I have spent the last two months researching and speaking to celebrities for a variety of corporates, and it was very grindy.
So, without naming names, as that wouldn’t be fun at all, here is what I have learned from looking at material relating to influential people.
If you want to come from nowhere and become a celebrity the first thing you are going to need is a story. This can be a story of tenacity and resilience, so taking up sport or exploring might be helpful for this. You do not need additional qualifications but you do need to write a book.
The second route is to get a job somewhere that is regarded as cool, such as Google, something AI related, Apple, any large corprate, and to brownnose your way into a senior position. This is quite an exclusive route, favoured by mostly men. Women tend to go with magazines and food or crafts and down the influencer route from there. There are a few men on this more feminine route, and they do even better than the women do.
The third route in the UK would be via the BBC. These were the least polite of the celebrities that I spoke to, and I think the reason is because they do not have a central portal for dealing with trivial enquiries and have to do it all themselves whilst retaining their veneer of civility as being ‘national treasures/’ This could easily be addressed by the BBC but I doubt anyone has thought about it. As they are really civil servants, the BBC could do with adopting the Civil service procedure for dealing with enquiries.
The fourth route is to bore on about something worthy. Currently your worthiness is all about sexuality and mental health, but there is likely to be a backlash shortly as the market is awash with people boring on about their problems and this is not actually a good long term strategy in my view.
So, so far we have a number of established routes, and, assuming you have written your book, or got someone to write it for you and got it published, we have to go to publicising your story via social media.
Instagram is by far the most important social media for the Millennial Market, and Tiktok is likely to become the next one for Gen Z, so do not be shy about using both of those. Twitter is more for chatting and establishing links with other schmoozers, a lot of people quite clearly manage their own. This is a mistake. Quantity is important, as is establishing a personal brand without doing any actual communicating, Several of the people I looked at had made terrible mistakes by expressing a real opinion and this is not your role as a person behind the glass wall.
So if you really want to be successful, hire a VA and get them to deal with the social media rather than manage it yourself. That hundred or so a month you pay someone to sit and post for you is a lot cheaper than having to hire a PR firm later when you have cocked up by expressing an unpopular opinion. In this way everything stays nice and boring and bland and nobody gets upset.
Facebook is not considered to be important at all anymore, unless you are a well loved athlete, in which case you may get some traction with it, but again, get someone else to look after it for you.
Substack is a bore, and it shows. There are many, more serious influencers and celebs using it, but it is clear from the activity levels that they very quickly tire of it and Medium gets you a little bit further in terms of reach.
Also Linkedin is seriously undervalued. It has really replaced Facebook pages as a way of gathering an audience and it is incredibly important to establish your Linkedin presence, even if your schtick is arty, comedy related or sporty. It makes it much easier for people like me to make you a job offer.
So there we have it, it is as easy as that. Do something that appeals to someone sitting in an office. Even if that has been opening a shop, this has worked for some enterprising people. Write a book or make a series of videos. When you do get an event, film that. Get someone to manage your social media as a branding exercise rather than pay for expensive vanity advertising or PR. Make use of the many resources online to list yourself as available. Do not undercharge, that is a giveaway. Prices range from 500 to 100,000 for an hours work, and if you can establish studio space in your home, you don’t even need to leave the house.
Please also note that you do not need to wait until you have a lot of followers. They do not matter. Presence matters. It is not all that cool to have loads of followers amongst established names.
You too, can be one of the beautiful people. It is as easy as that.
