Ashton Kutcher + Mass Marketing + Twitter = 1 Million Followers

That’s right folks. You too can have 1 Million followers if you are:

1. A T.V / Movie star
2. Have an in with a traditional mass media company with great distribution
3. And have a Twitter account of course!

The story I am referencing above is in regards to Ashton Kutcher’s (@aplusk on Twitter) recent publicity stunt of generating 1 Million followers on Twitter and beating CNN in the race to boot.

How did he do it and why should you care? For an explanation of how he did it, see this article on Advertising Age, complete with images of Kutcher’s billboard promo. (whoops did I give it away?)

Now for the answer to the question: “Why should you care?”

For one this is a great example of how online marketing and offline marketing can be merged with excellent results.

Now, the value to Kutcher of having a million fans, and the resulting publicity at this stage may be hard to measure (sure beats stories about DUI’s, divorce or drug abuse!), but for the average person or company, it’s a great reminder that relying on one source of marketing is never a sound strategy and often online and offline can work together to give you extra bang for your buck.

Another thing this story reminded me of was: to be original. Or at any rate, the ploy was a great example of taking an old concept (billboard advertising) and mixing it with something new (Twitter) to create buzz and increase one’s reach in the marketplace.

Those are my thoughts on this story. I’m now heading out with some spray paint to post @adamkillam on everything in sight I can get my hands on. I figure if I work hard over the weekend I should be able to ad at least another 200-300 followers!

Tweet This Post  Plurk This Post  Buzz This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Ping This Post  Reddit This Post  Stumble This Post