How Social Media Has Redefined “Celebrity” And Made It Free for the Taking
[This is the first of a series of posts about how social media has changed what celebrity means and how businesses can use it to succeed.]
I’ve been fascinated by people’s interest in celebrity since I was a child. With the last name Seaver, my grandpa used to jokingly tell people we were related to the famous New York Met’s pitcher, Tom Seaver. He wanted to tap into Tom Terrific’s celebrity status, if only for a moment. Then, my brother Mike, really got a dose of the celebrity halo effect when Kirk Cameron made Mike Seaver from the show Growing Pains a cultural icon. To this day, people make that connection.
Celebrity and business have been longtime partners in mutual success but I think we’re seeing celebrity as we’ve known it change. I think if we understand the change, the partnership between celebrity and business will be more beneficial than ever, it’s just going to look quite different from the way we’ve always seen it.
Redefining Celebrity As We’ve Known It
To understand the idea of celebrity, we have to first redefine celebrity from our conventional understanding. Celebrity is no longer reserved for moviestars, rock bands, and pro athletes. Celebrity at the most basic level simply means “being known” among a group of people.
Historically we’ve attributed the opportunity to “be known” to an exclusive type of person who has broad exposure through traditional media channels like movies, television, and print media. When the Internet started to get really popular a decade ago, it tested the original definition of celebrity for the first time. A new brand of celebrities emerged as they danced, blogged, and treadmilled (if only that were a word) their way to fame. The term “Internet celebrity” was born. It was the beginning of the era when anyone had the chance to be known about virtually anything.
Celebrity For The Masses
While Internet celebrities were getting their 15 megs of fame, the Internet itself was changing. It was becoming cheaper (often free), easier to use, and more social. Those first Internet celebrities were really just early adopters of what would be a tidal wave of word, image, and video content by the masses. Media was being handed to the masses and celebrity for the masses was on its heels.
At the same time the masses had the opportunity to freely and easily create media, social networks were emerging to let them find people who would want that media. A wonderful cross-pollination process began to emerge where people could both create content and engage like-minded people in conversation. That gave content creators the opportunity to simultaneously promote their content and learn from others to spark new ideas, and thus, more content. This social cycle was born. Social media was born.
Today, we see this all over the place. It’s commonplace for individuals to create content (media). The new definition of celebrity is common too. Most of us have heard stories of people who started blogs, podcasts, or online video channels and gained a following over time. Those are all cases of the new celebrity status playing out. Today, the opportunity for anyone to “be known” is available to those who choose it.
If, then, celebrity is being redefined and is more accessible, the question for all of us is how it works so we can use it and how it affects the way companies do business. I have some thoughts on that I’m going to share in the coming weeks. In the meantime, who are your favorite Internet celebrities? What companies do you think understand and cultivate this redefined celebrity to help their business?
Tags: 15 Megs of fame, Internet celebrities, Internet celebrity, Kirk Cameron, Mike Seaver, social media celebrity, Tom Seaver
September 15th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Bill, this is exactly what I am trying to do — be a celebrity. Since I do sing but my church is the only place that will have me, I’ll just have to use YouTube to get my 15 megs of fame.
But seriously though, the internet has changed the way celebrity status is created. On the internet, I keep up with you of course but I also love that Peter Shankman who is a PR person. He seems to be all over the place all the time and every one in the social media world wants to hear from him. At least it seems that way to me from his tweets and blog posts! And the skydiving thing really elevates his personality. Plus, Michael Hyatt, over at Thomas Nelson is a real celebrity for me. His blog is very widely read and connects many people to their favorite authors.
Now as far as companies who do this creating celebrities well, there’s just no way one can miss Dell. Have you seen their Taking Your Own Path campaign? It grew out of their facebook page and the people who are fans. From the group they have selected a few of their real customers to be the face of demonstrating how technology plays a part in them building their business. Dell has done a good job with using a parallell track to run on so that the information they are sharing is all about helping their customers understand small business and the tech it takes while still advertising their products. They brought that message started in the social media realm to print, web, TV and radio and it points back to the web. The format they use is really just a plain old case study all hyped up by facebook, twitter, the website, video and such.
It seems as if Dell has taken the listening portion of begining a social media campaign to heart. They let their customers tell them what they really want, then they use that intelligence to give them something that meets the need. What do business people need? They need to connect (facebook/twitter) to others who can understand the challenge of business ownership. They want to have access to information (downloadable guidebooks). They need encouragement (taking your own path participants). And, they need solutions (Dell products). That’s beautiful!
I think that the fact that Dell is big and monied (is that a word, too) has no bearing on what the average business owner is able to produce using web 2.0. So I encourage people to go ahead find your best and most successful customers and make stars out of them. Can’t afford a TV commercial? That’s ok, make a video that lets your customer shine while using your product or service and put it on YouTube then blog and tweet it. Start a facebook page and really provide some valuable information there. Get people talking to each other on facebook. These days that’s powerful!
I also think it is notable that Dell chose to use real customers instead of paid actors or even the CEO to deliver the Take Your Own Path message. The stories are definitely sincere and memorable. Right now I’m wondering how I can get a sample from one of their featured entrepreneurs, Cake Love. Sounds yummy!
September 16th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Lori, thanks for the comment. I wasn’t aware of the Dell example you mention here but it’s a great case study as you said. I’m certainly going to look further into it. Thanks!