So what would drive a celebrity to run away from the free publicity and fame?  Isn’t there always more time to be in the spotlight?  Well, not according to famous teen star, Miley Cyrus.  She claimed that her Twitter account began invading her privacy and putting her personal affairs in public view too frequently—probably right around the time she boasted a following of 2 million.  So she decided to conclude her Twitter affair and kissed it goodbye with a YouTube rap video about how she “stopped livin’ for moments and started livin’ for people.”  You should really check it out if you haven’t seen it— it’s highly entertaining, not to mention perplexing as she is trying to run from the public eye by creating a new viral video.  How ironic.  She should probably stick to acting, but that’s beside the point…

Regardless of Miley, many other celebrities have managed to run successful campaigns on Twitter.  They’ve used them to promote themselves, their songs and shows, grow a fan base, relate to their audience and humanize themselves.  Twitter can actually be a really successful tool for celebrities in increasing their personal brand awareness, just like how companies and businesses use the microblog for viral marketing.

Ashton Kutcher is a great example of this phenomenon.  I’m sure everyone remembers his victory over CNN?  Earlier this year, they we racing to see who could reach 1 million followers first.  He tweeted incessantly and offered a free Guitar Hero to his millionth follower.  Somehow he single-handedly conquered the news super station.  He currently claims the most followers out of any other celebrity on Twitter with 3.9 million fans reading his microblog on a regular basis.  He tweets about 10 times a day and usually adds in a link, either to a website or other profile.  He often interacts with his followers—recently, he replied to a fan’s tweet about his last chemo session with “live strong, Drew.”  Must be why he has so many followers!

However, Ashton Kutcher is not the only celeb using Twitter to show his sensitive side—Tila Tequila has been consistently blasting out posts on her profile page to aid her favorite charity, The Keep a Breast Foundation.  She recently collaborated with artist Randy Janson to create a shiny, red, sculpted version of her breasts to be auctioned off on Ebay.  Tila is a heavy Tweeter, with an average of 143 posts per day.  She’s been publicizing and promotion the auction from her Twitter account, which has apparently created a lot of hype.  There’s only 8 days and 10 hours left and the bidding has already hit $45,000, so if you’re interested, I’d bid now!

So as you can see, celebrities are not shy when it comes to Twitter.  The most successful celebs are the ones with the highest tweet frequency and most user engagement.  But, keep in mind, just because we’re talking about celebrities here doesn’t mean they are all tweeting with the same intentions.  Several news sources in 2009 have conjectured that many stars employ their Twitter profiles as a way of disseminating personal information before the paparazzi can expose it.  Some people may see this as lessening their personal privacy but celebs like Britney Spears, Lance Armstrong and Shaquille O’Neal believe that this is actually a form of privacy control because they can control the accuracy of the information they release.  Although it may deplete the dollar signs of the paparazzi machine, it seems like a pretty good plan to me.

For more information on celebrity profiles, check out Celebrity Tweet.

Some of these tools include the ever growing FaceBook, a social networking site that has grown from being exclusive to college students, to an internet marketing vehicle for companies, bloggers, and yes, even celebrities.  There are many other social networking sites besides FaceBook such as MySpace, Bebo, Xanga, and even Ning which allows you as a user to custom create your own little social network.

In addition to social networking sites there are also micro blogging sites.  These micro blogging sites such as twitter, tumblr, and Pownce (now Six Apart), have been great vehicles for launching the latest news, keeping tabs on the recent elections, and simply updating your friends and followers alike of your daily activities.  All of these tools, from social networking sites, blogging, microblogging, and doing search optimization, can become rather overwhelming for most companies, and surely so for people.  All of these tools have gotten a term coined by the marketing industry, called social marketing.  If you have a business, a blog, are a celebrity, or a large corporation, it becomes more and more important to hire professionals to do social marketing for you.

The days of getting the message out via static images in newspapers and magazines are over.  Television ads are also not as effective as before as more and more people have turned into engaged consumers, instead of passive consumers.  Consumers want to choose what to view, what to buy, and what to admire.  To become successful and get  your message out there, you need to be actively involved in all of these social marketing tools.  However, if you dedicate your time to that, you may not have the time of day to effectively run your business.  Perhaps now is the time for you to think about social media marketing by talking to people and see what they think about it, as well as do some research on your own.