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American Idol Consolidates Social Media Accounts of Top 24 Contestants

posted by Melanie DAcchioli @ Friday, March 5, 2010 - 3:45 PM
The popular reality TV series American Idol made history this year by allowing the show's top 24 finalists to maintain individual Facebook and Twitter accounts... and then promptly took them away.

According to MTV.com, "For years, the show has put a virtual headlock on all non-"Idol"-sanctioned social media, declaring a blackout on any information or correspondence from contestants during their championship run on the show." However, this change was short-lived. After blogs and websites started declaring who was the most popular contestant, i.e. who was most likely to win based on Facebook or Twitter fan/follower counts, American Idol quickly squashed this initiative.

Last night, Twitter followers of each of the top 24 AI contestants were served this message: “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official Ai9 Twitter Page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants.” Similar messages were posted to Facebook and MySpace as well, according to Mashable.


While American Idol is justified in its concern that social media could sway the results of a show whose results are entirely based on the public's votes, ultimately this move seems wrong. AI made a statement by allowing the top 24 contestants to create these individual social identities for the first time in history, and then immediately taking them away for fear of skewed results.

While American Idol is not fully taking away the individual identities of its contestants, whose tweets and Facebook/MySpace updates are still labeled by name on the new consolidated AI9 pages, the show is still robbing them of the ability to generate and grow fans through social media. The more a contestant puts into their pages, the better results they will show for it. The more engaging questions they ask fans, such as what song they should sing next week, helpful feedback/criticism, etc. the better results they should have to show for it. If AI had a problem with contestants gaining fans and helpful information from their fans using social media, why did they create the identities in the first place? And it's naive to assume that the show had no idea the media would jump on the opportunity to determine the projected winner based on fans and followers of each contestant before they even began the season.

If the contestants' activity on their individual social media platforms influences the show's results, this would only prove that social media marketing is a great tool for American Idol to use to reach its target audience and promote the show itself. But now the show's social media platform is tainted with this news, and its results will be shaky at best. Just like every other mindless reality TV show, AI season 9 is now left with one page on each of the social networks, where all fans can congregate and discuss the season (which has proven to be a disappointment thus far to most former American Idol enthusiasts). It almost seems that AI is opposing viewers establishing loyalty to any one contestant... just in case it actually means something in the end. Isn't this show supposed to be about what the audience thinks? Think again.

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