How Kristen Bell helped make Kony2012 blow up

LINK: blog.socialflow.com ➚ | Posted by: Joshua Benton | March 14, 2012

Gilad Lotan at SocialFlow has another of his great data analyses of how memes flow through Twitter — in this case, how the campaign against Joseph Kony generated enormous velocity. (The video topped 100 million YouTube views faster than any video in history.) Pressing celebrities to amplify the case — Oprah, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, the aforementioned Veronica Mars — was key. Lotan:

This raises some important questions about the type of tactics used to demand their attention. Is it okay to deploy such tactics to get people to easily ping celebrities? Some services deploy similar tactics that get constituents to call or send messages to their representatives. How is this different?

On the other side of the scale, what are the unintended consequences of drawing attention to a cause one has not completely evaluated? And how can celebrities make the best decision when targeted by so many requests coming from so many directions? Seems like in this case, the loud voice won. Will this type of behavior encourage more to use the same tactics? And how will this change the way celebrities interact with audiences on these platforms?

Show tags

Joshua Benton

PressPad, an attempt to bring some class diversity to posh British journalism, is shutting down

“While there is even more need for this intervention than when we began the project, the initiative needs more resources than the current team can provide.”

Richard Tofel

Is the Texas Tribune an example or an exception? A conversation with Evan Smith about earned income

“I think risk aversion is the thing that’s killing our business right now.”

Jeff Jarvis

The California Journalism Preservation Act would do more harm than good. Here’s how the state might better help news

“If there are resources to be put to work, we must ask where those resources should come from, who should receive them, and on what basis they should be distributed.”