Entertainer Will Smith unquestionably is one of the most popular and successful actors since the early 1990’s. The rapper turned actor gained fame on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air sitcom for six seasons, before transitioning into one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.
However, in recent years his star has dimmed a bit. Questionable movie roles and lack of audience interest finally caught up to Smith. His days of grossing $100 million+ for eight straight films in the 2000’s were long gone. Fast forward to 2018 and the movie industry has a new generation of fresh faces that have exploded onto the scene. Even an established, charismatic and charming personality like Will Smith has seen his fair challenges. The two-time Oscar nominee found his career at a crossroads with not so stellar box office receipts in recent years.
Instead of fading off into the sunset and walking away from the movie industry, Smith recently turned to social media to remind fans about the Will Smith brand. Let’s look at what he’s done with digital in just a few short months.
Leverages social media influencers
On the December 14th, 2017 taping of the Ellen show, Will Smith promoted his new Netflix film, Bright. With the assistance of day time talk show queen Ellen DeGeneres, she playfully got Smith up to speed with how to use Instagram and take the best images. One of Will’s signature traits is his humility, being able to make fun of himself on screen and in this case, he demonstrated it flawlessly. It also didn’t hurt to have Ellen’s combined social media presence of over 180+ million followers help welcome Will to the ‘gram.
A little over one week later, Will Smith teamed up with YouTube star Lilly Singh aka IISuperwomanII to help produce a comedic video on Internet lingo. The playful sketch saw the Independence Day actor poke fun of himself again, learning the ins and outs of social media language that his children Jaden and Willow use on a regular day basis.
An influencer is a person who is knowledgeable and credible, with a leadership voice that encourages others in their decision making. In order to understand what makes a great social influencer, it’s important to list a few online social platforms that help identify key influencers.
Klout is a grading score system from 1-100, that combines various social media accounts of a user and provides a ranking through their analytics system. The main key factors they consider in scoring are: online activity, how often your messages are amplified by others and how others perceive your influence.
Klout
Pros
Cons
– The higher your Klout score can position you as a valuable influencer
– Can help recruiters and HR review talent personnel for hire
– Higher score can lead to free product giveaways from companies
– Klout scores can be gamed
– Algorithm system they use is not consistent
– Their metric measurements are secretive
– Useless for those not interested in Digital Marketing
Klout’s scoring platform should not define the intelligence of an individual (example: Sam Fiorella being overlooked for a job because of a low Klout score). The way they capture information to determine their scoring system is not consistent. How they determine one person’s score is not a full representation of what that person’s true credentials are. Not recommended.
Kred provides two scores to a user which are known as influence and outreach. A recognized competitor to Klout, they provide an open source on how they collect their raw data in their scoring approach. Points score can increase when multiple people engage with your content.
Kred
Pros
Cons
– Provides a secondary score (Outreach)
– Better detailed dashboard, broken down into categories like social mentions, community influence, 30-day follower trends
– Open collection data methods
– Too much data offered
– Accuracy of top influencer reports are questionable
– Collects information of users and sells them off to advertisers
Kred offers some great value and would be recommended to identify influencers for brands. They have a breakdown of various metrics, segmented and targeted – this information is a goldmine for brands. The only alarming drawback for consumers is that Kred acts more in a consultancy role by taking their information and selling them to advertising companies.
Brandwatch focuses on the 3 A’s (Activity/Audience/Authority) to calculate their scores.
Brand Watch
Pros
Cons
– Reliable resource tracker for Twitter
– Focus more on relevance and insight
– Assists smaller businesses with reaching larger audiences at affordable rates
– Originally collected data only from Facebook, Quora, Twitter, LinkedIn
– Formerly PeerIndex now merged with Brandwatch, could mean too much data becoming overwhelming
– B2B product geared for marketers
Brandwatch has value for both brands and users themselves. They allow the user to control certain aspects of the data in their profile account. They also provide information to the user on which brands have their information. Another reason why Brandwatch differs from Klout and Kred is that they get away from the egocentric influence. They have removed the search function to see other people’s scores.
