The Charlie Sheen Phenomenon Hits Social Media

By Pete DeLuca

With recent rants of drug-fueled parties and public tirades on national television, Charlie Sheen has collected a fair amount unflattering nicknames over the past week. Well, it’s time to add one more title to the list: Guinness World Record Holder.

That’s right. Guinness World Records, the ultimate authority on every record-breaking achievement, crowned Sheen the “Fastest to Reach 1 Million Followers on Twitter”. The Guinness website states that @CharlieSheen achieved this record in just 25 hours and 17 minutes.

According to a report in Advertising Age, Internet startup group Ad.ly, which represents high-profile account such as Snopp Dogg and Paris Hilton, brokered the account and was able to get Sheen’s Twitter verified immediately. From there, his account took off. Sheen joined Twitter on March 1 and, within a matter of minutes, he had more than 60,000 followers without even posting a tweet.

What’s Sheen’s motivation for joining the social networking site? It’s a “cash-cow” he told reporters in a recent TMZ article, citing that Kim Kardashian reportedly earns $10,000 per tweet as a part of her contract with Ad.ly. It also serves as his own, personal soap-box – an unfiltered feed to his wild rants.

As one of the highest paid actors in television on CBS’s #1 sit-com Two and a Half Men, there is no doubting Sheen’s popularity. He had it all – which makes watching him self-destruct on a public stage even more fascinating.

One of Sheen’s first tweets read: “In all sincerity... Thank you Twitter community for the warm reception & the followers that helped get me to 1M in 24 hours!!!”

Twitter “Followers” are not always supporters and this “warm reception” may be misconstrued. Although a Guinness World Record may sound like a great accomplishment, I’d argue that the majority of them just want a front row seat to the next bizarre chapter in Sheen’s life.

Pete DeLuca is Manager of Creative Services at Maroon PR. Contact him at Pete@MaroonPR.com

The REAL Super Bowl Match-Up : The Big Game vs. New Commercials

By Katy Fincham

The Super Bowl is an unofficial holiday for most American households. Over 68% of adults are expected to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Green Bay Packers this weekend, but according to recent polls, many viewers are just as excited to see the new commercials.

Now in their sixth year, the Hanon McKendry survey consistently finds that over half of the adult Super Bowl viewers in the U.S. are looking forward to the commercials more than the game - with the number of people excited to see these ads up from 54% in 2009 to 57% this year.

Social media is also a huge component with Super Bowl advertisers this year, giving businesses an opportunity to market before, during, and after the big game.

According to an article in the Denver Post, recently Bud Light challenged consumers to guess the story lines of their three Super Bowl commercials from photos posted to their Facebook page. If the story lines are nailed, the company will launch a fourth, Internet-only ad on Sunday. The fan page had nearly 1 million fans as of Friday afternoon.

Personally, the Steelers presence in the Super Bowl makes me ill, so this year I find myself more excited about watching the new commercials and taking advantage of the social media specials and contests!

What are you most excited about – The Big Game or the New Commercials?

Katy Fincham is an Associate Account Executive at Maroon PR. Contact her at Katy@MaroonPR.com

Marketing Myths

By Mitchell Schmale

In a struggling economy, many companies fall into the trap of cutting certain internal budgets to manage costs and survive the tough times. Often, the marketing budget is one of the first to be slashed.

Effective marketing is vital for a company to remain competitive during the tough times so that they are poised to be successful when the economy improves. Companies may have to make tough decisions in managing expenses, but slashing its marketing budget should not be the easy fix. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

A slow economy is one of the best times to raise your corporate profile as a leading company in your respective industry and capture valuable market share. Rather than turning to traditional advertising to raise brand awareness, many companies find a greater return in investment in public relations. PR and marketing support can grow customer awareness, create an exciting buzz around a company and help gain strong third-party endorsements in the media. During a down economic time, corporate and customer success stories shared through an effective public relations and media campaign often resonate much more powerfully with consumers than a stand-alone advertising campaign.

It’s time to dispel the myth that a company has to cut its marketing budget because it is not yielding the expected returns, when in fact, the truth may lie in spending its marketing dollars more creatively.

Mitchell Schmale is the Vice President of Maroon PR's Corporate Division. You can contact him at mitchell@maroonpr.com.