A Kickin' Blog

So, what the heck happened with American Idol (AI)…and why does it matter, isn’t it just a TV show!?

The Background
The whole time that AI was running we’ve been running an office pool. The goal of the contest every week was to guess the singer who got voted off. A contestant gets voted off by having the fewest amount of votes from people who call in. Just because I’m a nerd I’ve been using as much information as possible to base my decision. And because I’m a SEO nerd I’ve been getting information from Google to help make my decision. Essentially the person with the fewest number of searches per week on the internet should have a positive correlation with the person being voted off each time, right? Well, using this strategy I’ve gotten about half of them right so far. Here’s a chart of 4 weeks before the finale.

The last week all the numbers were overwhelmingly saying Adam Lambert would win. And in case you live in a cave in the Afghanistan (by the way, hi Jerad) Adam lost! See the charts below, they aren’t even close. Based on these numbers, Adam should have won by a landslide.

And here’s the numbers for the greater San Diego area (where Adam is from).

So, what happened?

Apparently, from the chart it looks like that although California physically has much more people living there compared to Arkansas (Kris Allen’s home state who was the winner), Arkansas was much more vigilant in searching for their favorite. Apparently, they are more passionate about voting for him as well. Perhaps all the Californians were busy twittering their friends instead of voting? This is my prediction of what happened…that even though there was more overall interest for Adam that the Arkansasians were much more passionate about their home town favorite. Also, there were a lot of last second searches for Adam Lambert and his sexual preference (see below) that may have skewed the results.

So, I take back all my jokes about Arkansas and think they are definitely the smartest, most intelligent state by far!

So, why does it matter…and how does it apply to me?
You can use these tools for your own benefit. I know that I do these kinds of searches all time to see what people are searching for. This chart below is one of the main reasons that I’m concentrating in SEO more than web design.

I think it’s just good business strategy to deliver what your customers are asking for, right? These tools have never been around in the history of marketing, well at least not to this degree. So, use these tools to find out what your customers are searching for….or to predict the winner of next year’s American Idol!

Memorial Day Recognition
On another note, Happy Memorial Day Weekend to all our veterans. My Dad was in the army for like a jillion years. I’m not sure about why they do this but if you are in the military for long enough they actually force you to retire?! Also, one of my grandfathers flew B-52s in the eastern front in WW II and my other grandfather was a bridge engineer on the western front.

I couldn’t be happier to know that my Dads gave so much for the freedoms that I take for granted every day. As I sit in the back of the car next to my sleeping 13 month old little girl and lovely wife (thanks for driving honey ) it’s so nice to know that I am safe and to know my family helped in part for this feeling.