Russell Roering is a social media marketing consultant in the Chicago northern suburbs and blogs about social media, marketing, and business best practices on SocialMediaBrat.com.
Public relations professionals are celebrity-makers. Whether we’re promoting a brand or a person; the business of PR is about packaging a celebrity for public consumption and selling it to the world. I’m in the business of communications via social media and community building because I like building celebrities. Funny thing is, I have little interest in actually meeting celebrities.
Why?
Because the experience will be a huge deal for me, but mean almost nothing to them. I remember a scene from “Friends” where David Schwimmer’s character meets Isabella Rosselini in their favorite coffee shop and he is trying to convince her that dating him would be “the chance of a lifetime.” Rosselini’s response is classic: She looks at him and flatly says “yeah…for you.”
We know celebrities and their lives so well, but they don’t know us at all. It makes meeting them like running into an old friend, except that the old friend has no idea who you are.
In the world of social media, celebrity works a little differently. We talk about Klout scores, follower, and “like” counts (for the last time, it’s just as much about quality as quantity).
The better part about a social media celebrity is that, when someone actually qualifies for the moniker, they actually know many of the people who are their biggest fans because they engage with them on a more regular basis. Many normal rational people follow Lady Gaga every day on Twitter and send her a tweet hoping they will get a response. On the other hand, when I reach out via Twitter to Olivier Blanchard, Mari Smith, or Jason Falls, I know I will get a response in (at most) a day or two. In this regard, I have more respect for social media celebrities than regular celebrities. Sure, they may not perform for millions of fans, but for tips that can help me build my business, they can deliver.
Sure, its part of their job to engage, but I’ve always thought that it’s part of a celebrity’s job to engage with their fans as well. And that engagement should include Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else.
A funny thing happens when a celebrity actually engages with people via Twitter or Facebook—regular people respect and appreciate them more. Alyssa Milano, Ashton Kutcher, Christina Applegate and a few others are perfect examples of celebrities who may not be the highest paid or highest demand actors, but many people respect the heck out of them for leaping in and talking directly to fans, and it has paid them huge dividends. Why? It’s all about the engagement. They may not want to date us, even though it may be the chance of a lifetime, but they still give us a quick hello and allow us to really be a real part of their lives, if only for a moment.
What do you think?
Russell Roering is a social media marketing consultant in the Chicago northern suburbs and blogs about social media, marketing, and business best practices on SocialMediaBrat.com.