Ashton’s Victory Over CNN Demonstrates the Power of Social Media
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Larry King must have thought the whole thing was a joke. In his YouTube response to Ashton Kutcher’s 1,000,000 follower challenge “Do you think you can take on an entire network? Do you know how big we are? Do you what CNN is?”
Larry, your question has been answered. CNN is traditional (or old) media. Ashton is new media, and new media won.
CNN did not begin this battle empty-handed or alone. CNN had on-air reporters like Anderson Cooper and Erica Hill asking for followers. The CNN ticker gave updates of the race and broadcasted their Twitter handle to the masses. CNN even reached into its pocketbooks and purchased @cnnbrk to help its race. Ashton on the other hand, only had ustream.tv, YouTube, and his followers yet he still won.
Why? Ashton won because he had a group of savvy, die-hard fans willing to promote his videos and his goals. He won because he had the blogosphere buzzing about the gauntlet he had thrown down at CNN He won because he took a silly event like gaining extra followers and made it into something worth caring about. And he won because he understood social media and in the end knew that it was about his fans
This was a simple silly competition that CNN should have easily won. They had a trusted, 24-hour network to supply coverage, one of the most familiar faces in news, and multiple places to reach their huge audience. But because they didn’t own their brand on Twitter (@cnnbrk), because they didn’t interact with their brand evangelists, and because they didn’t understand the way the game is played, they lost.
Ashton versus CNN was a silly little game but the implications are much larger. Social media has flexed its muscle and shown that it’s here to stay, even against traditional media. This loss shows that brands, even megabrands like CNN, cannot treat social media lightly any longer. They have to start listening to their consumers online and interacting in a new way. Otherwise a newer, more agile brand will come in and present a challenge they cannot afford to lose.
