American Idol Social Media Totals: Season 12 vs Season 11, Plus Supervote!

I thought you guys might want to take a peek at the the Twitter/Facebook follower totals for the American Idol Top 20 contestants. Angie Miller and Lazaro Arbos are leading both Twitter and Facebook followers by a wide margin. Janelle Arthur and Kree Harrison are in the Top 5. But look at Burnell Taylor. He’s 3rd in Twitter follows and dead last on Facebook. Burnell’s completely untouched Facebook page likely explains why he’s got so few followers in that platform. On the other hand, he has been engaging his fans pretty regularly on Twitter. Zoanette Johnson gained several hundred followers on micro-blogging website when she decided to tweet, finally, this afternoon.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at a story I put together last year for Entertainment Weekly at about the same point in the competition.   The Top 24 contestant with the most twitter followers? Heejun Han. And we know what happened to him. Out in 9th place!  But he was very entertaining, so it’s no wonder he initially amassed a large social following. But look who was second. Yep. They guy who would eventually take it all–Phillip Phillips.  The eventual 7th place finisher, Colton Dixon, was 3rd and the season 11 runner up, Jessica Sanchez was 5th–behind Eben Franckewitz (WHO you’re asking? He’s the adorable teen who butchered Adele in the semis). Pretty random…eh?

However, there is speculation that the introduction of the Super Vote will favor those with the highest social network followers. The idea, is that those who hang out on Facebook will be able to easily power vote for their favorites. But the limit is 50 votes per week. That’s nothing compared to the ability to vote again and again for the same contestant via phone and text during the entire voting window. The Supervote would only have an impact if there were voting limits in place on ALL platforms, as The Voice has in place.  (The Voice 3 winner, Cassadee Pope, would have had a harder time benefiting from the ever-changing iTunes voting rules if there was unlimited voting on other platforms, I believe).

I’m also not convinced the Supervote will favor young voters.  I’m on Facebook, and so are tons of people from my high school graduating class, and I’m…we’ll let’s say I’m not young, and leave it at that.  There are more middle aged folks on Facebook than the conventional wisdom would have you believe.  And anyway, if a contestant captures the viewers’ attention–I don’t care if we’re talking about 100 year olds–they WILL find every available method to vote for their favorite.

But in any case, if Angie Miller never lives up to the promise of her buzzy original song in Hollywood? She’s going down, and no number of social networking followers or Super Votes will save her, because she’ll be abandoned for a shinier, more compelling contestant, who will undoubtedly be the recipient of all the Super Votes he/she is allowed.

Twitter Followers

Angie Miller 8397
Lazaro Arbos 6568
Burnell Taylor 2646
Janelle Arthur 2427
Kree Harrison 2417
Paul Jolley 2147
Aubrey Cleland 2004
Candice Glover 1981
Adriana Latonio 1655
Cortez Shaw 1529
Zoanette Johnson 1313
Nick Boddington 1149
Devin Velez 1149
Charlie Askew 1091
Breanna Steer 1050
Elijah Liu 908
Amber Holcomb 883
Curtis Finch 854
Tenna Torres 578
Vincent Powell 549

Facebook Followers

Angie Miller 6083
Lazaro Arbos 3094
Janelle Arthur 2594
Kree Harrison 1884
Aubrey Cleland 1853
Paul Jolley 1399
Nick Boddington 777
Candice Glover 666
Cortez Shaw 362
Adriana Latonio 286
Vincent Powell 206
Tenna Torres 204
Breanna Steer 196
Elijah Liu 178
Curtis Finch 160
Charlie Askew 125
Zoanette Johnson 114
Devin Velez 91
Amber Holcomb 79
Burnell Taylor 65

About mj santilli 34833 Articles
Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted. I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!