Welcome to the first in a two-part series on The Voice – the latest reality TV show sweeping the nation.

Today’s post looks at how The Voice’s onscreen presence has been reflected online and what drivers might have been instrumental in this. Tune in next time when I’ll reveal my hot predictions of who will win using Hitwise data!

The Voice has taken Australia by storm. With Television viewers consistently above 2 million per night, it’s no surprise that Total Visits to The Voice’s website have exceeded 2.5 million over the past five weeks.

A key differentiator for The Voice has been its use of Social Media, as covered in Mumbrella – each mentor tweets regularly, and The Voice has their very own ‘social media correspondent’. Viewers’ tweets are also displayed on screen, encouraging others to engage.

Subsequently, there’s been a flurry of Voice-related social media activity. The Voice’s Clickstream shows a significant 20% of their traffic coming from social sites last week, including Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter.

Perhaps Masterchef could take a leaf out of this book. The fourth series of the show has had substantially fewer viewers, fewer Visits to the website, and a smaller reliance on Social than The Voice. The chart below graphs The Voice’s benefit from Social Networking against Masterchef’s.

Interestingly, peaks in social traffic to The Voice’s site happen in the lead up to big events such as Live Shows rather than after them (such as the one on 18th May). During peak periods, The Voice benefits from  Social Networks more than twice as much as Masterchef.

Perhaps Masterchef might look at how it can replicate this success through its own social activity.