Should Emmy winners be thanking their Twitter followers during that 30-second, breathless acceptance speech that they swear they “hadn’t prepared for in any way whatsoever”?

Twitter may have more of an influence on Awards show results than we realize, and the company is working hard to make the case that there is a close relationship between tweets and primetime TV viewing. All six shows nominated for this year’s Best Drama series — Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Modern Family and Homeland — are hugely popular on Twitter and inspire daily chatter across the platform.

Mad Men, for example, received 115,819 tweets during its two-hour, season six premiere. Game of Thrones, which has a massive Twitter fan base of well over 1 million followers, received 255,243 tweets during last season’s “The Rains of Castamere” episode, according to Nielsen’s SocialGuide. And the much-anticipated season opener of the Breaking Bad finale? According to AMC, it inspired 759,689 tweets from nearly 400,000 unique users. Interestingly enough, shows like Bones and Fringe, which do not have as much influence on Twitter, weren’t even nominated. Same goes for past primetime show such as Boardwalk Empire and The Good Wife, which didn’t stir up much Twitter activity either.

During the 2013 Emmy Awards Show on Sunday, Breaking Bad won the award for Outstanding Drama Series and Modern Family was named Best Comedy Series for the fourth consecutive year. Homeland’s Clare Danes won the top actress honors. Correlation or causation?

Does high Twitter volume make a show more likely to win an Emmy? The majority of Academy voters represent a relatively older demographic, which is traditionally less tech-savvy. However, Twitter and the popular ballot used for the Emmy Awards also consider popularity, buzz, and the ‘cool factor’ of primetime shows. “Social media is clearly a great way to build buzz, so it makes sense that it could raise awareness among Emmy voters,” says Sabrina Caluori, HBO head of social media marketing. So although there isn’t an exact science based on the tweet numbers, there is a possibility of strong influence on the Emmy Awards results. Check out the predictions vs. results.

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