14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook enjoys a massive audience of 350 million users and Twitter, while a lot smaller, commands some pretty impressive sway; yet, it's still impressive to see the power they have after just a few years of existence. For the last four years, the number one single in the UK for Christmas came from the winner of X-Factor, one of Simon Cowell's many reality talent shows, which was timed to end just before Christmas. This year, the number one single was Rage Against the Machine's 15-years-old “Killing in the Name,” thanks to a massively popular Facebook campaign.
Londoners Jon and Tracy Morter were fed up with the status quo and decided to do something to change it by trying to push out this year's X-Factor winner from the number one spot. So, they did as anyone fighting “the system” does these days, they set up a Facebook Group and started promoting their cause. The big surprise, though, was that it actually worked, apparently the message resonated with a lot of folks and word of the movement began spreading.
Soon enough, the Facebook group “Rage Against the Machine for Christmas no.1” got 1 million members, perhaps spurred by comedian Peter Serafinowicz who urged his over 268,000 Twitter followers to join the campaign. But even with the apparent popularity, half of those people would have to buy the song for it to even have a chance as in previous years the winner had about half a million sales.
The impossible was achieved though, as the song managed to get a little over 500,000 sales 50,000 more than X Factor's winner Joe McElderry. It also managed to break a couple of records along the way, as “Killing in the Name” became the first download-only Christmas number one and also the biggest sales total for one week in UK chart history. This may be just one 'machine', Facebook, winning over another, old school media, but the band has pledged to donate all the profits from the sales to charity and a parallel fund raising also managed to get over £80,000 for charity.