By Adam Wakefield
Media Update looked up the most popular local celebrities on Twitter and Instagram, as of April 27, who are famous for reasons other than their use of social media (sorry Caspar Lee), and one name leads the way on both platforms: cricketer AB de Villiers.
Social media, celebrities and branding
So why is the marriage of celebrities and social media so powerful from a branding perspective?
“The power of social media is in its ability to transform celebrities from aloof, abstract things that exist ‘out there’ into real people that are related to,” says John Mark, new business manager at online marketing specialists
Dragonfly Digital.
“The most successful celebrities have made use of Instagram not only to build a following, but also show themselves as humans. They post glamorous photos, but also normal life photos, which makes it enjoyable for people to interact with them.”
On Twitter, Mark says celebrities show themselves as people who are aware of the world and interested in their followers. This is seen through conversations with each other and the general public.
Gavin Coetzee, digital researcher at
Newsclip Media Monitoring, agrees that
Instagram and
Twitter are powerful foils to modern celebrity culture because users can instantly keep tabs on and connect with their favourite celebrities.
Twitter and Instagram’s size is also a factor, Coetzee explains, with Twitter having 305 million active users and Instagram 400 million active users at the end of 2015.
“These platforms, like never before, allow celebrities to promote themselves to their audience,” he says.
“They allow anyone, anywhere to grow their personal brand and connect with other people, brands and personalities which they most identify with," continues Coetzee, "Today, there’s a social media niche to satisfy almost any user’s interests.”
What the celebrities are doing right
De Villiers' success on local social media suggests that he must be doing something right, and Coetzee suggests that the cricketer uses Instagram and Twitter to offer users a peek inside his life, closing the gap between his life and those of his followers.
“A follower of a celebrity on social media craves the ‘genuine’, something that suggests that a celebrity is just like him or her. De Villiers’ appeal centres on his social media followers believing that what they see on Instagram and Twitter is an authentic representation of De Villiers, the person," he says.
“What De Villiers does well is he is not overly promotional or self-centred. These are characteristics that do not gel with his own personal brand, which is centred on family, being a ‘regular guy’ and interacting with his followers on topics that interest him."
So what can brands learn from the likes of De Villiers about how they use social media?
Mark says the “very simple rule” they tell their clients is that social media is about creating original content that is interesting to their followers. Not only is it about content creation but also interacting with people/their followers as the millennial generation expects engagement.
For Coetzee, there are four lessons to be learned from celebrities like De Villiers regarding their use of social media: establish your brand, generate content, do it consistently and interact with your followers.
“Define what is most important to your brand. A social media presence without a clear direction has nowhere to go,” Coetzee says.
That direction manifests itself in the content posted. If content is posted irregularly and is not of interest to its fan base, they will lose interest and look elsewhere.
If there is no interaction, especially with the most active and influential community members, their engagement will be targeted at a person or brand willing to take the time to make them feel like they matter.
As celebrities know, once you lose a fan, its that much harder to get them back.
What do you think celebrities do well on social media? Let us know in the comments below.