Celebrities and Social Media

For years, ‘celebrities’ have only been accessible through press and handlers, rarely interacting directly with fans through nay kind of mass media. But with the rise of easy tools, this is changing and the people you may have only read about in magazines and papers are now out there. Over the last few months, I’ve come across a few – are there any more out there?

First up, we have Bruce Willis. With a film out (Live Free or Die Hard – loved it, go see) he’s been doing the traditional press but getting some flack from his fan boy base for doing a film that was PG-13. There was a lot of negativity, especially on Ain’t It Cool News, where there was a raging debate about whether the film could possibly be any good. Into the talkback popped one Walter B, who appeared to be setting himself up as Bruce Willis. Many did not believe him, until a video chat proved it. Bruce spent his time defending the movie and challenging everyone to wait until they have seen it before drawing a conclusion, as well as answering comment about press, directors and other things.

David Hewlett is using the web to market a film he’s put together – A Dog’s Breakfast. He’s activated fans to do ’squirrel marketing’ getting the word out across the globe. Early screenings sold out and there’s now a demand for the film in multiple countries. David also has a Twitter account where he talks about his publicity activities.

MySpace is well used by bands and actors at both the aspiring and the established stages; Lily Allen is someone who has used the site recently to hit back at press reports and connect directly. There are many, many other examples in this space. And now Facebook is catching up rapidly with celebrities such as Stephen Fry creating profiles as Gia found. Of course, this can get out of control, as Fry became besieged with Friends requests, resulting in the creation of a proxy group for Friends of Stephen Fry. That BBC article also raises the question whether celebrity profiles are real or not – yes they may be connected with the person and ‘official’ but is it the person doing his only social networking?

The tools are being used in a few ways – to extend campaign marketing for the latest product, to connect with fans or just for the same reason that many of the rest of us do, broadcasting thoughts to the world.

So who’s your favourite celebrity online?