March 6, 2010
Posted by Kelly Rusk
Is Twitter Influence transferable? From n00b to celebrity with a single follow…
Two days ago, Sarah Killen (aka @LovelyButton) had 3 followers on Twitter…
Today, she has 13,000 and counting. She’s also included on 230 Twitter Lists. In fact, if you just happened to find her profile today and knew nothing else, you’d think she’s someone important, influential and likely accomplished, or at the very least been on Twitter for a while.
But in fact, the only difference between Friday before 3:55pm–when Sarah had 3 followers–and now, was a single tweet and a follow from a celebrity.
If you haven’t heard, what happened was Conan O’Brien (who only joined Twitter a week ago, but has amassed well over 500k followers) decided he would follow one random person on Twitter. That lucky person was Sarah Killen, a 19-year-old Michigan girl who’s engaged and was a little worried about how her and her fiance would pay for the wedding. However, her troubles are over since many have come forward and offered everything from free wedding photos to a custom-made wedding dress, and likely everything in between.
Sarah has already been interviewed on MTV (and, when she discovered her webcam didn’t work pre-interview, one follower bought her a brand new iMac) and by the LA Times blog. I imagine others are after her too.
Honestly, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this on Twitter, and I think it’s a fantastic story. Sarah didn’t go out searching for fame, and she’s carefully taking it in stride. “If this all stopped right now, I’d be more than happy with what’s happened. It’s helped us out so much,” she said in the LA Times blog.
While I am a little shocked about what this says about mankind (really? do we need to worship the person Conan decides to follow at random?!!)… I do find it to be a cute story and that Sarah Killen certainly sounds deserving of this 15 minutes of fame.
Will other celebrities follow suit? Will it make any sort of impact if they do? Whatever happens, I just hope it helps lead Conan to a new show!
