Emma Watson, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, delivered a speech on declaring the official launch of the HeForShe Campaign at United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 20, 2014. The HeForShe Campaign is led by UN Women and aims at “putting men at center of activism and dialogue to end persistent inequalities faced by women and girls around the world”.
The speech video was posted on Youtube through the HeForShe official Youtube channel. Only 4 days pass, the video already got more than 862,900 views on the channel, which means everyday the video reaches at least 200,000 people all over the world on average. What a big number! Since the video gets vrius online, other social media platforms of the HeForShe Campaign also get boosted a lot. According to the numbers sent out from Ogilvy, a famous PR agency in the world, HeForShe saw an 82% increase in Twitter followers within 24 hours of the Saturday launch, a 305% increase in Facebook likes, and a 3,500% increase in Instagram follower. It is a dramatic increase of social media attention in general on the HeForShe Campagin in such a short time period. It is also very interesting to see that all the social media platforms are quite connected in a sense that one platform’s attention can lead to another one and another one. Personally, I only found out this campaign few days ago after the Youtube video was posted. However, when I went to the HeForShe Facebook page, I found out that the page already joined Facebook since 8th March this year. In this sense, maybe Youtube Channel or video channels in general are more popular and easier to reach out audience than Facebook page?
After the HeForShe Youtube video goes virus online. More and more people, even celebrities participate in this movement. The most active platform so far is Twitter, every user can use #HeForShe to join the conversation and express their opinions on feminism. According to the blog posts from BuzzFeed, ELLE and PRNewser, celebrities such as Russell Crowe, Simon Pegg, Chris Colfer, Tom Hiddleston, Douglas Booth, Matthew Lewis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all respond to Emma’s HeForShe Campaign, which boosts the whole Movement to a new peak level. Social media and halo effect are absolutely tightly attached with each other. On the one hand, celebrities use social media to promote certain images about themselves. While on the other hand, celebrities use their personal influences based on popularity to draw more social media attentions on certain issues. In this case, the participations of celebrities including Emma herself, also contributes to the partly success of social media promotions in my opinion.
So do you think Youtube Channel is more influencial than Facebook Page somehow? Or in this case, if Emma is not a popular celebrity in the first place, maybe the HeForShe will not even popular in the first place? Whether social meida is the key to success of the HeForShe Campaign launch? Share your thoughts with me. 😀
Reference:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinharris/11-powerful-celebrity-tweets-supporting-the-heforshe-campaig#28487o4
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxLyfHbsk3rsT_m-7ASdbkQ
http://aplus.com/a/5-tips-for-everyday-feminism
http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/ogilvy-social-media-was-key-to-the-success-of-the-heforshe-campaign-launch_b100173
http://www.elle.com/news/culture/heforshe-emma-watson-famous-men-celebrities-feminists
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2014/09/23/watson-heforshe-campaign-captures-social-media/ymeW6hsKfOs5u4kSutwQOL/story.html
