Charlie Sheen: Train Wreck or Entrepreneur?
When I first decided to look into Charlie Sheen's Twitter account (@charliesheen) that he created in the midst of his media bliss, I was interested in the amount of followers he was gaining so rapidly. Sheen has previously set the Guinness Book World Record for the "Highest Paid TV Actor Per Episode" at $1.25 million per episode on Two and a Half Men. His newest Guinness record is slightly less desirable... "Fastest Time to Reach 1 Million Followers."Charlie Sheen started his Twitter account on March 1, 2011. On March 2, just 25 hours and 17 minutes after creating his account, Sheen reached this milestone of 1 million followers. Sheen immediately began tweeting nonsense, and registering hashtags such as #winning and #tigerblood, while he continued to gain followers rapidly. People began asking questions about Sheen's sudden Twitter fame. For example, how did his account get "verified" so quickly? Many celebrities, athletes (etc.) must wait weeks in order to get their accounts verified by Twitter, yet Sheen was verified immediately and gaining followers before even tweeting.
Hollywood ad agency, Ad.ly, focuses specifically on celebrity Twitter endorsements. A rep of Sheen's reportedly reached out to the company saying that Sheen wanted a way to communicate directly with his fans. The company then set up the account, received verification from Twitter and explained the Twitter basics to Sheen. Ad.ly alone has over 1,000 celebrities, 150 brands and 24,000 endorsements. With Kim Kardashian, one of their celebrity clients, making an estimated $10,000 per tweet, it's no wonder Sheen turned to this company! Sheen later told TMZ that the reason he joined Twitter in the first place was not to communicate with his fans but really to make money for endorsed tweets. Sheen's first TwitPic was a picture of him holding a carton of milk. Ray Broguiere, the owner of the company that makes said milk, told TMZ that he's been flooded with phone calls to his farm following Sheen's tweet. Although this particular tweet had nothing to do with any sort of endorsement, it definitely shows the power that these celebrity endorsers have in the Twitter community.
This form of endorsement seems to be taking over the advertising industry. Instead of just having celebrities appear in commercials or at events for a particular product, they can have them tweet about it. Perhaps for the consumer it seems as if the celebrities must truly support a product in order to tweet about it, since Twitter creates a more intimate relationship between celebrities and their fans. In addition to making the advertisement more personal and believable, it costs a lot less for the company to pay for a Twitter endorsement than an in-person appearance. I'm definitely interested to see how many more celebrities will buy into these endorsements, and furthermore, what this new form of advertising will do to the industry itself.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteFirst off great idea for a post, Charlie Sheen is probably the biggest man in the media today. When it comes to your post you ask a very simple yet provocative question, is bad publicity a good thing? Originally I thought Charlie Sheen had lost his marbles, but after further thought I realized he is spinning this situation into his advantage. As a star of Two and a Half Me he made upwards of $1.25 million per episode, but I believe he realized he could make more going solo on comedy tours and late night shows. Now people want to see him not simply at 8 PM Monday nights, but 24/7. Charlie Sheen has became a trend, a breed, and more so an entrepreneur.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI second Brandon, I think this is a really cool post. I too, was amazed with Charlie Sheen's ability to gain so many Twitter followers so quickly. I think that the reason Twitter is such a great advertising tool is that it allows people to at least feel close to their favorite celebrities. Even though some celebrities do not even write their own Tweets, it still creates a feeling of intimacy between celebrity and fan. Also, I think it's really amazing that there are companies solely dedicated to endorsing celebrities' Tweets. This shows how popular social networking sites can be, and how quickly our world is adjusting to their popularity. Whether Charlie Sheen is using Twitter to reach out to his followers or just make an extra buck, he is doing a great job in the process.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI am with Tyler and Brandon- love this topic! Although everyone is calling Charlie Sheen a maniac, or something along those lines, it is pretty clear that he is doing something right. Not only because of his famous over 1 million dollars per episode of "Two and a Half Men", but also because of all his followers on Twitter.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Twitter is a site most people join for fun. Not so much because they feel the need to see where everyone is all the time, but because they want to follow people who have funny, or interesting things to say. After Sheen's infamous interview, the world now knows that he is pretty crazy and will say just about anything on his mind. He has no filter. This is what draws attention to him. I mean, who wouldn't want to see what else is going on in this untamed guys head? I know if I were looking for some entertaining tweets, Sheen would be one of the first people I would go to. What do you think?