I think it’s brilliant. And by that I don’t mean that I dislike Joe McElderry’s song, or that I’m a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine. I kept well out of both sides of the argument and didn’t buy either single (personally, I’m more of a fan of The Muppets).

Power of Persuasion

A while ago I read a book called The Tipping Point. It’s a great read and highly recommended. It talks a lot about how social trends have developed and hit their tipping point – the point at which it stops being a small trend and makes a huge impact.

Let’s be clear, this year’s UK Christmas Number 1 race was not about the music. It wasn’t a battle between two songs, or artists. It was all about the politics – a group of people that felt really strongly about not wanting another X Factor number one single, a large number of people who either felt the same way or jumped on the bandwagon – verses a group of people who were fans of the Joe McElderry song and a large group of people who felt strongly that it should beat the Rage single or jumped on the bandwagon.

The Right Tools for the Job

Anyone who’s watched the Eurovision Song Contest will know all about politics interfering with music. But what’s interesting about the battle between Joe McElderry and Rage Against the Machine is the way that people came together to make it happen.

The campaign was started on Facebook – and quickly gained a hashtag and a huge number of retweets on Twitter. Leveraging social media as the tool to make their campaign happen, the guys that started the movement inadvertedy captured the minds of many likeminded people. As more and more people used the hashtag on Twitter and joined the Facebook group, it became less about the core reasons that the cause was started, and more about ’sticking it’ to whoever – Simon Cowell, The X Factor, Manufactured Pop Music.

There were other factors, too – Rage Against the Machine said quite early on that they would donate the proceeds of the single to UK Charity Shelter (a great cause) – and let’s not forget that much talked about Radio 5 interview.

But this campaign had the social web at it’s heart, and so that’s what’s so brilliant – this whole thing has been a fantastic example of how Social Media is a tool that can be used – whether the reasons are right or wrong – to reach a huge number of people in such a short space of time.

The Reaction & The Aftermath

One of the most interesting things was watching some of the conversations on the social web just after the announcement was made. There were the two polar opposite sides of the argument – the people on both side who were both ecstatic and angry. There were those who took the moral high ground and mentioned it in a very impartial way. And then there were the rest of us – sure, I had a preference about the music, but my life wasn’t about to change. I chatted to a few people on Twitter about the result and how they felt about it.

Ironically, the biggest backlash I read was from an ITV employee, who branded those who bought the Range Against the Machine song as “Pathetic”. He clearly felt very strongly about it (as his Twitter feed seemed to show, he was saying similar things to many ‘Rage’ fans)

Many of the people who’s tweets I read were celebrating “the end of X Factor” or the “downfall of manufactured pop”. While they were on the winning side of the battle, their arguement could be deemed just as flawed.

Will this result change the music industry? Certainly not.

For the first time in history, I’m willing to bet that this year’s Christmas Number 1 will have far more of an impact on the business world – as millions of eyes at thousands of companies around the world turn to social media, having seen what it can do here, tonight.