Ellen DeGeneres (Kevin Mazur/TCA 2010/WireImage.c)
Alyssa Milano (
)
Jimmy Fallon (Jordan Strauss/WireImage.com)
Anyone can follow a celebrity on Twitter, but one guy has boldly gone where no Twitterer has gone before.
Michael Krivicka, a 34-year-old Manhattan video maker, is convincing celebrities to follow him.
He started two weeks ago creating a series of short, flashy videos exhorting Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, Alyssa Milano and Ashton Kutcher to follow him on Twitter (@whoisthebaldguy).
And he is off to an encouraging start. DeGeneres became a follower after only two days of online persuasion.
“My timing is bad on Fallon,” he says. “He’s getting ready to host the Emmys and he’s not been tweeting much lately.”
Krivicka calls it “a social media experiment. I’m trying to find a way to get a hold of people who are really hard to get a hold of.”
The pitches start with a tweet on his Twitter site exhorting a celeb to click on a link to a website — jimmyfallonpleasefollowmeontwitter.com, for instance — where a special video is posted.
The videos are slick, funny, two-minute ads arguing the advantages of signing up for Krivicka’s Twitter page. (“You won’t regret it,” he tells Fallon.)
Krivicka says he wanted to prove that there was a way to reach “these untouchable gods” with a simple idea. Not to mention, he bet his fiance a dinner that he could get at least the late-night host to follow him.
The “simple idea” was inspired by the popular Old Spice Man web videos starring actor Isaiah Mustafa. The actor created personalized videos addressed to fans and celebs, which created a stir when posted on the Old Spice Twitter feed.
“It got me thinking: ‘What if all it takes [to get their attention] is just a Web page and a video that speaks directly to the celebrities?’ ” says Krivicka.
“Obviously, the trickiest part is for [the celebrities] to know that you exist.”
Krivicka is not new to these types of stunts. He is a partner in the Manhattan creative ad agency, Thinkmodo, and a veteran of viral video campaigns.
He won’t talk about clients (that sort of defeats the whole purpose of viral campaigns) but will admit to being the mastermind behind We TV’s new “Put a Ring On It” Web series about wedding proposals.
But the “follow me” campaign is just something he says he’s doing “for kicks.” The celebrities he’s pursuing come strictly off Twitter’s own list of top tweeters.
Perhaps it’s the short-attention-span nature of Twitter, but the 140-character Web site has already spawned one new TV show and a bestseller.
Comedy writer Justin Halpern’s “s- -tmydadsays” series of tweets is the basis for the upcoming fall CBS sitcom of the same name, starring William Shatner.
Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien’s decision to make unknown Sarah Killen the sole Twitter feed he follows, reportedly got Killen 19,000 new followers, monetary donations to her cancer walk and a free wedding gown.
Krivicka says that he isn’t looking for fame, fortune or a wedding dress.
“I’m not that guy,” he says. “Right now, I’m just playing with the idea and polishing it.
“If more celebrities start following me and it really takes off, that would be fantastic, but I don’t see a TV show or something like that.”