Predicting the winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2013 through social media

The moves, the outfits and the fur! And no, I’m not just talking about Simon Cowell. From dancing dogs to singing grannies, Britain’s Got Talent showcases the best entertainment acts in the country. This weekend, weeks of searching will come to an end and one act will be crowned winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2013 – a grand prize of £250,000 and the opportunity to perform at the Royal Variety Performance.

I must confess, I am not a huge fan of BGT but I have often been wowed by some of the acts. I genuinely got shivers hearing SuBo sing I Dreamed a Dream for the first time. I’m also a big fan of Francine Lewis from this year. But it’s clear that this show is still hugely popular!

Approximately 16% of the UK’s population will be glued to their televisions on Saturday night. The dominance of the televoting talent shows show little signs of slowing in popularity – the 2013 series of Britain’s Got Talent 2013 dominated primetime TV viewing and has frequently been the most watched programme of the week.

So, without further ado, we’ve decided to see whether we can predict the winner of Britain’s Got Talent through social media signals. Last month, we accurately predicted the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 by using social media. At MintTwist, we firmly believe that there is a growing trend in social media being a powerful litmus test for measuring sentiment – especially in situations where you have a massive popularity vote.

The rules

Using our proprietary tools and processes, we analysed this year’s finalist presence across multiple social media channels. We then ranked each act’s presence and awarded them points. For example, the most popular act on Facebook would get the most points for that channel. This, along with some additional metrics and analyse gives us a final ranking system for the most likely winner predicted through social media channels.

For Britain’s Got Talent, we looked at the following channels:

• YouTube plays and likes of the original audition
• YouTube plays and likes of the semi-final performance
• Twitter followers
• Facebook likes and conversations

Please note the following:

• We only used the YouTube videos from the official Britain’s Got Talent channel
• We only used official Twitter accounts of the acts
• We only used official Facebook pages of the acts
• Obviously, different acts have performed at different times in the series so this may affect the analysis
• The two wildcard acts have been confirmed as Steve Hewlett and Joseph Hall – we have included both of these as the act to make the live final won’t be announced until the actual show

Now, let the contest begin! Who will get buzzed and who will triumph? Any predictions?

YouTube plays and likes of original audition

Attraction score big on YouTube – their original audition utterly dwarfs the competition. In fact, they have had more plays than the next six acts combined. Their unique mix of dance and story-telling has proven to resonate extremely well with viewers – many reduced to tears at their performance.

YouTube plays and likes of semi-final performance

Again, Attraction completely dominates the YouTube coverage. They are the only act to have over 1 million plays of their performance – in fact, they are the only act with over 2 million plays. They have 115% more likes than the second act (Gabz) – does their engagement on YouTube mean they have sealed the deal for the final?

Please note, Pre Skool’s semi-final performance is not available on the official Britain’s Got Talent YouTube channel so unfortunately they cannot be included in this metric.

Twitter followers

Many of the acts in Britain’s Got Talent have very limited Twitter presence while others completely dominate it.  Jordan O’Keefe, Francine Lewis and the Luminites all have over 70,00 followers on Twitter with Jack Carroll not far behind with just under 50,000 followers.

But the gulf between the rest of the field is huge. The majority of the acts have less than 10,000 followers and a couple (Arisxandra and Asanda) do not seem to have an official Twitter account (please note, we are not suggesting or encouraging that they should have one).

Many of the acts have been using their Twitter accounts actively in the run up to the final – tweeting their fans, asking for support. It will be interesting to see how this engagement plays out for the final voting.

Facebook likes and conversations

Amazingly, Jack Carroll, one of the favourites to win, completely dominates Facebook. He has almost 300% more likes than the Luminites and amazingly, nearly 1,000% more conversations than the Luminites. Will this presence translate to gold on the night? What do you think?

It’s worth pointing out that despite what the graph looks like, Pre Skool, Joseph Hall and Steve Hewlett do have a presence on Facebook – just their engagement is so small that it doesn’t show! The acts that do not have a presence are Arisxandra, Asanda and Richard and Adam. Suprisingly, Richard and Adam are one of favourites to win – while they come 6^th for Twitter followers, the come joint last for Facebook presence.

The predicted winners!

Drum roll please! After collating the data and analysing several different metrics and channels, we have predicted a winner for Britain’s Got Talent based on social media signals. Read below to check out who we predict the winner will be!

1st	Attraction
2nd	Jack Carroll
3rd	Francine Lewis
4th	Luminites
5th	Gabz
6th	Arisxandra
7th	Jordan O’Keefe
8th	Asanda
9th	Steve Hewlett (wildcard)
10th	Richard and Adam
11th	Pre Skool
12th	Joseph Hall (wildcard)

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner – Attraction! The shadow theatre act completely and utterly thrash the competition on YouTube and while they have some presence on Twitter, they still manage to storm home.

Jack Carroll and Francine Lewis also make the top three – they have strong performance on YouTube and an engaged presence on Twitter and Facebook. We definitely predict they will do well.

Interestingly the singing act Richard and Adam, one of the favourites, do not rank highly at all. It will be interesting to see how they perform on the night.

Of course, Britain’s Got Talent’s final is live and the acts only have one shot to wow the audience and win the prize! Anything could happen on the night – a wardrobe malfunction or a seized muscle could cost anyone their prize.

Over to you. What do you think? Who are your favourites? Let us know your favourites and opinions in the comments below or let me know on Twitter @seocolin!

You might also be interested in the following articles:

• Predicting the winner of Eurovision 2013 using social media
• Predicting the winner of X Factor 2013 using social media