The whole nation was shocked when it was announced that Rage Against The Machine’s single ‘Killing In The Name’ was Christmas Number One. They released the single back in 1992 and my question is “How come 17 years later after release it becomes Christmas number one?” If someone gave you a one word answer and said ‘Facebook’ you would have thought they were joking, but essentially they would have been right. It’s all down to the increasing power and effectiveness which social media has on influencing people.

A man named Jon Morter started a Facebook group called ‘Rage Against The Machine For Christmas No.1.’ The Facebook group asked the question, “Fed up of Simon Cowell's latest karaoke act being Christmas No.1? Me too... So who's up for a mass-purchase of the track 'KILLING IN THE NAME' from December 13th (DON'T BUY IT YET!) as a protest to the X-Factor monotony?” The group attracted widespread attention from Facebook users and had over 500,000 members. One of the bands members, Tom Morello heard about the group and then used his Twitter page to encourage fans to purchase the single. The use of social media prompted traditional media involvement and a word of mouth campaign then ensued. The single achieved the coveted Christmas number one spot.

I actually remember coming across the group on Facebook when I was invited by several of my friends to join. When I saw it I just thought of it as one of the many groups on Facebook that is a load of rubbish, and here I tend to hit the ‘reject’ button. I regarded it in the same category as the types of group which you see that are called ‘If 100,000 members join I will get The Phoenix Partners tattooed on my head!’ or ‘I will run around Leicester city centre naked if 50,000 people join!’ When I saw people on my Facebook posting comments about how the single has become Christmas number one I couldn’t believe it. Maybe if I had joined all the other groups then those people would have got The Phoenix Partners tattooed on their head or run around Leicester city centre naked!

Along with the rest of the country I expected X-Factor winner, Joe McElderry’s single to become number one. For the past four years the winners of The X-Factor have released cover songs which have made it to Christmas number one, partly due to the final being held just before Christmas. Maybe if Simon Cowell and the rest of The X-Factor crew had worked harder on promoting Joe’s single then it may have beaten off competition from Rage Against The Machine. Instead they relied on the show’s popularity to make the single a success. A poor decision by Simon Cowell and for once Cheryl Cole won’t be laughing!

This is an example of social networking used in exactly the right way. It has worked well because along with the campaign having a clear goal, Facebook and Twitter were both used to speak to fans directly to create a massive buzz and this in turn has created media hype. It has been proven once again that social media is becoming more and more powerful in influencing people’s decisions. If Rage Against The Machines success story doesn’t encourage more businesses to start using Twitter and Facebook then what will? Maybe next year we could make Take That Christmas number one, or would that be taking it too far?