Social Media: The Superstar at the 2013 Emmy Awards

Nobody just watches T.V. anymore. Imagine the modern day living room getting ready to watch the Emmy’s. The stars are lining the red carpet and every viewer is tuning in with a tablet, smartphone and then a television. This year, as social media continues its world domination, tweeting, posting and viewing were all on the menu when watching the 2013 Emmy’s. And during some of the surprise moments, the buzz on the internet was louder than expected.

Case and point: the performance by Carrie Underwood. As she performed her rendition of the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” there were an incredible 17,000 tweets per minute. Trending topics were her outfit, as well as concerns over why an old American Idol star was taking stage at the Emmy’s. Needless to say, Carrie didn’t have much support under her.

Breaking Bad, the AMC drama, won many awards and pulled in over 12,000 tweets per minute. But when Bryan Cranston, leading actor in Breaking Bad, lost out to Jeff Daniels, (Google searches had predicted Cranston was the clear winner) the Twitter-sphere exploded with over 11,000 tweets per minute. People were clearly upset when their favorite show did not pull in the leading actor role.

The social ambassador of the Emmy’s, Criminal Minds actor Shemar Moore also trended. Social media junkies complained across platforms that they would have liked someone “more social” in this role. Clearly the Emmy’s thought his good looks would keep the social media populous from noticing he was tweeting prewritten tweets and reading off a teleprompter, but they didn’t give the Twittersphere enough credit.

The Emmy’s were a great example of the social media environment pulling together and getting involved, real time. It drove in viewers, stimulated conversations, and had predictions coming out faster than the cops coming after Cranston in BB.