Just one day after I posted my latest grumo for PadMapper.com the awesome Ashton Kutcher posted on his Twitter: “this might be my favorite instructional video ever… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN8nDVGfdZM“.
Here is the screenshot of the Tweet:
At the time Ashton tweeted about my video he had just over 6 million followers. Within 5 hours that tweet sent about 13 thousand people to the video on YouTube.
Here is the actual video Ashton linked to. If you watch it on YouTube you’ll see 99% of the comments are from Ashton fans:
What is the lesson here?
There are a few lucky people in this world with such big followings. 6 million people is a lot of people. Just to envision try to count a person every second. To count 6 million seconds it would take you about 69 days or 10 weeks. (Actually more because saying numbers like 4,987,345 takes about 3 seconds to read alone).
What amazes me is the power these few lucky ones can have with just a few strokes on a keyboard or smartphone.
To write that tweet took Ashton a couple of seconds. But those effortless strokes were all he needed to get 6 million people to look where he wanted.
Before the Internet, hell, only a decade ago, before Facebook, Twitter, and the social network revolution this was not possible.
This finger tip control of masses is a recent phenomena which does not cease to amaze me.
The chosen ones, the ones people follow in the millions, own the levers that influence our tastes, opinions, minds, and time.
Think about this, Ashton spent about 5 seconds writing the PadMapper tweet and that effortless act sent 13,000 people to go watch a 1:41min video.
This means that my video was watched for a total of 365 hours. In other words, with 5 seconds of effort Ashton was able to consume 365 hours of his followers time.
Now, that is leverage. To be exact that is about 1 to 250,000 leverage!
So getting geeky to the max here, a single Ashton Kutcher Twitter second is worth a quarter of a million fan seconds!!!.
If there was some kind of human second stock market, Ashton stocks would be a great investment for sure.
I am investing in Ashton Kutcher Twitter Seconds (AKTWs) right now!
Having nerded you out of your socks, here is my question. How much are your Twitter/Facebook seconds worth?
This kind of number thing has always fascinated me, which may explain why I have spreadsheets for everything.
Another day, a post on how I have used spreadsheets to make some of the most important decisions in my life. Stay tuned amigos! this is just the beginning of the Grumo revolution!
UPDATE-: This article made it to the top of TheNextWeb front page [ HERE ].
Thanks to Mark Bryant for doing such nice write up.
Now the video has over 20 thousand views, most from Ashton Kutcher’s tweet. So his Twitter leverage overtime is even greater!
I guess now he actually made my weekend instead of my day. Cheers Ashton and his followers!
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Don’t forget the 1:41 Ashton spent watching your vid. That makes it 1:46 total time invested, plus a few for page loads and such. A better estimate would be 2:00, not 0:05.
It’s interesting that 13,000 followed the link out of 6,000,000+. The clickthrough ratio of 1:460ish is also interesting. That number, and it’s integral, are good measures of influence (and its changing level). I’ve noticed this changing and clickthroughs on Twitter slowing down.
Good point. I am sure that Ashton looked at the video first. I guess the point I am trying to make is that Ashton Kutcher can get 6+ million people to look somewhere with a few keystrokes in a couple of seconds.
For me to get even 10,000 people to pay attention to anything would take me days, if not weeks, or months!
I guess the lesson could be, that I don’t have to be Ashton Kutcher to get millions to look at my stuff. I just need to create stuff great enough to grab the attention of the Ashton Kutchers of the world.
Producing the PadMapper video took about 2 weeks and got the potential attention of 6 million people.
That is a great ratio of invested time per obtained viewer, but only possible because the video was worth a few keystrokes from a Hollywood star.
Still mind blowing that anyone in this world can have so much influence at their finger tips, literally.
Hmm, I like it. So:
– book readers are worth more than movie viewers. (i.e. it takes more than 2 hours to read the book.)
– Season sports fans are worth more than “play-offs-only” sports fans
– If you would have made your video longer, Aston would be more powerful (?)
But I don’t think “time spent making the Tweet” should be part of the equation. I mean, he must have spent several minutes viewing your site first beforehand — so why not count that? And maybe he got your website from a feed which took him several hours to read. So how do you account for all that?
It’s a brave new world of social currency out there. Glad someone is thinking about it.
You just got a free $1000 from Ashton.
The cost per thousand impressions of a 30sec TV ad (or online preroll on Hulu) is about $25 during primetime. This translates to about $0.00083 per viewer-second. You say Ashton leveraged about 1.3mil viewer-seconds, which is roughly $1000 worth of FREE PROMOTION when valued at TV/online video costs. Congrats
Yup, good point. Tweets from people with large followings like Ashton are worth real adversing dollars. That could me a good metric to determine a persons Tweet stock value. Imagine: The auction begins Ladies and Gentlemen, Ashton Kutcher tweets open today at $1000 a pop, who gives more?..
This make me think of the canadian startup “Empire Avenue” which is a virtual “Social media market” platform for this kind of value. Its more of a game but the idea is there. http://empireavenue.com/
Wow, the power of celebrity is just so amazing.
Man, your video is really unbelievably awesome! It is just so cool how you made people “get” the product in less than 2 minutes and they had fun too. I am trying to improve this with our product atm. Unfortunately we don’t have the money to pay for one of your awesome videos, we certainly would! This showcase helped a big deal already though. 🙂
And I agree, the power of these people with hundreds of thousands of followers is something so new to the world, we don’t really know where it is going. Your idea with a stock market built on top of it is interesting. However there are limitations to their influences I feel. Those celebrities will have trouble to influence on the basis of expertise. This is a good post I read regarding this http://www.metrolic.com/popular-celebrities-on-twitter-have-no-influence-132429/
and congratulations of course! 🙂
Thanks for your kind words Leo. A lot of startups are strapped for cash which only makes sense at the initial stages. I have a few startups lined up waiting to raise some capital before spending money on marketing and videos line mine.
Also, very early stage startups should use their limited resources on polishing their products as much as possible. The video will have more longevity for a company which product is mature enough to start gaining traction.
Thanks again for stopping by and dropping a line, and maybe we can get you an awesome video produced in the future! Cheers.
Yeah, I agree. Essentially because we are defining and redefining how our product works best, we might even feel that the video will be obsolete after some more rounds of redefining.
However, you can add us to that list of yours! Once we have more resources available (hopefully soon 😉 we need one of your videos! Who doesn’t? 🙂
I want to hear more about the spreadsheets! sure had a blast reading your calculations and why something that may be passed by others as insignificant it HUGE.
Spreadsheets are my SALVATION man. I have bad memory and they help me keep organized, my thoughts in order, my decisions properly balanced.
Thank God they exist and they help me exist too.
Nice video tocayo, I heard of you while checking out Mixergy.com.
Que pasa tio! gracias por visitar Grumo!
Felicid
At the time Ashton tweeted about my video he had just over 6 million
followers. Within 5 hours that tweet sent about 13 thousand people to
the video on YouTube.
http://discount-sunglasses-online.net/
That’s kind of mind blowing 🙂
Congratulations! Your work is an inspiration for all of us!
Tony, Founder
http://www.think-video.com
Just wondering if Ashton reacted about the story?