Do Social Scoring Platforms have a negative impact on social engagement?
Yes, Social Scoring Platforms put the wrong emphasis in their grading of social profiles. There are some factors that just can’t be measured, regardless of what algorithm they come up with. There is an intelligence behind the individual that is not measured by the social scoring platform and it can have a shameful projection for others. A person should not solely be evaluated for how high or how low their social score is.
There is more to that person that what a computer defines their score. The system is flawed and can be gamed. It can be misled and ultimately produce some obscure scoring number that isn’t reasonable. What would our world look like if human resource departments relied on a person’s social media score to hire them? Imagine having people in powerful positions who are not educated or experienced enough to handle the regular rigors of the job, yet they were hired because their Klout score was 89? It makes no sense. Until they can come up with a scoring process that is more accurate, society should not depend on them at all.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a former professional wrestler turned successful full time actor. A major part of his appeal is his ability to connect with his audiences, whether it be in the ring or on the big screen. He represents the ideal public persona who embraced social media at a time when actors shied away from it, not realizing the potential it could bring. His three main social channels of Facebook/Instagram/Twitter have a combined total of 144.7 million followers.
He is regarded as a social influencer not solely for just giving his followers behind the scenes access to his film projects. But rather instead, he promotes positive inspirational messages with a healthy active fitness lifestyle. Whether it’s sharing an embarrassing story of himself in his teenage years, or getting up at 4am to start his day with intense cardio, he continues to stay in touch with his audience by being transparent and authentic. He has been using social media consistently for the past five years. Recently Johnson branched off into the world of digital with a YouTube channel, recognizing the platform as new media to tell more stories.
Brands The Rock has yet to work with that would be a good look: Any high-end fashion designer. He has reached this A-lister status but continues to use a private stylist. His appeal in the fashion world would increase even more. Another brand he could help with their audience is the headphones market, like Beats. He is constantly in the gym and promoting head gear seems like a likely union.
Kanye West is a 21-time Grammy award winning producer and rapper. In recent years his social influence has branched out into the world of fashion, where his trend setting styles are photographed regularly by the media/paparazzi. In 2013, Kanye left designing shoes with Nike after a royalty dispute and joined rival Adidas. His departure from the biggest shoe brand in the world did not have any affect on him setting up shop with a competitor, his audience followed. Since 2015, an even bigger demand was created where people would camp out for days attempting to purchase his Yeezy brand. West entered the apparel industry competing with more experienced brands, but his product line continues to sell out at record numbers. His shoes currently sell for over three to four times the market value on the resale market. From a streetwear consumer perspective, West has dethroned the Air Jordan brand.
Regardless of public opinion on his marriage to a socialite, the bottom line is that Kanye moves product. He might have built a reputation for his media tirades, but he continues to be an in-demand commodity. His music is still influential in the urban market despite being overshadowed by his amplified celebrity status. Without a doubt, Kanye West is bigger than a social influencer, he is a cultural influencer of the moment. Does his anger get mistaken for his passion and drive? It’s possible and debatable. For someone of his popularity who uses Twitter as his only platform to communicate with his audience, speaks volumes about his staying power.
A brand Kanye West could help influence one day would be Rolex. The aura and appeal of Rolex in hip-hop culture goes back many decades. The artist in Kanye is similar like Rolex in the sense that they both create timeless products. If the green light to design his own watch was granted, the collaboration would probably be one of the most sought after time pieces in the world. The merging of two iconic brands would have a large appeal on both urban and mainstream culture.
Boris, Cynthia. “The Pros and Cons of Using Klout and Kred for Hiring.” Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226184>.
Fiorella, Sam, and Danny Brown. “3-4.” Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing. Indianapolis: Que, 2013. 44+. Print.
