Ashton Kutcher, PDiddy, Larry King, Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres… the lists go on and on of celebrities promoting their Twitter accounts on mainstream media. They are defying the myth that only youth use social media by heralding a call to action to have their fans follow them on Twitter. While PDiddy and Ashton Kutcher may have the majority of their fan base in the “youth” range, clearly Oprah, Larry King, and Ellen DeGeneres’ fan base runs the spectrum of age ranges. Will all of this hype help, hinder, or have no impact at all on the emerging arena known as social media?
Here is a paradoxical thought, if social media history making celebrities want fans to follow them on Twitter, are they engaging their fans in their own ecosystems by joining in their conversations. Ashton Kutcher was the first to reach one million followers (1,473,518 at time of this post) yet he is only following 137 fellow Tweeps. Why do celebrities get to ignore commonplace Twitter etiquette? This begs the question, is Kutcher and his fellow celebrities really leveraging this specific tool of social media to benefit their brand, or are they using the web to “say it and spray it” to their league of followers?
Using the basic Twitter Search function I typed in Ashton Kutcher. This is the first in many Tweets that involve Kutcher:
LelaLee: I am following GStepanopulous, Shaq, Nick Cannon (?1) Ashton Kutcher and Oprah. I looked up Martha Stewart, but her posts seems so cold
Based on LelaLee’s Tweet it looks like Martha Stewart needs to become more personal (although I never really thought of Martha Stewart as warm and inviting). Do you think celebrities like Stewart and Kutcher use TweetLater to track all instances of their name? With no regulation on what Tweeps are tweeting the web gives users free reign to promote and malign celebrities and corporations alike. Are these individuals missing out on the mass benefits of tracking their brand identity or is does their celebrity status and tabloid, rumor mill experience give them a free pass to ignore the thoughts and feelings of fellow Tweeps and such? I do not have any answers to any of the preceding questions but I can’t help but think that the power of celebrity combined with the first person interaction of their fans can yield mind boggling influence. Let us hope they use this force for good… Twitter Search: Ashton Kutcher Donates to learn about Kutcher’s positive use of his pack of Tweeps.