Post by QuestorPost by Ken McElhaneyThe basic point of posting the videos was to counter Questor's theory that
the teams did NO promotion of their experience on TAR.
So, Questor's theory has been shown to be demonstrably false.
I must protest this mis-characterization of my "theory."
(I do have a theory -- a-hem. But it is -- a-hem -- about dinosaurs. A-hem.)
I have never stated that the teams did no promotion. I said that
I DIDN'T KNOW if they did any promotion, or alternatively, I DIDN'T KNOW
how much promotion they did.
Bob & Ken both present differing views of whether effective promotion was
performed by teams, and consequently I am still uncertain.
That's a different topic and one that has no bearing on your initial thread. You said you "didn't know" if ANY promotion was done, not "effective" promotion.
You do not need to research whether it was "effective" as the results speak for themselves. What can be stated is that promotion did occur and some teams devoted a weekly podcast exclusively to talking about their time on "The Amazing Race".
So again, promotion was done and in some cases was dedicated to TAR to the point where even if a follower did not watch the video, they knew what it was about just from the title.
Post by QuestorIt is not fair of me
to expect anyone else to do the investigation. However, it is not a priority
for me. Eventually I may pick the team whose social media "topic" is the most
interesting to me, and sample their output from February through May. But no
one should hold their breath waiting for me. I have other fish (zucchini?) to
fry.
To find out IF any of the teams did ANY promotion took me less time than it did for you just to write this post. All I did was go to "YouTube" type in the name of one of the contestants and follow it with "Amazing Race". The first one too me about 30 seconds as all I needed was the name. You can start off with one of them I suppose, but then again you may not cover all the outlets that they used.
Post by QuestorPost by Ken McElhaneyI dare say that I'm not alone in doing this, but add to that the fact that
"views" and "followers" are numbers that are often misleading. Stay one
second on a YouTube video and you "viewed" it. Sign up as a "follower" for
a channel and never watch it, you are still a "follower". So the numbers are
arguably inflated which again is not surprising given just how many YouTube
channels, podcasts, etc. there are out there.
Good points. The Youtube "views" or "follower" numbers are simplistic and
possibly very misleading. No doubt Google knows how many times a video was
watched through the end, or how many followers are active, but they are keeping
those statistics to themselves.
Yes, they are misleading. Although you could argue that with ANY social media promotion. We do not know how many times an audio podcast was heard, what posts were actually read, etc.
So, in essence you cannot prove "effectiveness" at all apart from whether it translated to the television ratings of TAR 28 and you know that already. All you can show is what they did. So again, trying to research it in depth is not really possible or practical because there are too many variables.
What I can say is that just looking at the YouTube Channel page of some of the contestants contained videos emblazoned with "The Amazing Race" as a title. So, it's fair to say that even casual follower who checked in from time to time would know the ones I mentioned were on the show.
Post by QuestorPost by Ken McElhaneyThat in the future networks looking to expand the audience for a particular show may
be far less likely to use "social media stars" because their fame does not translate to television.
There are always exceptions. Tila Tequila comes to mind.
There are always exceptions that prove the rule. Tila Tequila garnered a name for herself as a model first, but mostly it occurred in the early 2000s well before "social media" began. At that time, the very few who received most of their fame from the internet had relatively little competition, they received a LOT of mass media attention for their uniqueness, and the environment that existed then is long gone today. Tilia Tequila is a great example of a person at the right place and right time when social media started to explode.
That time does not exist anymore. So, she's an exception.
The real question is whether anyone who was totally unknown before 2012 let's say has managed to duplicate her feat.
Post by QuestorThere may be others.
But yes, I think in general that social media popularity doesn't translate into
televsion, unless the number of viewers reaches some really big number.
We have the answer to last part of your sentence. A "really big number" as a rule does not translate to TV.
One example of something you might be talking about is the famous "Leave Britney Alone!" guy who got millions of views just for that video. If memory serves he was actually offered a reality TV show that he turned down. His "fame" outside of social media circles lasted all of a few days and today Chris Crocker is just another social media "star" whose fame faded out quickly outside the bubble of social media. Plus, Chris did it when a few million hits for a video was considered a remarkable achievement. Today, there are LOTS of videos that get views in the millions.
Chris Crocker is really the rule for social media stars. You might do something so outlandish it goes to other media for a brief time and then it's quickly over. This is the type of fame that does not translate to television because it's gone long before the transition can be made.
Post by QuestorAnd in
a world where 500 channels is evolving into everything being "on demand,"
widespread popularity is becoming increasingly rare. We don't have to accept
what a small number of media outlets is serving up; we can choose anything we
want, when we want. The so-called "mass media" is disappearing.
Which TAR 28 amply demonstrated as to the ineffectiveness of social media stars trying to translate to another media. The very division of "mass media" and especially social media which is many, many thousands of little worlds that have nothing to do with each other undercuts whatever "mass appeal" might otherwise be generated.
So again, the rule is that social media stars do not translate their fame to television no matter the number of views or followers they might have. Yes, there may be an exception here and there, but if so they not only tend to prove the rule, it's clear that NONE of them were on TAR 28.
Ken