Rage Against The X-Factor

Last week saw a momentous win for rock band Rage Against The Machine in this year's race to be crowned Christmas number one courtesy of a huge following of fans, many of whom were determined to see the 17 year old anthem re-enter the charts and take the top spot in a protest against the monotony of having to endure an X-Factor number one for four years running.

Whilst being a huge triumph for the fans themselves, this is also a big triumph for social media. The campaign, launched through Facebook by a couple (who recently turned down resulting job offers from Simon Cowell), grabbed media attention thanks to the direct front it put up against the reality TV show, as well as the amount that it managed to raise for the charity Shelter. The campaign message seemed to gather pace rapidly through Facebook and Twitter, with many people revealing that they had similar sentiments regarding the X-Factor's Christmas dominance, and the media pickup is more than likely what helped the campaign to follow through and gain the number one spot for Rage Against The Machine.

Nevertheless, the campaign's movement from social networks via word of mouth to media pickup shows that so long as there is a common sentiment amongst a population, social media can be the catalyst to make an idea reach its fullest potential. Without the Facebook group for people to start discussing and actively getting involved in the movement regardless of geography, it is likely that the campaign would perhaps not have gone as far as it did.

Personally, it affected me, I bought the track, and I'm sure many more people would indicate the same experience. Social media has now been proven as a tool to make big things happen; it may only be a song, but it had to sell over around 450,000 copies to beat number two, and mobilising an army of evangelists that big from just a Facebook group is no mean feat.

In the words of Rage Against The Machine themselves: "All hell won't stop us now".

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