Sunday, February 3, 2008

Fanatics


In last week’s readings from Citizen Marketers, it discussed the key players in social media. These people include the filters, fanatics, facilitators, and firecrackers. I found the most interesting of these key social media players to be the fanatics. I especially took interest to the story about Fiona Apple and FreeFiona.com. A 21-year-old music teacher named Dave Muscato took the initiative to make this website in order to pressure Sony to release her new album Extraordinary Machine. Because of all the press attention from the campaign, her label finally gave her the money and creative freedom to rerecord the album on her terms.
This is a great example of how social media can have a huge impact on people and companies. If it were not for Fiona’s fan, her career would have ended. There are several instances where social media has saved careers or changed their career paths altogether. Whether it is artists, musicians, sports, politics, etc., there is always someone out there who is fan enough to get people to start talking.
Social media can also work with the exact opposite effect by looking to discredit people rather than to hype them up. Luckily for Apple, her fanatic got her an album that debuted at number seven on the Billboard charts and later nominated for a Grammy Award.

1 comment:

kaileec said...

I thought that this post "Fanatics" was very interesting. It proves that the people can have a huge impact on what happens within a business. It usually involves getting the press involved, such as in this case.

You make a great point about the multiple times that the social media has either hurt or helped a career. It can go either way, and a person can not necessarily know which way it might go.