No More Social Media For American Idol Contestants
At about 6PM ET on March 3rd, according to the Wall Street Journal, all Twitter, Facebook and MySpace followers of individual American Idol contestants were sent the same message:
“Thanks so much for following me/joining my Fan Page! All my updates from now on will be on our Official American Idol 9 Contestant Page, please become a fan there to read all my updates throughout the season!”
The Wall Street Journal speculates that in this year's thin contestant field, only a few were getting much attention and thus telegraphing their greater popularity. I'm betting they also want to impress sponsors with one big and impressive combined traffic number.
Whatever the reason, they also denied each contestant the ability to grow their own brand and establish more direct to fan connections. Then again Idol was never about building any brand but its own and the singers are mere pawns in that game.
You Can Still Learn Who Fans Are Voting For (If You Care…)
Philip Kaplan of Blippy has just launched Idolnerd.com.
"I'm a nerd who just watched
American Idol. I think I can predict who will win each week by writing
a program that scours social media sites like Twitter, Facebook,
MySpace, blogs and other sources, and then tally who everyone says
they're voting for.Assuming this data set is roughly statistically
equivalent to the people who watch American Idol, and I think it is,
the results will be accurate.
Currently gathering data throughout the day.
Votes counted so far: 3,253
If you use Twitter, follow me at @pud and I'll tweet the results when they are computed.
Rock on,
Pud
Idol fans can follow the the official witter feed @AI9Contestants, the Facebook page at AI9 Contestants, as well as, on MySpace.
I would love to see the clause that covers that in the AI Contract. I’d also love to know if the “contestants” are fully aware of what this really means.
It’s a communications gag rule, imposed on individuals, so that a corporation might benefit. Unreal.
bbb
wheatus.com
AI was probably the best idea the industry had in the last 2 decades. Instead of advancing dozens of artists millions of dollars in the hopes that one blows up, you earn buckets of money putting them on television and letting them duke it out. Once you have a winner, you’ve already got someone with a massive fan base. You also have a self-selection process for people that are completely star-eyed, so you probably won’t have any problem getting them to sign a miserly deal. Now, on top of that, you (try to) jack all the advertising revenue away from social networking sites, as well as control content.
This must feel like shooting fish in a barrel…
I’d bet they’re doing this for the traffic.
No Idol contestant is going to bite the hand that’s feeding him/her, especially not mid-meal.
That’s a bummer, it was cool to tweet with their personal Twitter accounts. Whatever Idol! I’ll still tweet and watch!
I don’t see this working out for American Idol – even if they’re getting more control, the branding opportunity that is lost is enormous. I just hope labels don’t get any ideas, it’s totally counter productive!
Marcus
http://www.themusiciansguide.co.uk/blog
Actually they get paid pretty well considering the actual talent most of them do have, there are a few who are extremely talented, but would never do nearly this well left on their own
The most important is the reviews, I hope Bewersox win