Twitter, Facebook and Celebrity Endorsement

By Kendra Boyle HobanMass Communication Proposal

Fall 2011

Background Continued

Social Media Marketing: online marketing focusing promotion through the social media channels, which highly utilizes the power of word of mouth.

• marketinglion.co.uk/learning-lab/search-marketing-dictionary

Celebrities and Twitter/Facebook- Ashton Kutcher

Paid Tweets- Growing phenomenon

Adly.com

SponsoredTweets.com

Rationale/Scope• Facebook and Twitter users who decide to follow celebrities are given

“backstage access” into their personal lives. However, followers of celebrity profiles on social media sites are now also seeing endorsements.

• What used to be a free tool for celebrities to share their lives and self-promote is becoming a way for celebrities to earn money through product endorsement

• Paid Tweets and status updates are gaining more prevalence, which means that Facebook and Twitter users’ newsfeeds will become even more inundated with advertising than they already are

• I am studying celebrities as opposed to average individuals who engage in paid tweeting, because celebrities have bigger audiences and more influence on American consumer culture and society in general.

• There had been no academic research or discourse on this topic, but it has been widely covered by the media

• I also want to introduce Facebook into my study, because Twitter has been getting a lot of attention for paid tweets. I want to see if celebrities engage in the same kind of promotion on Facebook.

Video!

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/02/09/Celebrity-Endorsements-a-Mixed-Blessing.aspx

Twitter Endorsement Examples

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057268/Twitter-endorsements-Khloe-Kardashian-costs-8k-Charlie-Sheen-9-5k-Lindsay-Lohan-3-5k.html

More Twitter Endorsement Examples•Khloe Kardashian: 'Hi Dolls! Want 2 look fab in a pinch? Whiten w/ (at)Crest 3D White 2 HR Express for a gorg smile in 2 Hrs!'-$8,000 per Tweet

• Lamar Odom: 'My man Jay-Z...only rapper to rewrite history without a pen. Until now. Check out Jay's new book Decoded on Bing.'-$2,500 per Tweet

•Terrell Owens: 'Free flight, VIP access, $1500 in ur pocket and. football! Comfort Inn is hooking up 3 days of it! Check it out.' 

Literature Review

Main articles about Celebrities on Facebook and Twitter:

To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practices on Twitter

Discusses the power-over relationship that celebrities have over their followers

By following these individuals you are inadvertently acknowledging that they are on a higher social plane than you

How Your Likes are Turning Facebook Into the Loyalty Card of the Internet

Discusses how important “likes” are to companies (ie: the number of “fans” they have on Facebook)

Inadequacies of Current Research

There are no quantitative/qualitative studies regarding celebrities’ Twitter and Facebook practices

They don’t look at how social media users are manipulating these site for their own material gain

It is important to study this, because what can be perceived as backstage access into a person’s life could simply be tweets sponsored by companies who wish to use the celebrity as an endorser.

Research Question/Hypotheses

My study would require two research questions. The second question is contingent upon the hypothesis for my first research question being correct.

•Do the most-followed celebrities on Twitter and Facebook use these social media outlets to promote themselves (self-promotion), products/brands (product endorsement), or neither?

Hypothesis: The most followed celebrities on Twitter and Facebook use both these sites as a promotional tool.

•This question would pertain to celebrities that have the most followed profiles on both Twitter and Facebook: Do celebrities use Facebook or Twitter more when participating in social media marketing?

Hypothesis: I believe that celebrities will utilize Twitter more when using social media as a means of promotion.

Method• Content Analysis of the top ten most followed celebrity Twitter and

Facebook accounts

• In order to answer these questions, I would code the celebrities’ statuses and tweets from the last 4 months in three categories.

• self-promotion: a new song, movie, album, etc.

• endorsement: products made by other companies

• miscellaneous

• I would then tally the three different categories and find a percentage in order to find out what type of activities celebrities use Facebook and Twitter for the most (ex: self-promotion 60%, endorsement 30%, miscellaneous 10%).

• For the celebrities that fall into the top 10 most followed list on sites, I would compare their usage of Twitter and Facebook to see which one is utilized more to see which one is utilized more for endorsement purposes or self-promotion purposes.

• For the tweets or posts that involve some sort of endorsement or promotion, I would also analyze them as individual units of persuasive propaganda.

• I would look if Propaganda Techniques (ex: transfer, glittering generalities, bandwagon) are employed by the celebrities themselves or the companies that are paying them

10 Most Followed Celebrities on Twitter

and Facebook

Eminem

Cristiano Ronaldo

Megan Fox

Lil Wayne

Vin Diesel

AKON

Both

Lady Gaga

Justin Bieber

Rihanna

Shakira

Katy Perry

Kim Kardashian

Britney Spears

Taylor Swift

Ashton Kutcher

Ellen Degeneres

Theoretical Connections

Propaganda Devices (Glittering Generalities, Bandwagon, Transfer, etc.)

Bullet Theory

If study expanded to studying the effect of celebrities’ social media marketing (recipient based study)

Cultivation theory

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Future Research Questions

Effectiveness of celebrity endorsement via Facebook and Twitter

Do male or female celebrities use Facebook and Twitter more for promotion/endorsement?

Non-celebrity paid Tweets