Comments on: A Study in Social Media Power Dynamics – The Results of Unfollow Ashton Kutcher Day

By: Blake Cahill

Blake Cahill — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:31:15 +0000

Well articulated Andrew. Cheers, Blake

By: Ahmed_cbgrafica

Ahmed_cbgrafica — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:33:23 +0000

Amazing on what to expect and get from Social Medias, very interesting “experiment”

By: Andrew Mueller

Andrew Mueller — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:32:32 +0000

Thanks I appreciate the support and twublicity

By: Andrew Mueller

Andrew Mueller — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:29:46 +0000

Rob,

you are correct the topic was chosen carefully, It was an opportunity bring up the larger issue of power imbalance. Honestly, I wrote the second post because I felt a responsibility to let the 1500 readers know what happened. It was scary for me to write the second post; as i was nearly certain that it could not live up to the expectations set by the first, that the insights that I garnered and tried to share were subjective, and my feeling that my audience was a bit tired of hearing about Ashton Kutcher and Twitter. I did however see value, and felt like I engaged a group, began a conversation, fostered an effort, and was responsible to report back on the results.

It is also true that this resulted in some pretty good traffic to my blog, but you know as well as I that my blog will live or die by the value I bring to the audience. Hopefully I have brought value and can continue to do so.

Thanks for your good luck wishes and I hope you return to read future posts.

By: cheth

cheth — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:24:08 +0000

Nice post! totally agree with your points! tweeted about it..

By: Andrew Mueller

Andrew Mueller — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:16:02 +0000

Jet, you are correct here. What I was trying to point out was my impression that the more popular someone was the less likely they were to take risk, and those that are willing to take a risk provide value by the act of stating a position. Fear got in their way of speaking out for what they believed and this is unfortunate.

By: Rob573

Rob573 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:15:34 +0000

I have to agree with the comment posted by Thierry de Baillon because just as in your original article this one relies heavily on the use of the Aston Kutsher name (brand). I think it is a foregone conclusion that the use of his name (either pro or con) is going to generate a great deal of traffic. Such has become his marketing effforts.
Just as you knew (and have stated) that such a topic would all but guarantee you pretty good traffic, once you indeed found this to be true you posted this follow up to re-spark interest in the site.
I am not finding fault in that because anything that can generate traffic is what we are all trying to do. The thing is, once you get the traffic to your site try and give something back of substance to your audience (in any case, those that took the time to come to your site).
Best of luck with the blog.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:11:24 +0000

Nice post! I do have one thought though:

You discuss how unfortunate it is that although some people seemed to support your effort, they were hesitant to chose a side due to fear of what their followers would think.

Although you consider this a lack of transparency, this lack of side choosing may in fact be very authentic. Some choose not to discuss politics at dinner or in public. They live by the same laws on Twitter. Perhaps this fear of conflict is precisely what makes them “them.”

By: Andrew Mueller

Andrew Mueller — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:21:50 +0000

Thierry, thanks for your comments, you are very insightful and correct. Social Media as a channel has changed the game for companies and their ability to manage their brand. This should be an exciting time if you have a brand. You now can much more easily interact with your customers and audiences.

It is also true that the results of my experiment were to some extent biased by the topic I chose to promote. Had this been a topic of minimal interest among the community at large the results would have been weaker and possibly altogether different, however, this holds true for celebrities as well. The effectiveness of any media message is directly connected to the interest level of the audience. Regardless, I believe that the results would have been similar for any topic of broad interest among the test audience.

By: Thierry de Baillon

Thierry de Baillon — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:45:34 +0000

Amazing post Andrew,
but quite biased IMHO. You write that “the little guy does have a voice, no matter how many followers they may have”. That is true, of course, but you don’t seem to take into account that what matters most in this voice is neither the media (Twitter) or the message (unfollow), but the subject you talked about (Ashton Kutsher). In a word, the brand. Had you spoken about mashed potatoes or quantum physics, the result would have been totally different.
Fact is brands are now in power to act as meta-language vectors. They are channels around which the conversation takes place, and that is a really new consideration branding mus take into account. It is a tremendous power…