The Rising Stock of Kim Fields: Dancing With the Stars Tops Real Housewives of Atlanta
Kim Fields returned to the broader public spotlight when she agreed to join the cast of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (RHOA) in 2015. She maintained her momentum by hopping onto Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) shortly after the end of the RHOA season. Google Trends provides one window on the dramatic and positive impact these shows have had on Kim’s spotlight.
The first episode of RHOA aired on November 8, 2015, but Google Trends shows the strength of the Kim Fields buzz well before the show. Searches on “Kim Fields” started perking up in July and then soared once the show started. I can imagine a lot of RHOA’s audience saw Kim Fields for the first time and wanted to find out more information on her.
The RHOA buzz was apparently not nearly as strong as the buzz generated by Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) – a show that likely appeals to a much broader audience. Kim’s buzz really picked up in early 2016, around the time her name appeared as one of the celebrity dancers for Season #22. When Episode #1 aired on March 22nd, Kim REALLY took off. Searches on “Kim Fields” reached a peak that week.
Source: Google Trends
The graphs above are indexed. That is, Google does not provide absolute numbers on search volume. Instead, the search giant takes the peak time period of searches, assigns it a value of 100, and scales the rest of the time periods according to that peak. The cascading of that numbering shows up directly in the regional breakdown shown above.
Here is a more direct comparison of the Kim Fields buzz between DWTS and RHOA. In the chart below, I contrast the buzz of searches on Kim Fields combined with Dancing With the Stars versus Kim Fields combined with Real House Wives of Atlanta.
Source: Google Trends
So as Kim goes back and forth on whether she is done with RHOA, she may do well to figure out how best to take the next step off the DWTS launchpad instead of RHOA. What do YOU think? Comment below…
I have embedded Google’s search tools below so you can play around different time periods and breakdowns for yourself. Enjoy…!
From January, 2015 to April, 2016 (partial data)
