If you have been living under a rock this Christmas or don’t live in the UK, then you must have been aware of the Xmas battle for Number 1 in the charts: X Factor’s Joe McElderry Vs Rage Against The Machine (RATM). It’s no secret that the power of Facebook made RATM victory, so here at The Worst Kept Secret we took it upon ourselves to have a bit of fun and see what TV reality music stars have the largest presence on Social Media.

We used the big 4: Facebook & MySpace (Social Networks), Twitter (Micro-blogging) & YouTube (Content Community) to do our research and looked at how many fans, friends, followers and subscribers they have.

Enjoy and please feel free to discuss & let people know the results.

10: Susan Boyle
Facebook (1) Twitter (n/a) Myspace (n/a) YouTube (4)

Britain’s Got Talent’s Queen and cat lover Susan Boyle drops in at number 10 on our list of Talent Based Reality TV Stars and their Social Media platforms. The crazy haired phenomenon tops the Facebook Fan Page with a whopping 1.77 million fans, and the video of her first BGT audition on YouTube has amassed well over 80million views, putting her fourth in our YouTube rankings! That’s enough to make anyone’s hair go wild!

9: Cheryl Cole
Facebook (2) Twitter (11) Myspace (n/a) Youtube (11)

Reality contestant, turned reality Princess with the world at her feet, Cheryl Cole leaps into ninth position on our chart. The rags to riches beauty has 1.5million Facebook fans, and without much of a social media presence or interaction with her community, she still has the power to overthrow governments. Cheryl for Prime Minister!

8. JLS
Facebook (8) Twitter (10) Myspace (18) Youtube (7)

X-Factor runner up’s to Alexander Burke (who doesn’t appear on our ladder), JLS fly into a healthy eighth in the world position, with a strong social media following. Their Facebook Fan Page boosts almost 400,000 followers, but it’s their Twitter page that we are most interested in.
The hunky chaps have almost 80,000 followers and interact nicely with them.

7. Adam Lambert
Facebook (7) Twitter (3) Myspace (11) Youtube (n/a)

American Idol 2009 Runner Up, Adam Lambert climbs into seventh in our chart. The 27-year-old Pop/Rock sensation has almost 300,000 Twitter followers and 400,000 Facebook Fans! At The Worst Kept Secret were not too familiar with his music, but we do think he looks the part for a Twilight movie cameo.

6. David Cook
Facebook (13) Twitter (8) Myspace (10) Youtube (7)

Multi-Talented Musician and winner of American Idol 2008, David Cook is our sixth place social media prince. He is floating about in the digital world on all four of the major networks, with his Myspace game boosting a healthy 187,000 friends and his Twitter with over 85,000.

5. Jordin Sparks
Facebook (22) Twitter (1) Myspace (2) Youtube (8)

In at Number 5 on our Social Media chart is American Idol 2007 winner, Jordin Sparks. Now Sparks’ Facebook page may be slightly below the Susan Boyle’s and Cheryl Cole’s, but it’s her Twitter and YouTube that shows the most life. The 20 year old tops our Twitter list with a mind blowing 435,000 followers, and not only does she have the largest herd of sheep, she also interacts with them well, and has tweeted over 6,300 times!
Jordin Sparks also is up there in our YouTube chart with over 120million views, placing her second to the video queen Leona Lewis!

4. Leona Lewis
Facebook (5) Twitter (n/a) Myspace (4) Youtube (1)

The UK’s most heart-felt voice and X Factor Queen, Leona Lewis is the highest UK artist in our chart. The 2006 X Factor winner is by far and away the Queen of YouTube with an eye watering 230million video views! That’s over 100million more than second place Jordin Sparks. Now while we all love to hear and watch Miss Lewis, her social media statistics elsewhere are extremely impressive also.
Her Facebook Fan Page has over 670,000 and her Myspace page has almost 300,000 friends. Gwan Miss Lewis! Moreover, Leona’s ground breaking first single “Bleeding Love” came in at Number 11 in the best selling singles of the decade!
That’s some ‘bleeding’ pennies for mogul Simon Cowell!

3. David Archuleta
Facebook (10) Twitter (2) Myspace (6) Youtube (6)

As we reach the Top 3, you have to be ready for some seriously alarming statistics. 2008 American Idol Runner-Up, David Archuleta is our highest ranking male artist. The 19 year old Musician rose to fame as a teen sensation on the US Talent show and since then has gone on to sell over a million albums worldwide and build up a strong online fan base. Archuleta’s community features highly across all four networks, with his Twitter showing almost 300,000, his Facebook Fan Page has over 250,000 and his Myspace has over 230,00 friends.
That’s some serious marketing power!

