One of the shows that is a big hit in my house and across the US is Dancing with the Stars. Last season Tellagence took a particular interest in celebrities who were dancing in the show and the impact their social communities (NOT followers) had on their time on the show. If a celebrity just can't dance there isn't a ton you can do but there are always those celebrities that last WAY longer than they should because of their fan bases.

Because the voters at home have an impact on if saved from week to week their online communities make a difference. I've said this SO but I will say it again, followers don't matter. No dancer on the show was ever saved from elimination because of the potential impressions they created. A dangerous combination is a celebrity who can actually dance, is a hit with the viewers and has a massively engaged social audience. Last year that was Bethany Mota who made the final three with Janel Parish and Sadi Robertson, who all had engaged audiences. You can see in the graph below from last year the amount of the #DWTS (Dancing with the Stars) community that @BethanyMota brought.

When the cast was announced for Season 20 were announced on February 24th we decided to take a look at the initial social impact to see who brought the best social potential to the show. First we took the Twitter handle for each celebrity and looked at the number of mentions they generated the week of the announcement. We grabbed the early part of the week so we could get a sense of if there was any significant ongoing conversation before the announcement. Here is what we found.

Note the scale for each graph not just the spike.

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Sorry Chris - I lost your graph. There wasn't much there.

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Here is a summary of followers to the number of mentions they received the first week. You can see there is no consistent relationship between the two. There is one celebrity that created significantly more mentions than the other - Ryker Lynch.

If you have read any of our posts you know we don't care how many followers you have. Potential impressions won't vote for you. People who are engaged with you and #DWTS will vote. We took a look at what the community that formed around #DWTS looked like the week of the celebrity announcement. Just a reminder, we build communities based on how people interact with each other. Relationships based on interactions are what matter, not static connections based on following.

If you compare the communities that form around Noah Galloway (@Noah_Galloway), the celebrity with the least amount of followers, and Redfoo (@Redfoo) , the celebrity with the most followers (1,056,598) you will see that their communities are very, very similar in size and shape. A good portion of each person's community is driven this week by @DancingABC and @GMA because of the announcement.

Below is what the overall #DWTS community that formed looked like. You will notice there is a distinct cluster in this community that is very dense. This is the engaged audience that R5 brings to the party. Riker (@Rikerr5) and his band bring a heavy social presence. Not only do they have their fan community behind them they also have Disney behind them since they are a Disney artist.

If Riker can't dance he will find himself in the bottom quite a bit. His fans will need to be there to save him from elimination. The first weeks tell us that Riker can dance while Redfoo didn't have a fan base who was willing to vote enough to keep him on the show, even though he had more followers any other celebrity by far. Once again followers prove to be an empty promise.

We will see how this season plays out but by looking beyond the aggregate metrics of mentions and followers we can start to see how engagement builds communities that start to matter when it comes time to vote.

Lets continue the conversation on Twitter – @matthixson and @tellagence.

How Twitter Engagement Matters for Celebrities on Dancing with the Stars