The People’s Celebrity
Where would we be without social media? How would we know where that one high school friend had lunch yesterday, or which other friend has just had a baby? Or more importantly, how would we be able to stalk our favourite celebrities and live vicariously through their #setlife posts?
The emergence of social media has not only allowed us to become more connected with friends, but it has created a strong connectivity between celebrities and their fans. Social media has allowed celebrities to become more accessible and relatable to the general public, which not only attributes to the celebrities popularity but their likeability.
However, for celebrities to create a well trusted brand for themselves, having their Public Relations team run their social media pages is no longer a viable option. I myself get turned off celebrity’s social media page if it’s obviously run by a PR offsider who is getting paid to run it. Having it run by a PR disinterests me and I am sure it does for others as well. Why would I want to follow a celebrity’s page of photos of which I can easily see in News Weekly Magazine? Celebrities now need to create a more authentic engagement with their fans via social media and show a more human side to the public.
Over the past few years there have been many examples of this successful social media engagement from celebrities, but a recent example that has been brought to my attention is through Stephen Amell’s use of social media. For those of you who are unaware of who Stephen Amell is, he is currently playing the lead character “Oliver Queen” in the DC comic superhero show Arrow (it is a pretty cool show if I do say so myself).
This time last year, Amell had roughly around 200,000 likes on his Facebook page, now jump 12 months and he now currently has roughly 2.5 million likes. How has he done this might you ask? Well he has done this through his immensely active and genuine social media presence which he entirely runs himself.
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Who doesn’t want to see cute photos of celebrities babies[/caption]
Many of Amell’s posts come from his musings in his trailer, fan Q&As, photos of his sweet daughter and videos of his vigorous parkour training he does for his role. Most recently he has also started fan art Fridays, of which he asks fans to send in fan art and he picks winners to showcase on his Facebook page. Aside from posting comical things, Amell also uses social networking as a platform for the promotion of various charities and cancer research causes that he believes in, causing thousands of fans to donate to these. Amell has been stated saying that he wants to become entirely accessible to his fans and wants to make himself as approachable as possible. Amell has created such popularity with his many fans through utilising a range of social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter. By doing this he is also able to control what information becomes published about him and also lessens the extent of paparazzi attention.
Any celebrity can start a social media page, but the true challenge is to be able to create an authentic and engaging interaction via these platforms with the fans. So with this in mind, for all the celebrities and want to be celebrities out there reading this, I have helpfully come up with a quick and easy four step guide (you are welcome) for you all to follow in the pursuit of having a successful authentic social media presence.
Step 1. Recognise your fans and provide conversation and engagement between you and your fans. Simple things such as reposting a fan’s comment or posting a fan art drawing on your own page provides a clear engagement and gives fans a thrill.
Step 2. Share and post unique information that only you yourself can highlight. Postings photos of things such as behind the scenes on set or even of your pets. Everyone loves pictures of people’s pets (have you seen Taylor Swift’s cat sleeping on a plane?). This causes an accessibility that even the most intense paparazzi couldn’t attain.
Step 3. Be aware of the ramifications of your social media use and the influence you have over hundreds of people. It is known that with great power, comes great responsibility. It is important to understand how your comments may be blown out of context and be taken out of your control.
Step 4. Share personal information — to some extent anyway. By doing this you will be able to control the narrative of the information that is being released to the public and control the extant of the paparazzi press.
It is quite clear that for celebrities now to gain and maintain fans, traditional forms of marketing are no longer effective. Celebrities should be taking note of this authentic engagement via social media platforms and follow Stephen Amell’s example. I am looking at you Channing Tatum and your bland PR run Instagram account.
It is about time that all celebrities are aware of power of running your OWN social media presence and how easy it actually is. Social media websites have the created the platform, it is now up to celebrities to harness its potential.
