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The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that all of the individual social media profiles of the contestants from American Idol 9 have been merged into one central account on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. According to the report, the going speculation is that Idol producers were concerned that the followers or fans count of each of the contestants may have affected America’s voting patterns.
The importance of establishing a personal presence with fans is something that is sacrificed, according to Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove, and I agree. How are the contestants going to be able to establish a connection with the fanbase without social networking sites? It could be extremely difficult for them to do so after being voted off the show, since the American Idol “hype machine” will be gone. Likely, only an artist’s most loyal fans would stick around and support the vocalist after the time on the show ends.
Shows like American Idol stress the competition amongst individuals, so why not allow them to have their own personal fan pages on social media sites? With contestants sharing a joint account, a fan can bet that he/she won’t receive truly meaningful updates. The likelihood for personal updates is much higher on individual pages—not shared accounts.
There is always the potential for fan or follower count to sway voting results, but what is stopping any other major website from compiling data on popularity? Numeric popularity results can be acquired through a simple Google analytics search for search volume, or through other websites such as Idol Nerd. Once these analytics are analyzed, they can go viral through blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates, and there is nothing that American Idol can do to stop this information from being passed around.
The effect on the American Idol viewership could be tremendous as well. With many fans latching onto one or a few favorite candidates, the inability to follow their updates from a personal profile page could directly result in missed episodes (or the whole season) due to lack of interest. As for myself, I know that I’d be much more inclined to watch American Idol if I was able to follow the personal updates of the contestants I cared most about. Without that kind of connection, there is no real bridge for the viewer to connect with a contestant, much less stay engaged with the show’s happenings.
Without Simon Cowell in 2011, American Idol will find it hard to gather as much excitement for the show. With the elimination of contestant social media profiles, the show has put itself on the fast track to failure: not just this season, but seasons beyond.
