“You’ve got to score as many points as you can.”
Sometimes it’s important to remember the basics of the contest part of the Eurovision Song Contest. Everything that we love about the Song Contest, from the communities that build up around, through the vast tasting board of music, to the outward looking and welcoming nature it fosters, are all built on a framework that starts with a competition. A competition that every delegation wants to win.
As the season comes to the end of the National Selections, it’s worth remembering that in the rush to measure the popularity and the chances of any artist doing well in the Song Contest, nobody has scored any points based on how many people follow them on Tik-Tok, MySpace follower counts were never included in the final tally, and the number of your fanclub members was not copy and pasted into the televote spreadsheet.
To win the Song Contest, an act has to get televoters across Europe to vote for them, and that voter base is far larger than any social media following. The main source of those votes from the public (and the juries) is having the best three minutes possible that allows you to connect with everyone at the other end of the camera, to create strong emotional bonds, and be memorable enough that people will remember your act more than any other when phones are picked up across the continent and beyond.
Finding Success On Tiktok
Part of the discourse of the last few years at the Eurovision Song Contest has come from Tik-tok. Built around short-form video, music has not only played a strong part in its growth, it has played a key role in the creative community on Tik-tok. Lip-sync performances, reaction videos, singing duets, and popular dance trends, have created communities with a strong connection towards music.
And yes, that includes Eurovision artists.
The US popularity of ‘Arcade’ following its victory in 2019 was driven by Tik Tock users covering the song, with little regard to where it came from. The Skibidi dance challenge with the eponymous song from Little Big brought the band to the mainstream, leading to them being drafted into the Song Contest with Uno… a song that had a clear dance moment that was targeting Tik Tok.
Which leads into the United Kingdom’s Sam Ryder. Announced by the BBC Eurovision team, Ryder’s overnight success (after eleven years in the industry) came in 2020 when he started singing cover songs on Tiktok during lockdown. Picking up over 7.2 million followers, TIktok announced he was the most popular UK artist account during 2020. 2021 saw Ed Sheeran pick up that crown, but Ryder was the UK artist with the highest follower count.
The community has asked for “a big artist” to represent the United Kingdom for many a year. While it might not be a traditional measure, Sam Ryder is a big artist, and is representing the United Kingdom, and he’s bringing rather a lot of followers with him.
The Power Of Followers
Where can those who have built and are sustaining an active online community benefit? With social networks in large part still reliant on sharing links and media to feed content to users, a virtuous cycle can be started by the act and sustained by their supporters.
More chatter online leads to more sharing and more chatter online. That rise in popularity has a snowball effect. When the time comes to sort a running order – where the rule of thumb is to put popular acts nearer the end of the show (where they are more likely to pick up votes) – the indirect advantage of ‘popular on the internet’ can be seen.
Contrast the engagement levels from the likes of Tix and Maneskin, to Bonnie Tyler and Engelbert Humperdinck. The latter both had a wide fan-base, but in terms of the ability to drive a narrative that can put you in a better position to score at the Eurovision Song Contest, the former were better served by their highly engaged fan bases creating the buzz on social media.
A small part of a viewers’ voting decision will be based on the buzz around an act they have seen online. When the time comes for someone watching at home to decide who to vote for, they are going to need strong reasons to decide on a single act. Some of that will come from knowing about the act and having a connection with them beforehand, but for the vast majority of televotes, the first encounter will not be on Tik-Tok, it will be the three minutes on stage that is the call to action.
The three minutes where you have to score as many points as you can.