Predicting American Idol Season 8 Winners via Search and Social Media

Costa Mesa, CA, April 12, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Digital search marketing agency ymarketing thought it would be interesting to take the concept of predicting the Season 8 American Idol winner to another level, expanding the previous “search-related” scope attempts to include several sources of search and social media data. Dubbed Idol Prediction Project, ymarketing will track the popularity of Idol contestants weekly on its blog leading up to the season finale show.

“This happened almost accidentally. We were looking at top referring search keywords to YouTube and were amazed to see American Idol contestants near the top,” said VP of Strategic Marketing David Carpenter. “But we also knew that search referrals were only part of this puzzle, so we started to add keyword searches on Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and more.”

Ymarketing is currently using Facebook Lexicon, Google Trends, Compete, YouTube and Twitter as data sources; then analyzing the keywords and traffic on these sites and other top entertainment and pop culture sites, including American Idol, Hulu, People, Pop Eater, Perez Hilton and more. ymarketing will make weekly updates to the Idol Prediction Project content on its site's blog.

Of the remaining contestants, one stands above them in nearly every category and seems like the runaway leader at this stage of the competition: Adam Lambert. His popularity is 5 to 10 times that of his closest competition in several defining metrics.

Predicting the winners of shows like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars is nothing new. In fact, in his book Click, Bill Tancer of Hitwise writes about his approach to predicting prior seasons of American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. But never before has the prediction been as far reaching and included Social Media with search from select pop culture and entertainment data sources.

“Based on the data, Adam Lambert doesn’t just have an edge, he’s about to lap the competition,” said Carpenter. “It’s 100% Adam’s to lose.”

About ymarketing:
ymarketing--which helps clients with SEM, PPC, Blog, Social Media, and other Digital Online Marketing--is a SoCal-based digital search firm that focuses on ROI driven campaigns. ymarketing is a strategic partner for maximizing online marketing results by combining best-of-breed strategies and industry leading technologies: experience + technology.

Founded in 2002, ymarketing works with integrated online marketing programs including affiliate, display, email, natural search, paid search, blog and social media. The company utilizes best-of-breed web site analytical applications including Google Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst & WebTrends. Ymarketing is an Omniture Certified Professional, Google Qualified Company, Member of the SEO Consultants Directory (Search Industry Peer Review), a Microsoft adExcellence Member and a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador.

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