As we saw last weekend, buzz isn’t enough to predict the winner – there’s something good going for each of the contestants, so which one is the best prediction?
Olly Murs has had the most buzz since 10 October and during the week leading up to this weekend’s final.
Source: Brandwatch
Stacey Solomon has the most fans on Facebook.
Source: Sum of Facebook pages with 100 or more fans
Joe is winning in the polls.
Forums on the Daily Mail, Digital Spy, Entertainment.stv.tv, PopSugar, StudentRoom and UnRealityTV forums all agree that Joe will win.
StudentRoom forums
Entertainment.stv.tv
DigitalSpy forums
So what’s the best predictor of who will win?
Buzz gave some indication of who would be voted off earlier on, but now that it’s down to the last three, buzz isn’t reliable enough. Stacey has a lot of Facebook fans, but it could just be her personality giving her fans. Polls are the closest to the actual vote, so I’m willing to bet that Joe will win this weekend.
After last night’s stunning X Factor performances, it’s time to make some predictions for tonight – based on what everyone is saying online.
(Click to see a larger image).
Over time, Danyl Johnson has had consistent buzz, with a higher than average number of mentions. Of the remaining five, Joe McElderry has had the least amount of buzz.
I’ll make a bold prediction: I think we’ll see Joe McElderry or Lloyd Daniels go home tonight on X Factor. If I’m wrong, I’ll try again.
There always seems to be a celebrity tweeting about a brand they’re unhappy with – two weeks ago it was Rob Brydon with O2, and since then, Perez Hilton has been informing more than 13.5 million people about how T-Mobile and Danger and Microsoft have all failed.
But what’ s a company to do in a situation like this?
1. @reply to any celebrities talking about it (but only if they’re not overly angry)
You can generally tell what overly angry is based on word choice. The two examples above put Perez Hilton on the list of people to ignore. Chances are, if you respond to Perez Hilton and tell him you’re working on it and you’re very sorry, it will add more fuel to the fire.
2. @reply to all the customers with questions.
Be proactive about it; it’s okay to respond even if they haven’t tweeted directly at you. If you don’t know the answer, try to find it, and if you can’t, be honest.
3. Issue statements and updates as often as possible.
You might have nothing to say, but that’s okay. Just assure everyone that you’re still working on it.
4. If you can’t solve the problem right away, start giving away free stuff.
Free merchandise, gift certificates, contract releases, upgrades. Plan it out. If this problem persists longer, how big should the giveaways be? Pay attention to what your customers are saying and if they think it’s enough.
5. Make sure that when the problem is resolved, they are happier than before the problem started.
This might mean a free upgrade or extra services for extended period of time. Make people who ditched the brand think twice about it. Solve a problem well, and your customers will be more loyal to your brand and less likely to jump ship.
T-Mobile is doing rather well in this situation by using all of the above tools so far, but we’ll have to see if in a month’s time Perez Hilton is wishing he had been more patient.
It doesn’t seem so long ago that I posted a blog about tweeting being banned in the world of sport. In fact, it wasn’t long ago at all. It was two weeks ago.
Now, two weeks later, yet another sport organisation, the National Football League (American - a trend?), decides tweeting and other social networking will not be allowed before, during or after American football games. This policy applies to players, coaches, league officials and the media attending games. Really? The media too?
Policies like this (while their intent is easily understood) are very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce and generally make people upset.
Social media is taking over – it’s unstoppable! Learn a lesson from these sport organisations and try to use tweeting and social networking to your brand’s advantage rather than fighting against it.
The Southeastern Conference’s (American college sports organisation) ticket policy was basically a ban against communicating to anyone outside the game. No game updates, no photos and no video were allowed to be posted to the Internet while at a game. The SEC wanted to be the sole Tweeter.
Of course, this is absurd. It’s unenforceable, and everyone will hate you. Plenty of concerts and sporting events do not allow cameras, but to really prevent all visual content that would mean not allowing mobiles, but everyone will hate you.
Naturally, everyone hated SEC. They hated it all over the Internet, which results in a worse problem for the organisation than they started with.
They noticed and have responded with a revised ticket policy, which allows you to Tweet and take photos now. No video seems like a reasonable request, but they’ll have a fun time enforcing it.
Much like Apple took a stand against the PC, Box.net is taking on their competitor, Microsoft’s SharePoint. Box.net and SharePoint are both online services for sharing content.
A promotional email sent by Box.net says:
“We’ve noticed a lot of businesses are switching from SharePoint to Box.net because we make it easier to share content and collaborate.”
In addition to offering a free trial (the unsatisfied get 3 months of SharePoint for free), Box.net is encouraging consumers to tweet their frustrations with SharePoint using the hashtag #SharePointBlues for a chance to win a t-shirt. Their favourite tweet will win not one, but two, Macbooks.
I am one of the newbies in Jam, so this is my first blog. I also happen to be the only American on the team, so it’s only fitting that I start off blogging with coffee, even though I much prefer a British cup of tea.
I came across the portrait of Mona Lisa made from 4,000 cups of coffee while perusing random postings on Tumblr.
This gem is the mastermind of The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia, which you can read more about here.
Why didn’t the Americans think of this? My guess is they were probably too busy drinking coffee.
You can generally tell what overly angry is based on word choice. The two examples above put Perez Hilton on the list of people to ignore. Chances are, if you respond to Perez Hilton and tell him you’re working on it and you’re very sorry, it will add more fuel to the fire.
Be proactive about it; it’s okay to respond even if they haven’t tweeted directly at you. If you don’t know the answer, try to find it, and if you can’t, be honest.