2. Kelly Clarkson
Facebook (6) Twitter (7) Myspace (3) Youtube (3)

The original reality TV Music Queen, an American Idol 2002 winner, in at number two on our chart, is the super talented, Pop/Rock sensation Kelly Clarkson. Although Clarkson doesn’t top any of our individual charts, it’s her consistency across the four major networks that suggest how strong her community fan base is. The Multi Grammy Award Winning artist has a YouTube channel with over 100million views, a Facebook Fan Page with over 530,000, a Twitter page with over 100,000 and a Myspace page with wait for it… over 460,000 friends!
Did someone say Social Media was a fad?

1. Carrie Underwood
Facebook (3) Twitter (6) Myspace (2) Youtube (5)

Top of the pops, Queen of the night, leader of the crusade and lion in the jungle, is an unexpected artist. The winner of our Reality TV within Social Media chart is the 2005 American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood.
Like Kelly Clarkson, Underwood doesn’t feature as a leader of any of our individual Social networking charts, but her concrete Social Media game is of vast proportion. The multi-talented blonde beauty climbs to the top of our chart with an impressive array of statistics.
A Facebook Fan Page with over 800,000 fans, her Twitter has over 130,000 followers, a YouTube channel with over 66million views and a Myspace page with over 630,000 friends.

Well there you have it, the Top 10 Talent Based Reality TV Stars and their Social Media presence. If this proves anything, it is that having a wide variety of fans across your free social networking sites is as important as anything. Imagine how much revenue is generated by having those statistics turned into single and album sales, and you can see the power between Reality TV and Social Media.

As we begin a new year and a new decade, and as Reality TV paints the daily news and with Social Media sharing it, we can only wait in anticipation for the next X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, American Idol, Pop Stars, Pop Idol, Making The Band and Fame Academy style show to dumb down our minds into Simon Cowell and Simon Fullers pockets and bring to the masses the next array of speculative break through talent.

Also if you want to know how you can up your Social Media level and get networks as strong as these guys WITHOUT going on a talent show, then download our free ebook and ecourse: The 10 Commandments of Music and Social Media.

Article by Luca Massaro
Images by Google

While I was waiting for the facebook username to launch (note to facebook: could you have picked a better time than 5 a.m. in the UK?), I was watching reruns of The Sopranos.  Now, not only do I think Sopranos is the greatest artistic achievement in the last 10 years (ok, im slightly exaggerating) but also Tony soprano is one of my favourite television characters in recent times (along with Ari Gold from Entourage).

One of the reasons I like Tony is because he never misses a business opportunity and if he was the head of facebook sales he would never have let a potential million dollar plus deal slip through his fingers. What was the million dollar plus deal?  The potential sponsorship of the username launch.

Sponsorship opportunities will be a huge revenue stream for social media sites and if done correctly, can be very beneficial for the sponsoring brand as it can engage the users and add value.  Facebook finding a sponsor for the username launch could have been the most successful online sponsorship since X-Men 3 and MySpace.  If you do not know about the deal, you had to befriend the X-Men profile and then you had the ability to increase your friends from 8 to 16.  At the time this was a big deal and everyone got involved.  Years later, MySpace applied roughly the same principle with Intel by increasing your music player from four songs to six (if you were a band).  Now these deals generated MySpace huge revenues and, as you can see by some of my posts in this site, I really believe in not reinventing the wheel, so facebook could have done something similar with their username launch.  Here is a brief example:

• Nokia decides to spend money on facebook to launch their new N97 mobile phone by creating a facebook fan page
• facebook has a new product to launch (the username) and decides to team up with Nokia to launch this
• for the users they now have to become a friend of Nokia’s N97 fan page and somehow engage with the page to receive access to generate a username

Now this is a very brief example but shows how Nokia sponsoring this would make people believe that the N97 powered or created the username experience and shows how a brand and a social network can partner together for sponsorship. The attraction of getting a new username would be so strong, I can imagine most people still following this procedure.

As i said before this is just an example, I have not spoken about the length of time, t & c’s and everything else that comes with a deal of this magnitude as this is something that the two companies need to sort out between them, but deals like this happen all the time with product launches and I am surprised facebook did not capitalise on it….. especially as it seems like a sure moneymaking opportunity.

Now this is all hypothetical and facebook may have decided they didn’t want to get sponsorship for it…. but let’s hope they don’t have someone like Tony Soprano as their head of sales as to see a business opportunity like this slip through their fingers would definitely give him more than a panic attack. (If you’re not seen the Sopranos, it’s worth taking three months out of your busy schedule to watch it).

