Matthew Gates http://notetoservices.com 6m 1,495
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Celebrities have a huge amount of influence around the world. They have enough influence to make change happen and are a call to action in themselves. While not everyone may like celebrities or even bother to listen to them, there is a market for celebrities. With TMZ and the Tabloids covering all things celebrity—not to mention CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, etc. and now Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn—celebrities are easily in the spotlight no matter what they do and no matter what they say.
Unless you turn off the television, the radio, and the Internet, and become a hobbit, you will learn everything that happens to a celebrity. When a celebrity does something wrong, you’ll know. When a celebrity dies, you’ll know. What’s not normally spoken about is that many celebrities donate to charity. Many celebrities usually have a favorite charity that they donate to and endorse when they donate their time and money for donations. So when it comes to getting a celebrity endorsement—a celebrity who advertises your product or shares it with their followers is bound to get attention.
Celebrities started joining social media networks and making it well known they were the real celebrities running those accounts. Twitter and Facebook both go through great lengths to authenticate that it is actually the celebrity behind the keyboard. If not the celebrity, it is usually run by their agents or assistants, who are in direct contact with the celebrity. After all, a celebrity usually signs off before anything is initially released, so it would probably make sense a celebrity trusts the person who is running their account on a social network.
That celebrity is putting their image on the line. What they tweet, what they share, and what they write about says a lot about them and once it’s out there, it’s out there. Many celebrities have accidentally released wrong opinions or stated something wrong that has effected them greatly. Mel Gibson has publicly stated some anti-semitic remarks and many of his fans, and definitely Jewish fans, were outraged. He later apologized for his remark — it helped, but it didn’t undo any damage that was done — after all-a drunk mind speaks a sober heart.
Other celebrities have publicly used profanity or yelled at the public. There are plenty of celebrities who certainly have their opinions—and are entitled to them—but openly state their political views. While not always a bad thing, politics are always complicated and whatever one is for, there will always be another against.
So what happens when celebrities use their powers for good or for advertising? For charity, there are plenty of celebrities on television and others on Twitter asking their fans to donate to charity. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, many musical artists got together to raise money for Sandy and many people donated. (I am from New Jersey and was hit by Sandy—not sure exactly where that money raised went, but that’s another story.)
For advertising, unless you have a good product or millions of dollars, a celebrity is probably not going to endorse you since it is their personal name and image that is representing your product. I remember watching The Shark Tank and this man had a product on there that made catching flies easier, but the product used to catch them was dog poop. Seth McFarlane came on the show, being a good friend of the man, but even that was not enough to convince the Shark’s to invest in the product. In other words, this was a celebrity endorsement fail.
Before you even attempt a celebrity endorsement, make sure your product is worthwhile and useful. Getting them to actually like it or share it will probably cost you money, unless you have connections, or they really like your product and use it, than they are not likely to really tell anyone about it.
A side story about having a good product—I have a client for whom I do web design and maintenance for, he makes a very useful golf product that trains people how to keep their neck straight. Larry David called him on the phone and asked him how to set it up. My client explained to him how to do it and I’m sure everything was fine. When my client later asked me what he could do to get his product more known, I told him he should call Larry David up to ask him if he had any issues setting it up, and to ask Larry David to endorse his product, as well as to play a game of golf with him. I am not sure if my client ever followed up with this, but having that kind of celebrity endorsement would be casual and aside from paying for the golf game that Larry David would be playing and maybe a flight ticket and a dinner, my client would not have to invest millions into advertising and marketing.
Another example of a celebrity endorsement: A few years ago, I ran a website called YouTrippy. I listed some “trippy” music from YouTube on my website. The website got popular and I expanded into Rap and Hip Hop. One day, my website was receiving an unusually high amount of visitors. Lucky for me, I installed Google Analytics and was able to track down exactly where people were visiting and coming from: I had published a new song from Snoop Doggy Dogg. I was listed in the first position on Google above YouTube when you searched for the song, even though I took the video from YouTube. Snoop saw it and grabbed the link, shared it with all his followers on Twitter. He may have retweeted something I tweeted using the hashtag #SnoopDog. Hence: The endorsement of a celebrity brought tons of visitors for me that lasted for a few days.
Twitter often makes you follow celebrities upon immediate sign up and you can find and follow almost any celebrity on there. When they make a post, they receive hundreds of comments. Occasionally, you will celebrities actually responding and liking people’s comments. If a celebrity just posts without interaction, they are likely to lose the interest of their fans. If their fans see a celebrity interacting with them, they are likely to acquire more attention from their fans. This is where you begin.
If you are attempting to pay a celebrity to endorse your product, you will probably want to send them a private message. Hopefully they will respond. If they don’t, don’t spam them. You may have to wait a month or two before you try again. Once you make a connection, ask them if you can send them your product for free to try, and later on, give a review if they like it.
If you are trying to get a free review, this will take longer and you can only hope you get noticed. At first, you will want to just interact with the celebrity, and say certain words, sentences, or phrases that actually get you noticed. If they begin to LIKE your comments, you know that you stand out above hundreds of others. If you don’t, than you have to keep trying.
I follow a few celebrities on Facebook and have had interactions with them. Ingrid Michaelson (singer), Zooey Deschanel (actress; Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 500 Days of Summer, Elf, New Girl) and Romany Malco (actor; 40 Year Old Virgin, Weeds, Las Vegas). I have never tried to advertise my product—in my case, my website, but I have commented on things they’ve said or personally posted on their walls and received some likes or comments back. It is quite an overwhelming experience to have a celebrity notice you. While they’ll probably never be your best friend, they will certainly interact with you and you must be in the mindset that they are real people, just doing their job, and treating them like normal people.
If you do things right and let your relationship with the celebrity develop naturally, you may just get a celebrity to like or share your products, and the investment in the time of letting your relationship with them develop will certainly pay off. That is, unless your company can afford to pay thousands to millions of dollars—like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Revlon, Avon, Maybelline, CoverGirl, Olay, Chanel, VISA, MasterCard, SmartWater, Snickers, and many others. In that case, my advice may obsolete and you should get straight to the point with a celebrity. Whenever you have the opportunity to seize the attention of a celebrity and use them for an endorsement, realize the moment before it passes! It is like a rare UFO sighting: It may be a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you miss it, you may never get another chance! This is just a possibility and could fail miserably, but it is an idea worth trying.
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