible?

Girl group Little Mix, crowned winners of The X Factor 2011 has made X Factor history, being the first group to win one of televisions coveted competitions, but their rise to success and eventual win was predicted weeks ago by social media analysis by Elemental.

For the last 10 weeks the communications consultancy has collated and analysed social media data producing its X Factor social media infographics, demonstrating the impact that social media has had upon the live shows, contestants, ITV’s main social assets, the judges and vice versa.

Rachel Hawkes, account director at Elemental, the communications consultancy that created The X Factor infographics comments, “Reviewing social data from Week 7 we demonstrated that the finalists would be Little Mix, Marcus Collins and Amelia Lily with the likely winners being the girl group. The weekly social analysis throughout weeks 8 and 9 only served to strengthen this prediction.”

“In the first week, we set out some questions we thought social media might answer over the course of the show, such as whether judges comments can impact on the journey of a contestant and whether it could predict the eventual winner of the show. Social media analysis for the final (10-11 December 2011) looks back over each question and discusses what we learnt over the previous 10 weeks, and provides some interesting insights,” continues Hawkes.

Tim Gibbon, director at Elemental comments, “The series of infographics shows insight into the impact social media had upon The X Factor and vice versa. The question now is how social TV will continue to influence, and how it influences programme making. If the X Factor UK adopted Facebook and Twitter social voting like the US series, which started in October, it may have produced a different winner. With many other contestants with strong social profiles not progressing due the lack of the public vote, they may have done better with the social fan base that they had.”

The X Factor 2012 will have stronger competition for audience viewers, it need to sell out show tours and its obligatory race for the Christmas number one, so will have to adopt evolving social approaches to make its mark if it’s to regain its TV crown. One has to wonder, how much will social media be engrained into its evolution for such programme makers?”

“For now, we’ll have to wait and see if Little Mix continues to build their social media currency and momentum to translate to album sales, which may be consolation for the programme makers ITV after experiencing lower audience figures this year,” concludes Tim Gibbon, director at Elemental.

For full analysis of Week 10 and review all of the X Factor social media analysis from the live shows, visit the Elemental blog.

There is a Adobe Acrobat document attached to this news article which you can download. If your browser has the necessary extensions for Adobe Acrobat, it will open automatically in a new window. If not, you will have the option to save it to your hard drive.

There is a Word document attached to this news article which you can download. If your browser has the necessary extensions for Microsoft Word, it will open automatically in a new window. If not, you will have the option to save it to your hard drive.