Whats your thoughts on this? Do you think they were right to not monitise this? Or do you think they should have potentially sponsored this and cut down on some of the ad banners on the side? Let us know.

As you know Britain’s Got Talent is a TV phenomenon but online we crush them. Showing again the dominance of online video vs. television.

Find out how and why through this video…

I am sure you have all seen or heard about Kanye West’s appearance on ‘South Park’ last week. Most people probably watched it online – I know I did – but would the hype, news stories and even Kanye himself taking to his blog site to comment about it, have happened without the influence of social media?  I think not.  Here’s why.

The Pre-Match Hype: As soon as it was announced that Kanye West was going to be on ‘South Park’, the bloggers were the first to go crazy about it.  Blogs are crucial for building up hype and they certainly did an excellent job with this.

The Episode: The episode aired on TV but was on YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo, MSN and just about every other video platform on the web, within minutes after being broadcast. (Do a Google search of Kanye West South Park video for the full list of sites). In true ‘South Park’ tradition, it lived up to the hype and there were several talking points within the script to spark debate.

The Aftermath: The bloggers, social networks and social bookmarking sites went nuts and the video spread like wildfire.  There were videos embedded on people’s profiles, URLs included in status updates; people were bookmarking it like crazy and, most importantly, people were talking and forming opinions about it.

The person whose opinion was heard the most was, in fact, Kanye West. Instead of ignoring it and pretending it didn’t happen, he took to his own blog site to post his thoughts hours after the show aired.   Again the bloggers, social networks and social bookmarking sites went nuts. It went from the general public talking about it to a full-fledged news story with reports on MTV and the BBC to broard sheet newspapers and tabloid mags. All of this happened with very little marketing from the distributors of ‘South Park’. Without the Internet buzz, I am sure Kanye would not have even addressed this.

To his credit, Kanye embraced and continues to utilize social media very well. Instead of running away, he got involved and even though he said he got murdered (and let’s face it, he did take a beating), by using the technology available to him, I think he’s actually starting to come away from this very well.  Now, some people think it was all a PR stunt and Kanye’s blogging was to reduce damage control. I disagree.  I think Kanye West took to his blog, like most bloggers, because he had something to say to his fans and wanted to voice his opinion.  It wasn’t to plug an album or a concert, it was his feelings – straight from the heart. (He has posted 3 times about this so far).

This shows, yet again, how social media has changed the way in which we use the Internet. Where before we were defined by “where we clicked”, now we are to defined by “what we share”.  I was happy to see Kanye come out (no pun intended) and address this …. and if his Twitter game was a bit tighter, then I am sure he would beat CNN, Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher to be the first ‘millionaire’ in the Twitterverse.

Andrew TWKS

The Wire

One of the best TV series I have seen in the last five years is The Wire. Not only does the show tackles real issues and has a high entertainment value, it is also one of the few shows that unite all races, genders and creeds.

You will start to see a lot of blog posts related to The Wire as we have learned numerous lessons from the show, especially from how Avon and Marlon ran their business. However, this one is a bit out there but is a unique comparison….I promise

There are a lot of similarities between drug dealers and people who upload content. Huh? I can feel you say ….Hear me out.

A junkie is very similar to somebody looking for online content, especially videos. Most people want a quick fix to get them through the day. They do not care where they get it from but if the dealer or content is usually at the same place and easy to get, they will usually stay loyal to you. For example, Perez Hilton has an abundance of repeat viewers because he has a good product which is easy to digest.

Another similarity is when people make it hard to get what they are after. My favourite character from The Wire, Stringer Bell showed me that drugs –like content – are easy to get. You do not want to make things too difficult because it is easy for a junkie to go somewhere else and get it, hence why people fought over street corners (Real Estate – as he put it). If you start making content more than a couple of clicks away, people will lose patience and go elsewhere for content. One thing about the Internet is that there are always exclusive content available. If Perez Hilton started making you fill out forms, validate email etc just to read his blog I would expect his figures to drop drastically as people will go elsewhere.

Remember: users don’t owe you anything and all they want to do is participate and watch your video in the easiest way possible. They want their quick fix. The Internet made people lose patience and expect things at a click of a button.

Now this is not the rule of the Internet but a good indication where a lot of companies with exclusive content are failing.

I know this is a bit wacky but do you see the comparison now? I am by no means promoting the use of drugs or calling anyone a junkie but unfortunately sometimes the best comparisons are usually connected with negativity.

I’ll make the next post a little light-hearted LOL

Andrew TWKS

PS, if you have not seen The Wire…..please go watch it…now!