You know a show’s buzzing when every facet of it is being shared and talked about on social media. Yes, we at The Practice are of course referring to none other than The X Factor,  which this year has seen record numbers of Twitter mentions for both contestants and the show itself.

Always no stranger to social media, this year the reality music competition is encouraging online interaction more than ever. Currently there’s a giant screen in place to showcase fans’ Twitter comments. We imagine this has upped the tweeting frenzy, and figures certainly highlight this; Saturday’s show received 2,423 tweets per minute, and a huge total of 104,898 tweets throughout the broadcast.

Twitter itself has already been accounted for a staggering 90% of X Factor mentions, with only 3% generated by online forums such as Digital Spy. In fact, we at The Practice remember when Digital Spy was the ‘go-to’ online place for up-to-the minute entertainment news; of course, social media has now eclipsed this, not to mention all other forums which account for just a fraction of social response.

And it’s not just the show’s social media gurus who’ve been plugging away to make The X Factor as interactive as possible, the contestants have also been marketing themselves via the likes of Twitter. The final 12 have continuously tweeted about their progress, notching up thousands of followers in the process. Favourite Ella Henderson, for example, has already gained around 102,000 followers during her time on the show. But has too much social media attention been a distraction? Indeed, Gary Barlow irately jumped in, stating: ‘Last year’s contestants spent too much time on Twitter when they should have been concentrating on their songs and performances.’

With so much hype, disagreement and opinion can run rife. 23-year-old contestant Rylan Clark has already found himself the victim of some horrendous Twitter abuse, receiving death threats and unsavoury messages following Sunday night’s controversial results. Xtra Factor host Olly Murs was quick to come to Rylan’s defence, but added that online abuse is ‘part and parcel of the industry.’ Indeed, we feel that as social media is such a powerful tool, in the wrong hands, it can unfortunately do a lot of harm as well as good.

But it seems that the contestants just can’t help but be egged on by social media engagement, particularly when there’s generally been a huge amount of support. Who can blame them, when their competitive egos are being fed with some overwhelming online statistics? Aside from Ella Henderson’s massive following, GMD3 will be pleased to know that they’re consistently the most talked about act, with 23% of total mentions. Union J however, racked up an impressive 30% of total mentions last week alone. But when it comes down to social sharing, Lucy Spraggan’s seen the most success, with her audition video being the most shared X Factor related video on YouTube. We’re frankly not surprised; The Practice loved her rendition of Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’.

And of course, it’s been a great week for ITV who’ve beaten out rivals BBC  and their broadcast of Strictly Come Dancing in terms of The X Factor viewing figures and Twitter activity. Plus, the week was rounded off nicely with high viewership and social buzz surrounding Sunday night’s Downton Abbey.

Have you been keeping up to date with this year’s X Factor? And do you think its success can largely be attributed to social media buzz? Let’s hear your thoughts! Please follow and tweet to us @PracticeDigital and join in the conversation on Facebook.